“When you receive Him, tell Him: Lord, I hope in You: I adore You, I love You, increase my faith.” (Saint Josemaria, “The Forge” at 832).
I was scrolling through my phone the other day when I stumbled upon a little video of a little boy who looked to be about five years old. And that little boy was waiting to be baptised. And as the priest said the prayers… “I baptise you in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…” that child could not contain his excitement and dunked his own head under the water to “baptise himself” a little early so to speak.
It was a cute little video and the little boy was clearly overjoyed and filled with excitement about his baptism. And I could image a whole variety of memes that could be spawned from such video as that.
But I have been thinking about it none-the-less, because although it was cute and I laughed at the video, that reaction of that little boy – his enthusiasm, his impatience to be baptised – is the way that I should live my entire life…
And when I receive the Sacraments, I should be rushing to receive them. Like that little child, I should be straining to reach further and quicker and more deeply into the Eternal comfort of God. Saint Josemaria wrote in “The Forge” at 832, “When you receive Him, tell Him: Lord, I hope in You: I adore You, I love You, increase my faith. Be the support of my weakness: You, who have remained defenceless in the Eucharist so as to be the remedy for the weakness of your creatures.”
Saint Padre Pio used to say that if we really understood the value of the Mass, there would be police guarding the entrance of every Church door because the Christians outside would be stampeding to enter the church.
And I have been thinking about that today. You see, I often go to Holy Mass, but I rarely go with enthusiasm. I rarely go to my Beloved, straining to get closer to Him. I usually sit towards the back of the Church. I usually pay attention with half an ear. I usually get distracted by the music, the people, the accent of the priest. I am usually busy thinking about what comes next or what happened first.
This is not to say that my time in the Church during Holy Mass is wasted. Rather, it is to say that I have grown up too much and have lost the child-like delight that I witnessed in that child and in that meme and in losing that I have lost the essence of what it is that we are aiming for, for the entirety of my Earthly life.
After all, if I am living my life without focusing on God, then what is the point of living it at all? For I was created to know, love and serve God and to be with Him for eternity in Heaven. And knowing that I should be jumping in – straining – just to get closer to Him…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.