2012-06-13 L’Osservatore Romano

Thirty minutes for a Lectio Divina with a high theological profile,
as that presented by the Pope on Monday evening, 11 June, in the Basilica of St
John Lateran at the inauguration of the ecclesial convention of the diocese of
Rome. He invited the participants to reflect on the meaning of the sacrament of
Baptism – “the first step of the Ressurection” – emphasizing its timeliness,
with the intention of reaffirming that “Baptism is not the action of a single
hour but a reality of our entire life”, and that “God is not a distant star but
the environment of my life”.

For this very reason Christians are constantly called to compare themselves
with the two pivotal elements of the sacrament: matter, represented by water,
and the word, which in its turn is expressed in three other elements of the
rite, that is, renunciation, promises and invocations. And speaking of
renuncation he made an explicit reference to the seduction of evil “in order not
to let yourselves be dominated by sin”. He re-evoked the ancient words “the
devil and all his works”, by which was meant a culture in which the truth
counted less than appearances. A culture, he said, “which we know today too”, in
which all that counts “is sensation and the spirit of calumny and destruction”.
A culture that “does not seek good” and in which “falsehood is presented in the
guise of truth and information”.

And just as in the ancient Church the first baptismal renunciation referred,
precisely, to this creature, the “devil and all his works”, today we are also
called to repeat our “no” to the culture that denies God and to repeat the
fundamental “yes”, the “yes” of love and truth”. In concluding his meditation –
given extemporaneously – the Pope reaffirmed that the Baptism of newborn infants
“is not against freedom” but is also necessary to justify the gift of life”.