Don’t Wipe My Nose!

One of my friends on facebook wondered out loud why her two year old son wouldn’t let her wipe his runny nose. Two words: original sin. If my dear toddler friend were not a sinner, he would gladly submit to his mother’s entreaties. Instead, he fights against her with all his might, to his own detriment. While she is acting as a mask of God through her vocation as a mother, administering to her son his heavenly Father’s care, he wants to do his own will, not that of his heavenly Father. At the same time, he is breaking the Fourth Commandment. In his rebellion, he is no different than the rest of us sinners, wanting to do what we want in our lives, rather than following the good and perfect will of our Father. Yet my little friend is a baptized child of God, and thus simultaneously saint and sinner – simul justus et peccator. Through our Baptism our sins are buried with Christ in his death, that by His resurrection we arise each day, renewed to walk in newness of life and in His will. Thanks be to God, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.