Friday, April 3, 2015

Welcome to the World, Little Man!

I am sitting in the glider rocker I bought my wife for Christmas, typing this on my phone with one hand and holding my newborn baby boy in the other. 

He was born the evening of Palm Sunday, and in keeping with the liturgical color for the day, he was wearing red when he made his appearance. A birth during Holy Week is profoundly fitting, for what could be more Christ-like than someone going through pain and blood out of love for another to give new life to that person? A love having the depth and magnitude of that of a parent for a child could only be of God, who is himself Love. 

He is a little miracle, as we all are--a "great might-not-have-been," as Chesterton said--and the miracle is no less miraculous for being numerous, as with the feeding of the 5,000. At the moment of conception, God created life by infusing this newly-formed being with a rational soul, capable of knowing and loving him. It was a deeply sacred instant. 

And now, after months of preparation for his public debut, here he is, a perfect little man, with his mother's cheekbones, my nose, and Kirk Douglas's chin. He has so much to experience and to learn: basketball and Latin and meal times that aren't 3am. 

And soon he will be baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ and become a new man--not bad for one so little! God bless you, baby boy. Daddy and Mommy love you. 

4 comments:

  1. Congratulations

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  2. "At the moment of conception, God created life by infusing this newly-formed being with a rational soul, ......."

    I've been thinking about this one for some time, considering that after that "moment of conception" as many as half of all pregnancies naturally miscarry where do all those extra souls go? ?

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    1. That's an interesting question, though the actually percentage of miscarriages is actually between 10-20 percent (and that doesn't factor in the number that are unnaturally miscarried, i.e. aborted). In what sense are the souls "extra"? What makes a person "extra"? I don't see how the fact that they did not proceed in their lives beyond a very early point makes them "extra" or superfluous. At what point does a person move past the point where they are "extra"?

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    2. That's 10-20 percent of known pregnancies that miscarry the actual number would be higher.

      Extra might be an imprecise term, perhaps supernumerary would be better.

      But where do they go - straight to heaven ? But they are not baptised and haven't accepted Christ so to purgatory ? Or to hell?

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