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Day 22

A reading from the Letter of St. Paul to the Romans (6:10-14, 20-23)

The death Christ died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments^* of righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. So what advantage did you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death. But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

From his work On the Holy Spirit by St. Basil of Caesarea

Our Lord made a covenant with us through baptism in order to give us eternal life. There is in baptism an image both of death and of life, the water being the symbol of death, the Spirit giving the pledge of life. The association of water and the Spirit is explained by the twofold purpose for which baptism was instituted, namely, to destroy the sin in us so that it could never again give birth to death, and to enable us to live by the Spirit and so win the reward of holiness. The water into which the body enters as into a tomb symbolizes death; the Spirit instills into us his life-giving power, awakening our souls from the death of sin to the life that they had in the beginning. This then is what it means to be born again of water and the Spirit: we die in the water, and we come to life again through the Spirit. To signify this death and to enlighten the baptized by transmitting to them knowledge of God, the great sacrament of baptism is administered by means of a triple immersion and the invocation of each of the three divine Persons. Whatever grace there is in the water comes not from its own nature but from the presence of the Spirit, since baptism is not a cleansing of the body, but a pledge made to God from a clear conscience.

As a preparation for our life after the resurrection, our Lord tells us in the gospel how we should live here and now. He teaches us to be peaceable, long-suffering, undefiled by desire for pleasure, and detached from worldly wealth. In this way we can achieve, by our own free choice, the kind of life that will be natural in the world to come. Through the Holy Spirit we are restored to paradise, we ascend to the kingdom of heaven, and we are reinstated as adopted sons. Thanks to the Spirit we obtain the right to call God our Father, we become sharers in the grace of Christ, we are called children of light, and we share in everlasting glory. In a word, every blessing is showered upon us, both in this world and in the world to come. As we contemplate them even now, like a reflection in a mirror, it is as though we already possessed the good things our faith tells us that we shall one day enjoy. If this is the pledge, what will the perfection be? If these are the first fruits, what will the full harvest be?

Musical Selection

℟. Sint lumbi vestri præcíncti, et lucérnæ ardéntes in mánibus vestris:

* Et vos símiles homínibus exspectántibus dóminum suum, quando revertátur a núptiis.

℣. Vigiláte ergo, quia nescítis qua hora Dóminus vester ventúrus sit.

℟. Et vos símiles homínibus exspectántibus dóminum suum, quando revertátur a núptiis.

℟. Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning;

* And ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding.

℣. Watch therefore, for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.

℟. And ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding.

Prayer

All-powerful God,

whose mercy is never withheld

from those who call upon you in hope,

look kindly on your servants,

who departed this life confessing your name,

and number them among your saints for evermore.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

God for ever and ever. Amen.

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