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 , January 2004
He
knew that he would receive the light of Christ. He did not
expect that, for others, he would become that light. Washed
clean, white robe flowing, now reborn and filled with the
light of Christ, he walked confidently to the very back of
the church to bring that precious light to those who would
renew the promises that he had only now made for the first
time."I knew you said that we did not have to stop at
every row and light each person’s candle," he said
later. "But they would not let me pass them by. They
all wanted, needed, to receive the light from me and touch
me. I didn’t know. didn’t expect it," he said,
his voice cracking as he gave in to tears.
Barbara Budde
Baptism Sourcebook
Anyone
who has ever had the privilege of working with adults who
become Catholic through the Rite of Christian Initiation of
Adults will recognize this scenario and perhaps recall similar
conversations that you might have had with catechumens who
are baptized at the Easter Vigil.
It's a
dangerous thing, our baptism. It alters all of our relationships
and is the cause of much that is unexpected in our lives.
Suddenly people have the right to expect things of us; they
have the right to claim things from us; they have the right
to call us to something beyond ourselves for the sake of the
promises we made.
It's a
dangerous thing, our baptism. Because in one moment in time,
in the company of a smattering of God’s people, we were
joined irrevocably to the Incarnation of God, a community
and a mystery that continually shapes our lives and reminds
us who we are and whose we are.
Recently
in the Church we celebrated the Baptism of Jesus-an event
in Jesus' life in which he came to know who he was and whose
he was. Our scriptures tell us that in those moments just
after Jesus emerged from the water he came to know himself
as beloved of God. Who he was was beloved; whose he was was
God’s. Our baptism joins us to Jesus and to Jesus’
identity as beloved as God.
And whether
in the company of an entire parish community or that of a
small group of family and friends, our baptism joins us to
the entire Christian community that dares to name itself the
Body of Christ. Imagine that! You and I and millions of others
through the centuries make up the suffering, frail, fragile
and glorious community that stakes its very life on the experience
and belief that once there lived a man who was in such intimate
relationship with God that he reflected God’s very self
in the living of his life, that this man died and was experienced
alive again so much so that his Spirit continues to reveal
God's intimate love and action in our lives today.
That’s
dangerous belief and it’s mystery; it’s the very
mystery that reveals the rhythm of our lives—that there
is no new life worth living that is born without loss and
pain; that there is no transformation worth giving ourselves
to that is not brought about first by some relinquishment,
and that there is no grace nor glory worth possessing that
is not marked by our daily dyings and risings.
Once long
ago or perhaps more recently for some we, like Jesus, were
named Beloved of God. It happened in a moment, but will take
an entire lifetime to live into. The celebration of Jesus’
baptism offers us the opportunity to consider the grace and
glory of our own baptism; to reflect on, like the newly baptized
man in the story, what the Body of Christ needs of us, desires
of us, calls out of us because of the promises made at our
baptism, the ones we renew over and over again in the company
of our brothers and sisters for the sake of the world.
— Sister
Mary Pellegrino
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