What is to be born again?

BORN again! That is very popular expression these days, thank God. But I believe we have to know what truly it is and what it involves. The expression can come from that gospel episode where Christ told a Pharisee, a ruler of the Jews, Nicodemus by name, that he has to be born again to be able to see the Kingdom of God. (cfr. Jn 3,1-8)

Obviously, the poor Nicodemus did not understand what Christ meant. “How can a man once grown old be born again?” he asked. And so, Christ had to explain. “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless one is born of water and Spirit he cannot enter the Kingdom of God. What is born of flesh is flesh and what is born of spirit is spirit.”

These words of Christ should make us aware that to be a man is not simply a matter of being born in the flesh, subject only to the laws of nature. While all the material beings have a certain spirit also, that of man is not simply a natural spirit, but the very spirit of God himself that would truly make us God’s image and likeness, as God wants us to be.

Let’s remember that when God created Adam, he first took clay and shaped it in a form of man. But that clay form did not become truly alive until God breathed into it the breath of life. (cfr. Gen 2,7) But as we all know, that state of original justice of man was lost when both our first parents fell into sin. That’s when we, their descendants, would be born not anymore in the state of original justice and in need of recovering such state.

Thus, there is the need to be “born again,” so that we should not be born only in the flesh but also in the Spirit of God that gives us the true life, the life proper to us as God’s image and likeness, children of his, sharers of his divine life and nature.

And that we can now be born again in the Spirit is made possible because of the redemptive work of Christ who regained for us the Spirit to be with us all throughout our life. It is this life in the Spirit that would enable us to enter, understand and live the spiritual and supernatural life meant for us, going beyond what we merely understand and live in the level of the material, the temporal and the natural.

With the sacraments, first with Baptism that would incorporate us into the life of Christ, then Confirmation that would strengthen our life with Christ, then the Holy Eucharist that would nourish our life with Christ, and all the other sacraments, we can manage not only to be born again in the Spirit but also to live with God in our earthly sojourn.

It’s important that we enliven and strengthen this life in the Spirit all the time. For this, we have to do our part to correspond what God in Christ through the Spirit has provided us. Thus, if we have to do a number of things to maintain our natural self, we should also do the relevant things to maintain and grow in our spiritual and supernatural life.

Thus, if we have to eat and sleep, take shower, exercise, study, etc., etc., to keep us naturally healthy, we need to do certain spiritual exercises like prayer, sacrifices, ascetical struggles, etc., and to avail ourselves of the supernatural means like the sacraments to keep ourselves spiritually and supernaturally alive!

That’s what to be “born again” involves.