‘SHuni

The Sacrament of

BAPTISM
Life Giving Waters

by Rev. Bernard I. Mullahy, C.S.C.

AVE MARIA PRESS

Notre Dame, Indiana



NIHIL OBSTAT—John L. Reedy, C.S.C.

Censor Deputatus

IMPRIMATUR—j^Most Rev. Leo A. Pursley, D.D.
Bishop of Fort Wayne-South Bend

May, 1961

All rights reserved . This pamphlet may not be

reproduced by any means in whole or in part

without prior permission.

Second Printing, March, 1962

© 1961, Ave Maria Press



No matter how weak or lukewarm a

Catholic's faith might become, he knows

that his first visit to a church was of vast

importance in his life, that in some way it

changed him and set him apart from all

who have never been baptized. He might

not live up to the commitments Baptism

has laid upon him, but he goes through

life never forgetting that he has been bap-

tized. And yet, it was outwardly a brief,

simple ceremony. Someone poured water

over his head and recited the formula “I

baptize you in the name of the Father and

of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”

But the Church tells us that this ceremony

has consequences for the rest of our life

here and for all eternity. By it we share
God's life— through grace— here on earth
and can be united to Him in heaven.

3



The First Baptism

In the beginning of his Gospel, St. Mark

tells us how Christ went down into the

river Jordan with St. John the Baptist and

let its water flow over His sacred body.

From that moment all the waters of crea-

tion had a new dignity and a new mys-

terious power to penetrate into the inner

life of God and to reach across all the ages

of eternity. This power is at work when

the waters of Baptism flow over the head

of the person being baptized.

The full measure of the Church’s appre-

ciation of this new dignity which Christ

infused into the waters of creation can be

seen most clearly during the Easter Vigil.

Forgetting her ordinary calm and detached

demeanor that night, the Church becomes

positively lyrical in her praise of the bap-

tismal waters. She sings of their power

and glory; she bends over them with awe

and reverence, and breathes upon them.

She caresses them with the consecrated

hand of the priest and anoints them with

the oil of catechumens and with chrism.

Taking the paschal candle, the symbol of

Christ Himself, she plunges it into the

water three times, praying that the power

of the Holy Spirit will penetrate the inner-

most depths of the water. And why?

Because she knows that this water is

destined to be, in Baptism, the instrument

which God uses to transform man beyond

4



all human comprehension. It is the means

used to transform man into a “partaker

of the divine nature.”

5



A Puzzling Mystery

There is a mystery here which stops us

and makes us think. How is it that a few
drops of water can open for us the riches

of God’s inner life, can make the difference

between obtaining and losing forever the

ecstasy of heaven? We should think about
this; for the waters of Baptism are a sign,

and signs are language for our minds.

Like all sacraments, Baptism is both a

sign and a cause. It is a sign which pro-

duces what it signifies. And in order to

understand what it causes to happen within

us we have to understand what it signifies.

But this is no simple task. For centuries,

theologians have labored to understand

and to explain the two essential aspects of

the sacraments— that is, that they are
both signs and causes.

We sometimes act as if it is not very
important whether or not we understand

much about the sacraments since they will

produce their effects automatically anyway.

This implicit attitude toward the sacra-

ments has its dangers. It can lessen our

appreciation of them and even lead to a

mere formalism almost approaching super-

stition in our use of them.

The Liturgy of Baptism

If we are to understand the sacrament

of Baptism adequately we have to go be-

yond the mere pouring of water and the

recitation of the formula and study all of

6



the ceremonies of the baptismal rite. We
have to look at it in the light of the liturgy

of the Easter Vigil, which was for cen-

turies the feast of Baptism, the only regu-

lar time of the year when adults received

this sacrament. We have to look at it in
the light of the whole Lenten liturgy,

which was designed originally to prepare

catechumens for Baptism. All these things

constitute, in a sense, the total “sign” of

Baptism.

