Catholic churches across the diocese brought in many new Catholics during the Easter season. Attending the Easter Vigil at my own church, I enjoyed seeing the excited smiles of each new Christian. It made me wish I could go back and relive my own baptism, to grasp the significance anew, to savor the mystery.
The New Testament tells us that in baptism we are saved, buried in Christ, incorporated into His Body, washed of our sins, regenerated and cleansed. If you feel a bit overwhelmed by this statement, don’t worry. Many saints and scholars of the law also have found baptism quite hard to understand. Nicodemus and St. Cyprian of Carthage, for example, both questioned what regeneration and being buried with Christ actually mean.
St. Barnabas wrote, “Blessed are they while placing their trust in the cross, have gone down into the water. … This means that we descend into the water full of sins and defilement, but come up bearing fruit in our heart, having the fear of God and trust in Jesus in our spirit.”
Pure light from above
In writing about his own baptism, St. Cyprian of Carthage said that he would lie awake wondering how a man could be born again or be able to put off what he had previously been. “But after that, by the help of the water of new birth, the stain of former years was washed away, and a light, a light from above serene and pure was infused into my reconciled heart, after that, by the agency of the spirit breathed from heaven, a second birth had restored me to a new man.”
Just as Cyprian spoke of perceiving a light from above, St. Clement of Alexandria wrote: “Being baptized, we are illuminated; illuminated, we become sons; being made sons, we are made perfect; being made perfect, we are made immortal.”
Think of all the foreshadowing of baptism recorded throughout the Bible. When the Israelite people left their enslaved lives in Egypt and crossed the Red Sea, this was a type of baptism. They went with Moses down into the place where the water had been and rose again, a free people. A new generation crossed the waters of the Jordan, following Joshua to enter the promised land. Think of Jonah, who after three days in the belly of the whale (a prefigurement of Christ’s death and resurrection), emerged ready to do God’s will in Nineveh. Reflect on Naaman, the leper who dipped seven times in the waters of the Jordan to cleanse his leprosy, a symbol of sin, and came out with skin white as snow, as of a baby, thus being renewed.
What a joy to be cleansed of original sin and made new. Even if our hearts cannot fully encompass this mystery, we must bolster our hearts with faith to know we are truly new people after baptism.
Although cleansed through baptism, we must remain on guard. We are still the Church Militant, living in this veiled valley of sin. Even though we are cleansed of our past iniquity and dead to sin in Christ, we are often pulled toward sin. Therefore, St. Ignatius of Antioch advises us, “Let your baptism endure as your arms, your faith as your helmet, your love as your spear, your patience as your complete panoply.”
By staying close to Christ, we not only protect our baptism, we share in His divine nature. Christ took our humanity to heaven and opened the doors of heaven to us. So as Christ shared in our humanity, we too begin to share in His divinity, even here on earth.
Unique to each of us
Baptism is a necessity for all Christians. Jesus tells Nicodemus, as echoed by the saints and fathers of the Church, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of spirit is spirit” (John 3:5-6).
Baptism is for everyone, Jew or Gentile, young or old. There is one baptism, but it is unique to each of us. A newborn needs only original sin washed away, but a man of 90 years will need original sin plus all other sins accrued in his life to be cleansed. St. Gregory reminds us that each baptism is unique: “purification of the sins of each is individual, and a complete cleansing of all the bruises and stains of each.”
Great joy comes with knowing that God loves each of us in our own unique way and that – thanks to Christ’s death and resurrection – sin no longer has a death grip on us. We now are alive with God in Christ Jesus. Let us live our lives for Christ and rejoice in His resurrection to new life, a life we share.
April Parker is a teacher and parishioner at St. Pius X Parish in Greensboro.