9781644135945

The Light of the World
His Church and His grace He leads us to the great day when the goats shall be separated from
the sheep. “When the Son of Man shall come in His majesty, . . . all nations shall be gathered
together before Him, and He shall separate them one from another, as the shepherd separateth
the sheep from the goats. And He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on His
left. Then shall the King say to them that shall be on His right hand: Come ye blessed of My
Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you” (Gospel). “He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved” (Mk 16:16).
We have been baptized; we are the children of God and the heirs of the kingdom of heaven.
If we prove true to the vows we made at our baptism, we shall hear that blessed invitation on the
day of judgment: “Come ye blessed of My Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you
from the foundation of the world.” How eternally thankful to God we shall then be for having
incorporated us into Himself and His Church through baptism!
Obligations of the baptized. By baptism we were incorporated in Christ as a member of His
body, or as a branch of the vine. Christ lives in His members as a vine lives in its branches. What
is done to the members of Christ, then, is done also to Him. “I was hungry, and you gave Me to
eat; . . . sick, and you visited Me. I was in prison, and you came to Me.” But what we should do
to His members and fail to do, we fail to do to Him. “I was hungry, and you gave Me not to eat;
I was thirsty, and you gave Me not to drink. I was . . . sick and in prison, and you did not visit
Me.” Therefore, “Depart from Me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, which was prepared for the
devil and his angels.” Why is this penalty inflicted upon men? “Amen I say to you, as long as you
did it not to one of these least, neither did you do it to me. And these shall go into everlasting
punishment; but the just into life everlasting” (Gospel).
At baptism we enter into a union with Christ’s body, a union of love. The responsibilities of
our baptism must be fulfilled. We must cherish our neighbor for the sake of Christ, who prayed
“that they all may be one, as Thou, Father, in Me and I in Thee; that they also may be one in Us;
that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me. . . . I have made known Thy name, . . . that
the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them and I in them” ( Jn 17:22, 26). “This is
My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” ( Jn 15:12). We shall all be
judged by the degree of charity we practiced with regard to our neighbor.
“As the eyes of servants are on the hands of their masters, so are our eyes unto the Lord our
God, until He have mercy on us. Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us” (Introit).
Thus we implore with the catechumens, who said this prayer looking forward ardently to
the time of their baptism. This should be our prayer also for all those who stand in need of
reconciliation through the sacrament of penance. We feel their need of help and we pray with
them and for them that they may find their way back to God during the holy season of Lent.
This is a season of grace even for those who have abandoned God. In their name we cry out
to God: “As the eyes of the servants are on the hands of their masters, so are our eyes unto the
Lord our God, until He have mercy” and grant them pardon and grace. “Have mercy on us,
O Lord, have mercy on us.”
“As long as you did it to one of these My least brethren, you did it to Me” (Gospel). It is
a spiritual work of mercy to pray for sinners and to undertake sacrifices for them that they
may find the grace to return to God. Since they are still members of the same body, although
diseased, we feel a responsibility for their conversion. We become even more conscious of this
222