Today we are in a better position than

Christians have been for centuries to under-

stand this “sign.” Here in the United States

we are allowed to have almost the whole

ceremony of Baptism in English and so

can follow it with comparative ease. The

Easter Vigil as it was restored some years

ago by Pope Pius XII should help us under-

stand better the connection between this

feast and the sacrament of Baptism. And

finally, the liturgical movement is each day

opening up for us more and more the

meaning of Lent and the riches of the sac-

ramental life of the Church.

If it is important for us to draw fully

upon these riches for a better understand-

ing of all the sacraments, this is especially

true of Baptism. Most of us received this

sacrament as infants when we were unable

to understand what was happening to us.

But at that time, through our sponsors, we

made solemn vows. And we had better

explore the implications of those vows, for

one day we are going to have to answer

7



to God for the way we kept them or dis-

regarded them.

The essential act of Baptism is completed

with the pouring of the water and recita-

tion of the formula: “I baptize you in the

name of the Father and of the Son and

of the Holy Ghost.
,,

But if we fail to

look beyond this, Baptism will appear to us

only as a washing which cleanses us of the

stain of original sin. That Baptism does

this, there can be no doubt. In blessing the

baptismal water on Holy Saturday night

the Church prays: “Do thou bless with thy

mouth this clean water, that, besides the

natural power it possesses for cleansing the

body, it may also prove effective in purify-
ing the soul.

,,

But we run a double risk

in stopping here.

First, we make Baptism largely a nega-

tive thing; and secondly, we make it purely

individualistic, the washing of this particu-

lar soul. Actually, the waters of Baptism

have a much deeper significance than this.

They refer among other things to three

major episodes in the history of the uni-

verse and of God's chosen people.

Three Historical Events

The first prophecy sung at the Easter

Vigil service before the blessing of the bap-

tismal font is the story of the creation of

the universe. “God, at the beginning of

time, created heaven and earth. Earth was

still an empty waste, and darkness hung

8



over the deep; but already, over its waters

brooded the Spirit of God. . . . And God

saw all that He had made, and found it
very good” (Gen. 1: 1, 2, 31). From this

description of creation we can almost pic-

ture the Spirit of God moving over the

waters “like a bird hovering over the nest

which contains her young,” giving fecun-

dity to the waters and bringing out of them

an ordered universe and life itself.

Christ Himself almost surely had this

scene in mind when He explained to Nico-

demus the meaning of Baptism in the rath-

er startling image of a divine birth issuing

from an intimate and fruitful marriage be-

tween the Holy Spirit and water. “Unless

a man be bom again of water and the
Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom

of God.”

And the Church, in blessing the bap-

tismal water at the Easter Vigil, is think-

ing of this when she prays: “May the pow-

er of the Holy Spirit descend into the inner-

most being of this water, and render the

whole substance of this water fruitful for

bestowing spiritual rebirth.”

The second episode from the Old Testa-

ment which the waters of Baptism are sup-

posed to bring to mind for us is the story

of Noah and the Flood. Through the wa-

ters of the Deluge, God destroyed the

wicked and created a new people through

Noah and those who were with him on the

Ark. The Church recalls this for us in the

9



blessing of the baptismal water when she

sings: “0 God, Who ... by the outpouring
of the Deluge didst signify the sacrament

of rebirth, that one and the same element

used in mystery might be the end of vice

and the origin of virtue. . . .”

And finally, the waters of Baptism are

intended to remind us of the passing of

God’s chosen people unharmed through the

Red Sea which then came together to de-

stroy the armies of Pharaoh which were

10



pursuing them. Here again the power of

water was used to destroy evil and to bring

about a new life for the children of God.

This incident is told in the second prophecy

read in the Easter Vigil service.

There are two significant points common

to these three narratives that the Church

wishes us to remember on Easter Saturday

night. First, the negative aspect in them

-—the destruction of chaos and evil— is
only a prelude to a new creation, a new

life in all its freshness, a new humanity.

