Baptism is the first and most important in that series of mysterious operations of grace with which Our Lord endowed His Church. Baptism is the Sacrament of Regeneration, or the New Birth, by which we are "born again of water and the Holy Ghost" (John iii. 5). It brings us forth into a new world, that of the divine supernatural life, it gives us new faculties, higher obligations, and special aid to enable us to live up to our vocation. Baptism does for us individually what our first father, Adam, resigned the power of doing for the race; it restores to each, on his separate application, the second and more important part of our inheritance, which ought to have come to us by birth as an appanage of human nature. On the second birth the true nobility of man depends. He attains thereby to the great dignity of a Christian, a child of the Eternal Father, a brother of the Incarnate God. Baptism also enrolls us in the society of the faithful on earth, and gives us a title to membership in the kingdom of heaven; it communicates to us all the faculties which are necessary for that higher society, the power of receiving all the other Sacraments, the light of faith by which we are able to apprehend God supernaturally, the habits of virtue which enable us to accomplish all justice. Thank God for the great grace of Baptism. Consider it as your highest privilege. Account its anniversary as your true birthday, the birthday of your spiritual life.
