A New Birthday

"[Baptism] is like a birthday because baptism makes us reborn in Christian life. That is why I advise you to teach your children the date of their baptism as a new birthday: that every year they will remember and thank God for this grace of becoming a Christian." Pope Francis.

Thank you, God! Míle buíochas!

This is the day in 1981 when I was baptised in the Holy Spirit church in Ballymun. I was born in October 1977, so there's a bit of a delay there, as you see. Not sure why. I only learned the date of my baptism a few years ago, although I suppose I could have discovered it easily enough if I'd tried. As it happened, a cousin (baptised on the same day) sent me this picture and told me the date.

That's my uncle holding me. I don't know the name of the priest, or the identity of the person on the right.

It's easy for me to believe that we are "primed" for Christianity by nature. I can't remember a time when my imagination was not steeped in images of immersion and regeneration. For instance, I've had recurring dreams about swimming pools for as long as I can remember. But it's not just literal immersion: I'm captivated whenever I read about people who immerse themselves in some particular activity, like chess-players or extremely prolific artists of any kind. I love all immersive environments, such as swimming pools and cinemas.

Similarly, the motif of regeneration, rebirth, has never been far from my mind-- conscious and unconscious. For instance, the title of the William Shatner album The Transformed Man speaks to me like poetry. (Yes, that's the album that features his spoken-word rendition of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds".)

I think this is one of the reasons I love snow so much. A landscape transformed by snow is like an image of Christian regeneration: made new, but still what it was.