"Remember who you are."

From what I hear, the theme for World Youth Day in Spain this year was from Colossians 2:6-7. Being rooted in Christ.  By providence it also happens that the day I and several others were confirmed, one of the daily readings was Colossians 2:6-15.  Bishop Conley talked about that in his homily for the confirmation mass.  Today I was at the church for a meeting with Father Brian to start the annulment process. While I was waiting Jan (the youth director at my church), called me into the bookstore to show me something. It was a dog tag style necklace that on the front says "ROOTED- COLOSSIANS 2:6-7"  and on the back has that scripture.  She talked about the confirmation and suggested that I buy that necklace. So, at her prompting I did. It was very cool after all.  I asked Fr Brian to bless it for me while I was there to meet with him.  Later at home I was sitting and contemplating several other things from the day, mainly contemplating feelings, and things that Fr Brian had said, about the annulment process. I was also contemplating Fr Greg's homily this morning and Pastor Ed's message on the radio this morning.  As I was thinking about all of these things I reached up and held the "ROOTED" message in my hand. When I did that a scene from "The Lion King" movie flashed in my mind.  The scene where the spirit of Simba's father appeared in a cloud. The sentence that echoed in my mind was Simba's father saying "Remember who you are."   In the movie Simba needed to remember that he is the son of the king and to start behaving as a king.  After that I also remembered one of Father Peter's moving homilies where he related a true story of living on a college campus.  He was in one apartment and heard a nearby party going on. A fairly rowdy party. He described seeing a young woman who had been partying go outside and in seeming despair and emotional turmoil she cried and shouted out "This isn't who I am!" 
All Christians, rooted in Christ, are sons and daughter's of the king. We do need to remember that and show we remember it by acting like it! 

My new necklace will remind me of all of these things whenever I wear, hold, or look at it.

Father Greg's homily was about callings and finding where God wants us.  Pastor Ed Taylor's radio talk was about avoiding legalism.  Both very good topics for further contemplation.

Col 2:6-15

⁶ So then, as you received Jesus as Lord and Christ, now live your lives in him,

⁷ be rooted in him and built up on him, held firm by the faith you have been taught, and overflowing with thanksgiving.

⁸ Make sure that no one captivates you with the empty lure of a 'philosophy' of the kind that human beings hand on, based on the principles of this world and not on Christ.
⁹ In him, in bodily form, lives divinity in all its fullness,
¹⁰ and in him you too find your own fulfilment, in the one who is the head of every sovereignty and ruling force.

¹¹ In him you have been circumcised, with a circumcision performed, not by human hand, but by the complete stripping of your natural self. This is circumcision according to Christ.

¹² You have been buried with him by your baptism; by which, too, you have been raised up with him through your belief in the power of God who raised him from the dead.

¹³ You were dead, because you were sinners and uncircumcised in body: he has brought you to life with him, he has forgiven us every one of our sins.

¹⁴ He has wiped out the record of our debt to the Law, which stood against us; he has destroyed it by nailing it to the cross;

¹⁵ and he has stripped the sovereignties and the ruling forces, and paraded them in public, behind him in his triumphal procession.