IMAGE: CNS/L’Osservatore Romano
By Junno Arocho Esteves
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Parents are charged with guarding
the faith given to their children at baptism and helping them become true
witnesses by example rather than just rules, Pope Francis said.
By asking the church for faith for their children through the sacrament
of baptism, Christian parents have the task of helping their children to grow
so that they “may be witnesses for all of us: also for us priests, bishops,
everyone,” the pope said during a Mass in the Sistine Chapel.
During the Mass Jan. 8, the feast of the baptism of the
Lord, Pope Francis baptized 28 infants — 15 boys and 13 girls.
“Faith is not reciting the ‘Creed’ on Sunday when we
go to Mass: It is not only this,” the pope said. “Faith is believing
that which is the truth: God the father who has sent his son and the Spirit which gives us life.”
The pope’s brief homily centered on the meaning of faith,
which he described as a lifelong journey that “is lived” and leads
to becoming a witness of Christ.
Parents, he continued, must also teach through their
example that faith “means trusting in God.”
While the pope spoke, the faint cries of a child echoed
throughout the Sistine Chapel, causing a chain reaction of crying infants.
“The concert has begun!” the pope said jokingly.
“It is because the children are in a place they do not know; they woke up
earlier than usual. One begins with one note and then the others mimic. Some
cry simply because another one cried.”
Acknowledging that some babies might be crying because
they are hungry, the pope urged the mothers to not be ashamed to breast-feed
their children in the
chapel.
“Mothers, nurse them without fear, with all
normality, like Our Lady nursed
Jesus,” he told them.
Later, before praying the Angelus with those gathered in
St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis said the feast of the Lord’s baptism helps
“us to the rediscover the beauty of being a baptized people.”
The baptized, he said, are “sinners saved by the
grace of Christ, truly inserted by the power of the Holy Spirit in the filial
relationship of Jesus with the father and welcomed into the womb of mother church”
where Christians are capable of being brothers and sisters with everyone.
Noting John the Baptist’s feelings of unworthiness in
baptizing Jesus, Pope Francis said John was aware “of the great distance
between him and Jesus.”
However, Jesus came into the world to bridge the gap
between God and man and “to reunite that which was divided,” he said.
After his baptism, Jesus begins his mission of salvation,
which is characterized “by the style of a humble and meek servant, armed only
with the strength of truth,” he said.
All Christians, the pope added, are called to follow
Jesus’ style of proclaiming the Gospel without “shouting or scolding
someone.”
“True mission is never proselytism but rather
attraction to Christ. But how? How is attraction to Christ done? With one’s own
witness that comes from a strong union with him through prayer, adoration and
concrete charity, which is service to Jesus present in the least of our
brothers,” he said.
After reciting the Angelus prayer, Pope Francis prayed
for the parents and for the children he baptized, as well as for a “young
catechumen” he baptized Jan. 7 in the chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae,
where he lives.
The Vatican provided no further details about the young
person.
“I invoke the Holy Spirit upon them and their
children so that this sacrament, which is so simple yet at the same time so
important, may be lived with faith and joy,” the pope said.
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