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The Transformative Power of Baptism Baptism is the sacrament in which believers are “reborn as sons of God” (CCC 1213) by “water and Spirit” (John 3:5). It incorporates us into the Mystical Body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:13) and makes us sharers in the mission of the Church (CCC 1213). “Just as the gestation of our first birth took place in water,” the Catechism adds, “so the water of baptism truly signifies that our birth into the divine life is given to us in the Holy Spirit” (694). This divin …

  Having a proper understanding of joy is imperative to becoming a saint.   Joy is the arousal of some sense of good. When we malign and obscure good, we malign and obscure joy. St. Gregory the Great tells us, for example, that (a false) joy may result from another’s misfortune (CCC 2539). The unrighteous presence of envy, in this case, corrupts true joy. There’s a better means of obtaining the joy that comes from the Spirit, and a study of the life of St. Philip Neri rev …