Secondly, these are not stories of a mere

individual, but of the dawn of a whole

new creation, a new race, a new people, a

new life for the children of God. Only by

meditating on these two points can we get
an insight into the full meaning of Bap-

tism.

Suddenly, the Climax

During Holy Week, and especially at the

Easter Vigil, we reach the culminating
point of the whole theme of the Lenten

liturgy. Through it we are given a share
in Christ’s battle against sin and the pow-

ers of darkness; we die with Him to sin
and death in order to rise with Him to a
new life. To be baptized means exactly

the same thing. We are, as St. Paul ex-
pressed it, “baptized in His death. For we
are buried together with Him by Baptism
unto death: that, as Christ is risen from

the dead by the glory of the Father, so we

ll



also may walk in newness of life” (Rom.
7:3-4). The baptismal font, which is con-

secrated at the Easter Vigil, is both a tomb

and a maternal womb.

In Baptism the soul comes into direct and

immediate contact for the first time with

the redemptive act of Christ. This identifies

the soul so intimately and so completely

with Christ in His Redemption that St.

Thomas can make this astounding state-

ment: “To each baptized person the Pas-

sion of Christ is imparted as if he himself

had suffered and died on the Cross.”

Baptism means an identification with

Christ in His mortal battle with Satan and

the powers of hell, the battle about which

the Church sings in the Easter Mass:

“Death and Life in a strange conflict

strove.” By keeping in mind this idea of

Christ and the baptized person in conflict

with the devil in Baptism, we can under-

stand a number of things which take place

in the baptismal ceremony.

In the Roman army it was customary to

put a tattoo mark upon the body of the

recruits, a mark symbolizing their alle-

giance to the general in whose army they

were enlisted. So in Baptism, not once but

many times, the sign of the cross is made

on or over the one being baptized to show

his allegiance to Christ. Also, in the cere-

mony of Baptism there is the anointing

with oil. The symbolism here comes from

the ancient practice of athletes rubbing

12



their bodies with oil in preparation for

their matches.

Finally, this idea of a struggle with the

devil is most clearly brought out through

the exorcisms in the baptismal ceremony.

There are many more exorcisms in the

Baptism of adults than in those of infants

;

yet even infants are under the sway of orig-

inal sin, and wherever there is sin the pow-

ers of Satan are at work.

Our War with Satan

But what we should note in all this is

that every Baptism, whether it be of adults

or of infants, is a participation in the dra-

matic struggle between Christ and Satan

which was, and is, the redemption of the

world. Only by seeing Baptism in this per-

spective can we make much sense out of

the baptismal ceremony, which, right up

until the last moment before the pouring

of the water, when the candidate is asked

to solemnly renounce Satan, seems to be

a continual struggle with the powers of

hell.

The victory which emerges from this

struggle is an astounding newness of life

which is like a new creation. In blessing

the baptismal waters on Holy Saturday

night the Church prays that “whatsoever

is sanctified in the immaculate womb of this
font may be born again as a new creature,
and come forth as an offspring of heaven.”

13



What Is This New Life?

What is this new life, this new creation

which comes forth from the immaculate

womb of the baptismal font? This is in-
deed a great mystery, but it need not leave

us mystified as it did Nicodemus when

Christ first spoke to him of the necessity

of being bora again through water and the

Holy Spirit.

This new birth is something infinitely

greater than the universe which sprang

from the waters over which the Spirit of

God hovered in the first creation. It is

something infinitely greater than the nat-

ural birth of human life, when a child

issues from the womb of its mother and
becomes forever a part of the history of

the human race. It is something infinitely

greater than every other possible birth

except one: the eternal birth of the Word

of God from the bosom of the Father in

the inner depths of the life of the Trinity.

The reason is simply that it is a share in

this eternal birth of the Word of God.

