Today I am going to be baptized. I had a horrible day yesterday. The enemy prepared a final onslaught and really let me have it. I succumbed to despair, fear, anger, and brief feelings of hate. I'll have to confess this soon.
Spiritual warfare is a real bitch. It's funny... how true this all is, that there really is an enemy who is hell bent, literally, on removing us from God and damning our souls. Back before I had any faith at all, the enemy had me in his grip, almost totally. The one spark that remained which was mine was what allowed me to build up my relationship with God through the Orthodox Church for the past year and a half. For the first year, before I was a catechumen, I still didn't really notice any spiritual warfare going on. It was only after I was made a catechumen that I began to suffer serious attacks.
Yesterday, like I said, was the heaviest, most brutal offensive of the enemy yet. And I gave in to his influence. However, he isn't going to stop me from being baptized. He has damaged my faith and my heart as a worthy vessel for the Holy Spirit. Today had the potential to be so much better, more joyous, and more pure than it is going to be. The enemy damaged me. However, he did not destroy me. My baptism is still going to occur. Things will be harder, and the road to my salvation will take longer, and I will probably suffer more setbacks because of this, but with God's Grace, and by His Will, I will persevere.
Ok, here goes.
"When we are baptized, we are enlightened. Being enlightened, we are adopted as sons. Adopted as sons, we are made perfect. Made perfect, we become immortal....'and sons all of the Most High' [Psalm 82:6]"
ReplyDelete- ST. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA
Congratulations man :)
Thanks!
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the Orthodox Church, brother. Congratulations, and many years!
ReplyDeleteWe had a Pentecost celebration last night and I was praying for your baptism (You're going to have to blog about it soon - I'd love to hear exactly how the Orthodox Liturgy looks). Anyway, I was reminded of what I recently read in a book on the Patristic era...
ReplyDeleteIt turns out that from the 2nd Century the newly-baptised would also receive at communion a cup of water and another of milk mixed with honey.
The water was to represent the cleansing of the soul. The cup of milk and honey had a two-fold symbolism. Firstly, it represented the passing "through the waters" into the land of "milk and honey", but more importantly, this is the food given to newborns to help them grow healthy and strong.
Cool, right? :-)
Yeah, I was just about to start writing a blog about my baptism, and another about my first communion which I received earlier today during the liturgy.
ReplyDeleteInteresting concerning the honey and milk. The way we do it in my parish is, the priest puts pieces of bread in a chalice filled with wine (actually by this time it's the blood and body of Christ) and everybody lines up and gets a spoonful. Then we follow the line to a 'bread and wine' station, where you get to drink about a quarter cup of wine with some bread to help wash down all of the gifts, so none are inadvertently spit out or drooled out or whatever. It was my first time today, what an experience...
So you receive the Body and Blood and *then* receive bread and wine as well? Is this just a neophyte thing?
ReplyDeleteIt's what we do. Other parishes have different customs I guess. Most of the bread gets taken to people who can't commune anyway, as a 'consolation prize'. Visitors or people who are out of communion. But it's not a neophyte thing, it's to wash it all down so none of it is wasted, stuck in the teeth, etc. for lack of a better way of describing it.
ReplyDeleteI once heard taking communion to people who are housebound is like sending wedding cake to those who couldn't making it the wedding but still want to celebrate :)
ReplyDelete