Sacraments
Have you ever fallen on the ground and scraped your knee? What did your mom do? Before she put a band-aid on, did she put some ointment on? Ointment in the form of oil is put on the baptisms. Long ago oil was used as medicine. In the Church, oil represents healing, light. And joy. If you read the prayer said over the oil at the baptism service, Noah is mentioned. Why? When the dove brought a message to Noah from God (see Genesis 8:11), announcing forgiveness and reconciliation, how did the dove convey that message? With an olive branch! After the oil is blessed, the priest puts some oil in the water in the form of a cross, further blessing and sanctifying the water, which will be used shortly. Afterwards, the priest anoints different parts of the body with oil. He anoints these to re-create the body, to rededicate them to God.Holy Baptism - Anointing with Oil
Today I will nurture my wounds with love's light. There are so many scars inside of people. It is incredible that we survive. Scars from childhood memories. Scars from dreams deferred. Scars from words, incidents and our judgments of them . We cover the scars with personality, habits, and sometimes, drugs, sex and alcohol. We take our wounded souls into the world and pretend that we are not hurt. Yet every time we are confronted with an event similar to the one that caused the scars, the wounds are reopened. There can be no healing in our external world until we give intensive care and healing to our internal wounds. We may think we do not know what to do. We do. We must first admit that the wounds exist. We must be willing to examine them, touch them and expose them to ourselves. Then we must wrap them in the most potent antiseptic there is - Love . A strong man masters others. A truly wise man masters himself.