Do you know the date of your baptism? This was a question he asked as he began a new series of catecheses on the Sacraments in St. Peter’s Square, focusing today on the Sacrament of Baptism according to Zenit…

“Baptism is the sacrament in which our faith is founded upon and which engages us as living members in Christ and in His Church,” the Holy Father said. Along with the Sacraments of the Eucharist and Confirmation, the Pope said that all three make-up a single event makes us a sign of God’s love.

Referring to a question often asked by the Pontiff, the Holy Father called on the faithful to again search for the date of their Baptism, the date of their birth into the life of Christ and his Church. By implication he seemed to say we should know that date as well as our birth date. 

“But the risk is to lose the memory of that which the Lord has done in us, the memory of the gift that we have received. We end up considering it as only an event that happened in the past – and not even by our own will, but that of our parents -, that no longer has any effect in our present,” he said.

“We must awaken the memory of our Baptism!”

The Holy Father went on to say that this Sacrament in particular gives us the hope of walking down the path of salvation while making us “bearers of a new hope.”

“Thanks to Baptism, we are capable of forgiving and to love even those who offend us and hurt us, that we can recognize in the last ones and in the poor the face of the Lord who visits us and comes close to us and with this Baptism helps us to recognize in the face of the needy, in those suffering, even in our neighbor, the face of Jesus. It is a grace of this strength of Baptism,” he said.