Pope Francis asks his audience today if they all know their baptismal day! When our children were growing up we celebrated their baptismal days in a way like birthdays!

My thoughts on baptism — it is one reason why we are soooo blessed! –from an excerpt from my book, Blessed, Beautiful, and Bodacious: Celebrating the Gift of Catholic Womanhood:

In the graces of Baptism, God became a father to me. I was born into the family of God, and the love of the Trinity was extended to me by name—Patricia Ann—baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit. Of course, I was an infant at the time, and still, Baptism was and is a great gift that my parents obtained for me. Baptism secured my dignity as a beloved daughter and brought healing to my life. The graces of Baptism empower me to make Jesus’s words my own. As I said before, when she knows she is beloved, a daughter can trust the father’s love. It is a deep blessing. Whose we are matters.

 In Baptism we meet the fatherhood of God, blessed and dignified as beloved daughters. Unfortunately, it is a gift we can fail to recognize or take for granted. Imagine owning a costly heirloom worth millions, but having no idea of its value because it is locked away in a chest and forgotten. For many of us, that treasure is our Baptism, specifically the knowledge that we are God’s beloved daughters. That knowledge is the key that unlocks many graces.

In Baptism, we are made for holiness. We are brought into the family of God. We are yoked to God, a Blessed Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We are daughters of a loving Father who is perfect and transcendent beyond our earthbound impressions. He always knows what’s best for his daughters. If we ponder that, relying on the graces we’ve already received in Baptism, we will begin to reclaim the girl who may be carrying around a lot of angst and rejection where fatherhood is concerned.

Baptized Christians utter the word Father six times in the Nicene Creed. There’s a reason. We are blessed daughters standing before a magnificent, loving, all-knowing Father. Plus, the Creed spells out our belief and relationship with the three-in-one God.

 We are a sister and friend to Jesus Christ, a most sublime, supernatural-yet-approachable brother. In Jesus, we see the invisible Father. The Savior who died for our sins reversed the curse imposed at Eden after the fall. Jesus is the truest friend we will ever have. Read the gospels and see his respect for every woman he has ever met, breaking with the social conventions of his day.

Finally, we are consecrated witnesses to the Spirit. The searcher of hearts, the source of all wisdom, and the giver of life abides in the tabernacle of our soul. By extension we are baptized into the Church, the family of God on earth, together with saints in heaven. This familial relationship with God is the truth of our dignity, our beatitude, and beatitude is supreme blessedness.

Everyone wants to find happiness, right? Blessedness is church-speak for happiness. You are extremely blessed. You belong to God. You were made for truth. You were made for goodness. You were made to know beauty.

You are beautiful. You are loved.

You are unrepeatable, unique, valuable.

You are sacred in God’s eyes.

You are sacred.

You.

You didn’t earn it. It was free. You have a link to God that you didn’t create. It flows from the lavishness of God’s love. Your worth, in his eyes, is priceless. The prophet says that God considers you “the apple of his eye” (Zec 2:8).

Baptism reveals our true dignity as children, beloved of God. That’s our beatitude, our blessedness.   

You can get  signed copies in time for Christmas.