For to be baptized is to be made a “par-

taker of the divine nature,” as St. Peter

tells us simply and unequivocally. Here we

have a mystery, but it is a reality, not just

a figure of speech.

Baptism is not, as much non-Catholic

theology tends to view it, merely a ritual

which contains a promise of future holiness

14



when salvation has been achieved. Baptism

makes a person holy right here and now—
and with God’s own holiness. It makes him

a saint, one who would go directly to take

his rightful place with the saints in heaven

if he were to die immediately after Bap-

tism. And if later on he becomes some-

thing less than a saint, it is only because

he deliberately fails to live out fully the

grace of Baptism.

Baptism is like the story Greek myth-

ology tells of Pygmalion, who fell in love

with the statue of a woman he had sculp-

tured and whose love could find no fulfill-

ment until she was transformed into a hu-

man being who could know him with a

human mind and love him with a human

heart. God fell in love with us, the work

of His hands. And this love could have its

fulfillment only by our being transformed

in Baptism, given a share in divine life,

given a divine light for our minds to know

Him as He knows Himself and a divine love
for our* hearts to love as He loves all things.

The waters of Baptism have a power far

greater than the power Christ gave to the

pool of Siloe which cured the poor man
who had been born blind. “He said to him:
'Go, wash in the pool of Siloe.’ ... He went
therefore and washed, and he came away

seeing” (John 9:7). We come away from
the baptismal font seeing as only God can
see. In the phrase of St. Paul, we come
away walking “as children of light.”

15



How Faith Enters

The light of faith is the first thing we

request at the beginning of the baptismal

ceremony and the thing to which we are
repeatedly asked to pledge ourselves at that

solemn moment just before the pouring of

the waters. This is not simply committing

ourselves in advance to accept a body of

abstract truths revealed by God and given

to us by the Church. It is a share in the

light of God’s own mind and in Has eternal

wisdom. It gives our intellects a power that

infinitely exceeds the natural capacity of

every created intellect, angelic as well as

human. It makes us “intellectuals” in the

fullest sense of the term, for it gives our

minds a share in the intelligence of God

Himself.

It gives our minds the capacity not only

to know God in some way as He knows

Himself, but also to see all things as He

sees them. The baptized Christian should

see everything in the light of faith; for him,

seeing is always believing. And this light

is destined to grow all the days of our life

until it breaks forth into the brilliance of

the Beatific Vision in heaven, when we

finally become fully wise with the wisdom

of God Himself. This is why a few grains

of salt, the symbol of wisdom, are placed

upon the tongue in Baptism, and why, in

the Baptism of adults, the priest makes the

sign of the cross on the eyes of the candi-

16



date, saying: “I sign

you upon the eyes

that you may see the

brightness of God.”

Here too we have

the meaning of the

lighted candle pre-

sented at the end of

the baptismal cere-

mony. We now have
the great grace, in

the Easter Vigil, of

lighting our candle

from the one pure

Light Who is Christ,
symbolized by the

paschal candle, and

of renewing publicly

our baptismal vows

while it bums brightly in our hand. Thus,

we are now in a better position than ever

before to understand the true meaning of

the lighted candle in Baptism and the faith

it symbolizes.

With Faith Comes Love

As a divine light is given our minds

through faith, so a divine love is given our

hearts through the infusion of charity,

which is a share in the love that is proper

to God and in the way He loves all things.

After Baptism the Christian is no longer

free to love anyone or anything with a

purely natural love; he can no longer have

17



in his heart any affection, or lack of affec-

tion, which God cannot share. This is the

meaning of the first command given to the

candidate at the very beginning of the

baptismal ceremony: /‘Love the Lord your

God with your whole heart, and with your

whole soul, and with your whole mind;

and love your neighbor as you love your-

self.”

This fire of charity is supposed to go on

increasing in our hearts all the days of our

life until it breaks forth into that flaming

ecstasy which is the Beatific Vision.

