Monday, July 14 : Saint Ambrose

Namaan was a Syrian who had leprosy and was unable to be cured of it by anyone… He journeyed to Israel where Elisha commanded him to bathe seven times in the Jordan. Then Namaan began thinking that there were rivers with better water in his own country, where he had often bathed without ever being cleansed of his leprosy… Nevertheless he bathed and, being at once cleansed, understood that purification comes, not from water but from grace… This is why you were told [at your baptism]: Don’t believe only in what you see since you, too, like Namaan, might say: Is that all this great mystery is about? The mystery that “eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and that has not entered the human heart”? (1Cor 2:9). I see water just like the water I see daily! Is it able to cleanse me, seeing how often I have gone into it without ever being cleansed? Learn from this that water without the Spirit does not cleanse. That is why, too, you have read that in baptism there are “three that testify, the water, the blood and the Spirit,” (cf. 1Jn 5:7-8). For if you leave out one of them the sacrament of baptism is no longer present. For what is water without the cross of Christ? Just an ordinary element without any kind of sacramental significance. In the same way, without water there is no mystery of new birth since “no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit,” (Jn 3:5). The catechumen is someone who believes in the cross of the Lord Jesus, whose sign he has received, but if he has not been baptised in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, he cannot receive the forgiveness of his sins nor amass the gifts of spiritual grace. Namaan, the Syrian, went down into the water seven times according to the Law; but you have been baptized in the name of the Trinity. You have confessed your faith in the Father; you have confessed your faith in the Son and your faith in the Holy Spirit. Keep hold of this succession of events. In this faith you are dead to the world, raised up for God.

Roman Extraordinary (Tridentine) Daily Readings – rosary,team