It is relatively easy for us to take for granted the gift of baptism. Many of us received this gift shortly after our birth, and for the rest of our lives we barely think about it.
Yet, it is this sacrament that paves the way to eternal life with God and lays a sure foundation for the life of grace.
Here is a prayer from Dom Prosper Gueranger in his Liturgical Year that gives thanks to God for the gift of baptism.
Let us honour our Lord in this second Manifestation of his divinity and thank him with the Church for his having given us both the Star of Faith, which enlightens us, and the Water of Baptism, which cleanses us from our iniquities.
Let us lovingly appreciate the humility of our Jesus, who permits himself to be weighed down by the hand of a mortal man, in order, as he says himself, that he might fulfill all justice for having taken on himself the likeness of sin, it was requisite that he should bear its humiliation, that so he might raise us from our debasement.
Let us thank him for this grace of Baptism, which has opened to us the gates of the Church, both of heaven and earth, and let us renew the engagements we made at the holy Font, for they were the terms on which we were regenerated to our new life in God.
And today we celebrate...