We are baptized, not simply in the name
of God, but in the name of each of the

three Persons of the Blessed Trinity. This

is because Baptism gives us a participation

in the three-shared life of God and estab-

lishes extraordinary relations between us

and the three Persons. In blessing the bap-

tismal water at the Easter Vigil the Church

prays: “Send forth the spirit of adoption to

beget new life in them that are bom unto
Thee in this font of Baptism.”

This adoption is something far more

profound than natural adoption, which is,

after all, simply a legal fiction. An adopted
child here on earth undergoes no interior

change whatsoever. The blood which runs

through his veins remains different from

that of his adopting parents. The super-

natural adoption of Baptism, on the other

hand, changes our interior and gives us a

18



share in the divine life of the Father. As

St. John assures us, we are not merely

called His sons, as in natural adoption; we

actually are His sons. And St. Paul tells us

that this makes us heirs to all the infinite

riches and happiness of God's life, which

will be ours when we finally come of age

supematurally in heaven.

One with Christ

Becoming sons of the Father makes us

enter into the life of His only begotten Son.

The new birth of Baptism is, as we have
said, a share in the eternal birth of the

Word in the bosom of the Father. Baptism

makes us one with Christ by incorporating

us into His Mystical Body, The word Christ

means the Anointed One: in Baptism we

are christened by being anointed with

chrism. The sign of the cross put upon our

foreheads is His stamp and seal upon us.

Baptism not only makes us belong to

Christ; in some sense it identifies us with

Him. The phrase “another Christ,” which

is now usually reserved for priests, was
originally used in reference to all Christians.

And indeed the special sacramental char-

acter which Baptism imprints on the soul

gives all Christians a share in the priest-

hood of Christ. The anointing with holy

chrism is similar to the anointing that has

traditionally gone into the making of priests

and kings. Through Baptism the Christian

participates in the royal and priestly dig-

19



nity of Christ
;
and although this priestliness

is something quite different from the priest-

hood of Holy Orders, yet it is a real priest-

hood and it calls both for a life of sacrifice

and for active participation in the liturgy,

the worship of the Church.

The call for active and intelligent partici-

pation in the worship of the Church be-

comes all the more insistent when we real-
ize that Baptism also makes the Christian

a place of worship, a consecrated temple, a

tabernacle of the Holy Spirit. In the bap-

tismal rite the priest prays that the candi-

date “may become a temple of the living

God and that the Holy Spirit may dwell in
him.” God comes to inhabit the soul, to

fill it with His awesome yet intimate pres-

ence. This presence is not a fiction; it is a

reality. God is present in the soul in the

state of grace in a way in which He is not
present anywhere else in the universe.

The mother who receives her child back

from the baptismal font is holding in her

eurns a holy and consecrated tabernacle of

the Holy Spirit. This infant enfolds within

himself the very life of the Blessed Trinity,

just as truly and surely (though in quite a

different way) as the mother had enfolded

him in her womb. Since her child is a real

temple, a real chapel of God, there is no

reason why she cannot pray to the God

Who resides within him as she bathes,
feeds and cares for him.

It is said that the father of Origen used

to uncover the breast of his newly baptized

20



son and kneel down before him to adore the

presence of the Blessed Trinity. Baptism

has made this child so unspeakably precious

that St. Thomas Aquinas, who was not

given to exaggeration, tells us it is worth

more than all other created things in the

natural order put together.

We Are One of Many
The new life which makes the baptized

person so precious is not an individualistic

life; it is a social life. What emerges from

the waters of creation, the waters of the

Deluge and the waters of the Red Sea is

not an individual in isolation but a whole

new creation, a new people, a new race, a

new humanity.

