QUEZON City, Nov. 16, 2011?Kalookan Bishop Deogracias Iñiguez lauded the activities being done at the National Youth Day as these help in promoting awareness to everyone that there are young people and they must be given importance in the Church.
“The youth are the majority population in our society. They are very alive and to them we can see the idealism of living a truthful and good life,” he said.
“And so hopefully what we are doing in the NYD will become a challenge not only for the young but for all of us that the youth must be given importance because they constitute a very important part of our society and community,” added Iñiguez.
Ending the second day of the NYD in Claret Festival Site yesterday, Iñiguez explained in his homily the relationship of being planted in the faith with the baptism of a person.
The bishop stressed on the 524 pilgrims that baptism is the threshold of our relationship with the Lord, and that baptism is rising to new life.
“Though there are different symbols used during baptism, all of these are in virtue of our faith and we accept Jesus as the one who will bring change to our lives, he added.
“Zacchaeus is a great picture of our baptism. Zacchaeus said to himself when he accepted Jesus, I am a changed person and so I must give back to God and to others. This is a beautiful picture of baptism,” he further said.
Challenging the pilgrims, he said “we enter into faith because God loves us and he wants us to live in that love for one another.”
The pilgrims renewed their baptismal vows to deepen their awareness of the reality of their initiation to Christian life. (Mark Vertido/YPNews)
