A Heritage of Salvation

Water is part of our daily life. A glass of cool water quenches our thirst; a bath in fresh water cleanses and can perhaps even heal the body; a stream of sweet water is the source of life. Our thirsts are many: the thirst for a glass of water is not different from a thirst for knowledge and even more importantly from a thirst for happiness. Baptism in water and the Spirit is a sacrament for the purification of our heart and the remission of sin. In the waters of baptism, our Christian life takes its birth, and is called on to grow in the fruits of the spirit: charity, joy, peace….

Even locally, in the Oratory’s Garden of the Way of the Cross, a large pool of water evokes the mystery of the Paschal Lamb, Jesus, once dead and now risen, who purifies us from our faults and gives us life in abundance. At the entry to the Crypt Church and the Basilica, you find holy water to invite you to make the sign of the cross, that which saves us.

The legacy that we are invited to live out is that which we have received in our baptism and makes us reborn into new life as a child of God.

Saint Joseph, you were at home with the child Jesus for many years and so you drank at the very wellsprings of the Christian faith. May our lives develop in daily communion with him who is the core of our faith. Let Brother André be for us a model of limitless confidence in Jesus our Savior who alone can quench our deepest thirsts.

Make a Novena to Saint Joseph, from March 10 to 18, 2018.