The divine life given in Baptism is essen-

tially a social life; for the Blessed Trinity,

in whose name Baptism takes place, is a

Society of three Persons all sharing in the

most profound social life possible. Baptism

means that this social life of the Trinity is

communicated to the Christian. It means an

initiation into a supernatural society, into

an organism known as the Mystical Body of

Christ. It does not simply unite the individ-

ual soul with God and with Christ; it also

unites it intimately with all the other mem-

bers of Christ’s Mystical Body. St. Paul tells

us this explicitly: “We were all baptized
into one Body . . . you are the Body of

Christ and severally His members” [I Cor.

2 : 16].

The early Christians who were baptized

21



on Holy Saturday night had this concept

brought home to them vividly. On emerging

from the baptismal font they marched in a

group, dressed in white robes, into the

church where, one at last with their fellow

Christians, they offered together for the

first time the social Sacrifice of the Mass

and were united together in the one Eu-

charistic Bread.

And now the new rite for the Easter Vigil

makes it possible for us to sense, as we

never could before, the social mystery in

Baptism. When all have lighted their can-

dles from the one candle representing Christ,

we see our individual candle as a part of the

sea of fire filling and illuminating the

church. Together we recite our baptismal

vows in plural form: “We do believe. . . .
We do renounce him.”
The person who has been baptized can

never again be alone, can never be an iso-

lationist. He cannot act alone, pray alone

or suffer alone. When he prays, it is a social

experience: he prays in the name of all

Christians. His sufferings and good works

have a social value, a redeeming value for

the whole Mystical Body. So intimate are

the social relations between baptized per-

sons that St. Thomas can tell us: “He that

lives in charity shares in every good that is

produced in the whole world.”

How Satan Operates

If this is so, then perhaps we had better

take a second— and closer— look at the

22



meaning of the solemn promises we made

in Baptism.

What are the works and pomps of Satan

which we renounced then? When we think

of them at all, we conceive them in terms

of the salvation and sanctification of our

individual soul. We think of the sins, seduc-
tions and allurements of the world which

are set to trap us; we think of the secret

assaults of the devil on our chastity or our

honesty. What we do not realize is that

Satan knows better than we that the divine

life both in heaven and on earth is essen-

tially a social life, and his cleverest and

most insidious devices are in the area of

social relations.

When we took our baptismal vows, then,

we said something about racial prejudice,

about the social needs of the Mystical Body,

about domestic, economic, political and in-

ternational problems. And we shall be

judged by all that was implicit in these

vows.

It will be difficult for us to realize that

Baptism is a social experience if we do not

try to give it a much more communal

setting than it now usually has. Friends

and relatives gather in large numbers for

funerals and marriages, but Baptism is

often performed without anything that sug-

gests a real community. There are, of

course, many reasons why this should be
so; yet Baptism is a far greater occasion

and one with far deeper social implications.

23



Could not parents in their birth announce-

ments invite relatives and friends to be

present at the baptismal ceremony? The

new Easter Vigil rite suggests that pastors
try to arrange for Baptisms during the

Vigil service. There could not possibly be

a better occasion to provide this sacra-

ment with the social setting it calls for and

at the same time to give all the members

of the parish a better understanding of its

meaning. Perhaps at other times during the

year arrangements could be made for Bap-

tism in the presence of the parish commu-

nity.

Why Not Celebrate Baptism?

Parents should often do some serious

thinking about their attitude toward Bap-

tism and their baptized children. Is it fitting

that only natural birthdays should be cele-

brated and the anniversaries of Baptism be

forgotten? And what about those cleverly

designed announcements sent to relatives

and friends which give all the details of

natural birth, the date, the number of

pounds and ounces—-while ignoring com-
pletely the greater events of rebirth in

Christ?

Do we not believe that this child’s true

grandeur comes from this rebirth which has

given him a share in God’s inner life? If

we do, we ought to let our faith, our con-

viction and our supernatural sense of values

be known to all our friends, including non-

Catholics. Many different types of an-

24



nouncement cards which reflect this super-

natural sense of values and which are taste-

ful and well designed pieces of Christian

art are now available.

