Yesterday was St. Marcellin's 223rd birthday and today is the anniversary of his baptism. Evidently his parents did not put off this second birth. In those days, babies were born at home, and having gone through this many times before with Marcellin's older brothers and sisters, his mother made sure he was taken to the parish church the next day for this important sacrament of initiation.
Yes, Baptism initiates us into a new level of life, the God-life, and sets us on the path to holiness, that is, union with God in loving service to him and others in this world and eternal union with him in the next. In Marcellin's case, as he matured, he realized this call and lived it with his whole strength and energy, dealing with and overcoming all kinds of personal limitations and external obstacles. His persistence, his fidelity, his trust and humble recourse to his other Mother, Mary OUR Good Mother, enabled him to live out his baptism to the point where, although he did not seek it, he was given public recognition as a saint. Most of us will not be canonized, but that does not negate our call to be saints, to live the Christian life to the max, with our whole energy and strength no matter where we find ourselves: in our families, our work, the organizations to which we belong, etc...Like Marcellin, we simply need to do the ordinary things with extraordinary love and passion.
Bro. Rene
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