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The sacrament of Baptism is the
beginning of life—spiritual life.
Because of original sin, we come
into the world with a soul which is supernaturally dead. We come
into the world with only the natural endowments of human nature.
The supernatural life which is the result of God's personal and
intimate living within us, is absent from the soul.
Original sin is the absence of
something that should be in our souls. It is a darkness where
there should be light.
Jesus instituted the sacrament of
Baptism to apply to each individual soul the atonement which He
made on the Cross for original sin.
Jesus will not force His gift
upon us, the gift of supernatural life for which He paid. He
holds the gift out to us hopefully, but each of us must freely
accept it.
We make that acceptance by
receiving the sacrament of Baptism.
When
the sacrament of Baptism is administered, original sin
disappears as God becomes present in the soul, and the soul is
caught up into that sharing of God's own life which we call
sanctifying grace.
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