Since Baptism is a real birth, the role of

the sponsors should never be looked upon as

a mere formality. They are what their

names, godfather and godmother, say they

are: spiritual parents who have co-operated

in a birth which is a share in the life of

God. To make this clear the Church forbids

marriage between them and their godchil-

dren.

Parents should take seriously the task of

selecting godparents for their children

;

they should choose only those who are

highly qualified to fulfill their spiritual du-

ties, those who will pray for their god-

children constantly and make sure their

religious education is provided for. The

sponsors themselves should take seriously

the invitation to become godparents. They

should see it as a great spiritual experience,

a source of many special graces and an

opportunity to discover or rediscover the

true meaning of their own Baptism by a

preparation of prayer and reading.

Practical Formalities

In searching for ways to keep alive in

their children and in themselves the con-

sciousness of Baptism’s meaning, many par-
ents find that one of the best means is to

prepare themselves the simple white robe

25



and the candle (either plain or appro-

priately decorated) which will be given to

the child at the end of the baptismal cere-

mony. They can then bring these symbolic

gifts home and keep them in the family

as souvenirs of the greatest event in the

life of the child, the greatest event that

could ever happen in human life.

Each year as the anniversary of Baptism

is celebrated, contact with this great event

can be renewed by bringing out these gifts

and lighting the candle once again. Perhaps

the preparation of the baptismal robe will

remind parents that the most fitting color

in which to dress children for the ceremony

of Baptism is pure white, the symbol of the

freshness, the utter newness and the un-

speakable purity of the divine life given to

the soul in this sacrament. [This dress, in-

cidentally, should be fitted loosely around

the neck, so that the priest will not have

difficulty in anointing the body of the

child.]

This child who is dressed in her white

baptismal robe today will on another day

later on walk down the aisle of the church,

clothed in a white dress and veil with all

the unspoiled innocence and purity of child-

hood, to participate for the first time in the

sacrificial banquet of the Mass. On another

day, still later, she may walk down the aisle

again, dressed in a white gown and veil,

this time a radiant bride, to receive and to

give to another the sacrament of Matri-

26



many. Or perhaps it will be the white veil

of a novice as, radiant with an even greater

love, in all the freshness of her young

womanhood, she celebrates her espousals

with Christ Himself. And this other child:

one day he may be seen dressed in a white

alb and a white chasuble ascending the

altar to offer for the first time the holy

sacrifice of the Mass.

On all these occasions, when there is the

beginning of a great newness of life, we

usually fail to reflect that, in a sense, some-

thing of the white cloth of the baptismal

robe has gone into the making of all these

other white garments. None of these events

could take place if Baptism had not gone

before; they are its development and fulfill-

ment. For the Christian there can be no

newness of life that does not flow from that

radical newness of life which first came to

him on the day of Baptism.

We should not overlook the fact that not
only the alb and the chasuble but also the

white veils of the first communicant, the

bride and the novice are, in a sense, priestly

vestments. To participate in the sacrificial

banquet of the Mass and thus become at

once the “offerer” and “offered” along with

Christ, to be the actual minister of a sacra-

ment as are the bride and groom in matri-

mony— these are priestly functions— an
exercise of the priestly character given in

Baptism.

And the novice entering the religious

27



state to give herself completely to Christ is

bringing to fulfillment her priestly charac-

ter in a way no one else can. Her religious
vows will not be anything radically new;

they will merely bring to completion her

baptismal vows.

Never Delay Baptism!

Parents whose faith in the meaning of

Baptism is alive and active should prevent

the christening of their children from being

unduly postponed— not merely because
something might happen to them during the

delay, but also because they will want to

reduce to an absolute minimum the number

of hours and minutes their children will be

in existence deprived of the life of God,

divine sonship, membership in the Mystical

Body, the inhabitation of the Blessed Trin-

ity.

