"I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean.... I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you." (Ezekiel 36:25-26)

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LOOKING AFTER A BABY ON EARTH AND IN HEAVEN

Rt. Rev. Peter M. Buss

Children, a little baby who is baptized is a very lucky child indeed. Why is she lucky? It is for many reasons, but the most important is because of the good and special people she has to look after her, now, and in all her life to come.

First of all, she has her mother and father, two people who join together in trying to give her all the things that she needs: her food and clothes, a house to live in, and care and love whenever she is unwell, or unhappy and crying. Her father and mother also teach her many things, and the most important things that they are going to teach her are those about how to do what the Lord wants her to do. They will spend a lot of time as this little girl grows, telling her what the Lord wants and what He doesn’t want, so that she learns how to obey the God of heaven and earth.

Her mother and her father are two special people who care very much for this little girl, and they will do their best to look after her in every way. There are others too, on this earth: her grandmothers and grandfathers, and other people in her family, who look upon her as someone special, and will do a lot to look after her and help to teach her the things that will make her happy.

And now that she is baptized, she has special people in the other world, too, to look after her—people whose work it is to take good care of her in ways that mothers and fathers, and other people on this earth, cannot. These are her guardian angels, two of them, who look after her all the time that she is growing up, and help her to believe in the Lord, and to find happiness in doing what the Lord has said. She needs these angels very much, because they give her the strength to do what is right, and the happiness she feels when she does do right. They are very special people, looking after her, particularly.

And, of course, the Lord Himself is looking after this little girl especially too. He is able to take very special care of every little soul that is born in the world, for the Lord can be everywhere at all times, and so He never fails to look after His children, every single moment of every day.

This is a lucky little baby, who has a mother and father and family who love her and will care for her; guardian angels to look over her and take care of her; and the Lord on high, who has all power to lead her to happiness.

And as she grows up, she will find other people who are specially close to her. She will find her own friends on earth, some of whom will remain her friends through all her life. Best of all, she may find the man whom the Lord has made for her to marry, and she may marry him and live with him in the wonderful joy of conjugial love forever; and she and he will love each other more than any other people.

In heaven, too, she will get new friends as she grows up; for if she follows the Lord, then a whole group of angels—a society of them—will draw near to her. They will be angels who love the same things that she does, and they will make her love more and more to do the things the Lord wants. And wonderful to say, when she leaves this earth, and goes into heaven, it will be to that society that she goes, and the angels there will be her real friends right away, and she will live in that village or society forever.

So, children, we can think with great happiness about the life of any little child who is baptized into the church, for we know that in His great love the Lord has puts lots of special people around her, who will work hard and faithfully to help her to be a truly happy child, and a happy woman.

And this is true of each one of you also! For the Lord has made special people for everyone, so that we never need to be alone. Through these special people, He leads each one of us to a home in heaven; and there, together with the one person who is most special to us, the person we have married, we live in a society of people who are, and always will be, our very best friends.

Amen.

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