Helen Keller became deaf and blind when she was nineteen months old because of scarlet fever. In her autobiography she wrote about the day when the outside world broke into her closed world.

She walked down to the well house with her teacher. Someone was drawing water. Helen’s teacher put one hand under the water and wrote w-a-t-e-r on the other hand.

Helen Keller writes that she was awakened. She now connected the cool water flowing over her hand with the word water. It was the beginning of knowing the meaning of language.

One of the questions that we ask ourselves is, "Who am I?".

Each day water is poured over us because we live our baptism every day. No matter what may be happening to us on a particular day, the Father writes in our day: "You are my beloved son. You are my beloved daughter."

Another question that is asked by many today is, "What is the Church?". Because of baptism you and I are the Church.

As we end the Christmas season today, we look one more time to the manger of Bethlehem.