If Baptism means all that the Church

teaches us it does, it is worth every possible

effort to deepen our understanding of it and

to grow constantly in the consciousness of

its many practical implications. There are

a number of ways in which this can be

done.

For one thing, we can celebrate the anni-

versary of our Baptism every year. The

best way of doing this is by going to Mass,

and even having a Mass offered on that day

to thank God for all the unspeakable graces

of Baptism and to beg for all the daily help

we need to bring them to fulfillment, to

28



grow daily in the divine life so that we

shall become the saints God wants us to be.

So few Christians even know the exact day

of their christening! On this day and at

other times during the year, our prayers

should include a remembrance of the priest

who baptized us and of our godparents who

assumed the serious responsibility of watch-

ing over our spiritual welfare. Besides the

anniversary day itself, Holy Saturday,

Easter and Low Sunday are days which in

the mind and the liturgy of the Church

have special reference to Baptism, and this

reference should not be missed.

Holy Water—A Reminder
Holy Water should be a reminder of Bap-

tism, an echo of it. Whenever we bless our-

selves with it, we should remind ourselves

of our transformation in Christ. And since

the Christian home is supposed to be a

kind of echo of the parish church, holy

water should be kept at home also and used

frequently, especially upon rising in the

morning and before retiring at night.

Abandonment to Christ

A story is told of a king whose conver-
sion to Christianity made him so enthusias-

tic about his new Faith that he decided to

make Christians of all his soldiers by

marching them down to a river for Baptism.

The soldiers, it seems, were willing enough

to be baptized, provided their way of life

29



would not be fundamentally disturbed by it.

While they were being immersed in the

river they held their fighting fists above its

waters so that they would not have to give

up their battles and their bloodshed.

This illustrates what a good many Chris-

tians do who refuse to allow themselves to

be immersed completely in Baptism by liv-

ing out all its practical implications, who

try to hold above the baptismal waters

their business deals, their pursuit of pleas-

ure, wealth and status, their worldly scale

of values, their apathy toward international

problems, the naturalistic principles by

which they live, their racial prejudices and

30



their indifference toward hunger, poverty

and suffering in the world.

Even though Baptism is not ordinarily

administered by immersion any more, but

by a pouring of water on the head, it must

always mean a total immersion of our

whole being and our whole life in Christ.

And the fact that we have been baptized

by the pouring of water on our head should

remind us that our intellect, above all, must

be truly Christian. For we shall be fully

transformed in Christ only when the bap-

tismal waters have finally penetrated into

the inner core of our thinking.

31



There are eight pamphlets in this

series on the sacraments. Each

pamphlet has 32 pages plus a two-

color cover. Priced at 15 cents each.

THE SACRAMENTS
by Rev. Louis J. Putz, C.S.C.

The Sacrament of

BAPTISM

by Rev. Bernard I. Mullahy, C.S.C.

The Sacrament of

HOLY EUCHARIST
us a sacrament by Rev. Thomas Barrosse, C.S.C.

as a sacrifice by Rev. John Maguire/ C.S.C.

The Sacrament of

PENANCE
by Rev. John L. Reedy, C.S.C.

The Sacrament of

CONFIRMATION
by Rev. Ralph Fisher, C.S.C.

The Sacrament of

MATRIMONY
by Rev. Charles W. Harris, C.S.C.

The Sacrament of

HOLY ORDERS
by Rev. Joseph Hoffman, C.S.C.

The Sacrament of

EXTREME UNCTION
by Rev. John Maguire, C.S.C.

These eight pamphlets are valued at

$1.20 if purchased individually.

Place your order now for the complete

set
,

attractively packaged
,

for only $ 1 ,

AVE MARIA PRESS Please send
your remittance

NOTRE DAME, INDIANA with your order.





THIS PAMPHLET IS PUBLISHED

SN RESPONSE TO THE REQUESTS

OF MANY PEOPLE WHO

READ A CONDENSED VERSION IN . . .

NOTRE DAME. INDIANA