Hope In The Lord – Renew your promises

Can you build your life on a promise? The writer Jonathan Swift somewhat cynically said: “Promises like pie crusts are meant to be broken.” Yet, we Christians build our lives around a promise that is unbreakable. We call it a covenant – which, unlike an impersonal contract, is a personal commitment shared.

In our case the “New Covenant,” which we more commonly refer to as the New Testament, is a pledge or promise that God has made with His people. In baptism, we become His people, adopted in Jesus, His only begotten Son. In baptism, His love seals the pledge or promise that in Christ, the Father will always be with us and, if we freely say “yes” by our words and our lives, will lead us to salvation.

That promise is front and center this week – Holy Week. As we walk the steps of Jesus’ final days leading to His saving death and resurrection, the Church reminds us of the precious promise that God will be with us in this life, and He will save us together in and through Christ. His Church is the body of Christ alive in our midst.

This is a perfect time to recall God’s promise to us and, of course, during this time, we renew our promises. This week, when so many of you will be given the promise of eternal life in Christ through baptism, most Catholics will be called to renew our promises to be true to this covenant of grace.

What is fascinating about the renewal of promises is that we do so in public – so everyone can hear. Throughout the world at the Easter vigil and on Easter morn after the homily, we will renew our promises to turn away from sin and Satan and to embrace our faith in God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Before they are confirmed in the Holy Spirit, the youth do the same – they renew their baptismal promises. I love to slow down the process and encourage them to savor the words of the first phrase to which they give their “I do:” “Do you renounce Satan and all his works and his empty promises?”

The empty promises of the evil one are easy to understand, but they are so tempting that we need God’s grace to banish them from our lives, and it is best to renew these promises together – in public. I often mention the most obvious empty promises: the tantalizing character of drugs and opoids, the intoxication of living only for personal praise and popularity, the deadly lure of possessions. These temptations cause us to move inward – away from a full life and toward weak imitations of the persons God has created us to be.

Then we renew the core of our faith. Pope Francis calls this the kerygma – the first proclamation – the essence of who we believers are. We believe in the Father who creates and sustains us, the Son Jesus who saves us and the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.

Sometimes being too close to the sacred can make us jaded. We take for granted the tremendous action of renewing our promises to respond to the lavish love of God. This is one reason I timed this column to be published a few days before Easter. It is a “get ready” column. Get ready for Easter. Get ready to make present in your heart the wonderful gift of your salvation in Christ, who once risen will never die again and who lifts us up with him in His saving embrace.

Get ready to renew your cooperation – itself a grace – to renounce the temptations of sin and death and to live in the fullness of life.

By the way, on this past Tuesday other promises were renewed at the annual Chrism Mass, in which the oils used for the sacred rites during the year and throughout the 24 counties of the Archdiocese are blessed. At the Chrism Mass, our priests, who serve you so unselfishly, gathered in the Cathedral of the Assumption and renewed the promises they made on the day of their ordination. They promised to seek to serve Christ and His people (all of you) in humility, truth, mercy and holiness. On Easter, say a prayer for them and for me, asking God to help us serve Christ well and, in turn, serve you in humility, truth, mercy and holiness throughout this year.

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