BAPTISM: Part One

 

One of the significant results of the Second Vatican Council was the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, which, besides calling for drastic changes in our celebration of the Eucharist, also called for the celebration of all the sacraments to be community events wherever possible.  And so, though we may groan inwardly when we arrive for Sunday Mass and realize there is to be the baptism of a child or one of the rites/ceremonies of the RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults), it is SO important that we as the faith community join in these celebrations.  Hopefully these celebrations will remind us of our own faith commitment through our baptism.

 

Probably for most of us we have no recollection of our baptism.  As was customary at the time I was probably whisked off to church on a Sunday afternoon when I was two or three weeks old by my godparents (my parents were home preparing the party!).

 

Today we are much more aware that Baptism is a life commitment.  When we’re infants our parents make that commitment for us by promising to raise us in the faith and when we’re adults we make that commitment on our own.  Part of the Easter Vigil service (where adults are baptized by immersion and received into the Church) is the invitation to those of us already baptized to renew that baptismal commitment.  This is also a special part of each Easter Sunday liturgy.

 

But what does that commitment mean?  What responsibilities go with it?  In a future column I’ll develop this thought further.  In the meantime I leave you with my favorite passage from the book Seasons of Your Heart by Macrina Wiederkehr, O.S.B. in which she reflects on her own baptism:

 

          “Someone gave it (baptism) to me: my parents, their parents, the Church, my community, my God.  And I’m standing here with my baptism in my hands wondering what to do with it.  I struggle with faithfulness.  Sometimes I want to throw it away.  After all, it’s just an invitation!  It’s too demanding!  Too loving!  I don’t know what to do with such love.  I walked around for a long time before I said Amen to my baptism.  Finally I confirmed that invitation.  I said yes to everything that God and the Church and all those faith-filled people were asking of me. Amen, my Lord, Amen!”

 

 

 

Sister Marie, O.P.