Baptism.

The word baptism comes from a Greek word, which means 'to bathe, dip or plunge in water'. The English evangelist, Trevor Dearing, in a light-hearted moment, once likened baptism to the action of becoming a holy tea-bag'! - Plunged into the water to enable 'all the flavour to come flooding through!'

Seriously, baptism is laden with a wealth of symbolic meaning and significance. Water, which sustains life, can also kill. Being submerged in it, even for a religious purpose, can convey the impression of undergoing a form of 'death'. 'Dying' and 'rising' as well as being ritually cleansed and purified; these images have all been used by the Church, as they have by many religious traditions, to mark the stage of admission, or initiation through total repentance and conversion. In the Gospels we see Jesus being baptised by John the Baptist.

Many years later the Gospel writers linked this event with what happened to the apostles at Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was 'poured out' on them. The early Church thus introduced baptism in the name of Jesus as the way of receiving his Spirit, and thereby joining the community which met in his name for teaching and the breaking of bread. So initiation into the Church was made up of the following: water baptism - outpouring of the Spirit - Eucharist. This is still the pattern today. The three Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist make up the Sacraments of Initiation into the Church.

According to the Acts of the Apostles large numbers of people were baptised with no preparation beyond a 'profession of faith', the declaration of their belief in Jesus as the Christ. As the Church began to meet hostility and persecution there emerged a structure for preparing people for initiation into the Church. In order to test the seriousness of a person's interest in the Church, and also to weed out the possible entry of spies into the community, as well as eliminating as far as possible the scandal of apostasy (the public denial of Christ by a Christian), the Church began acatechumenate. This provided a lengthy period of preparation for prospective members, and celebrated their gradual acceptance into the community by means of certain rituals, until the solemn moment during the Easter celebration when they received the Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist together, and so became fully initiated members. There was also a long period of after-care for the continuing involvement of the newcomer into the life of the community.

After the year A.D. 313 persecution of Christians ceased, and Christianity gradually became the official religion of the empire. Within a hundred years, the catechumenate was becoming redundant, as newly born babies began to make up the majority of new entrants to the Church. This became the norm, especially with the growing feeling that baptism was necessary for freeing the infant from the guilt of the sin of Adam and Eve: 'original sin'. So the practice emerged of baptism for new-born babies, followed some years later by confirmation and finally Eucharist. This was the situation until early this century when the Pope wished to make Holy Communion available to children, and so the order in which the sacraments are received was reversed; now the order for Catholics most commonly is baptism, Eucharist, confirmation. The Orthodox Churches give all three initiation sacraments to babies.

During the first four centuries, therefore, the understanding of the sacrament underwent a deep change: from being a public entry into a community of faith to being a personal need for the cancellation of original sin.

Since the Second Vatican Council there has been an attempt to reverse this process. Once more the necessity of faith is being emphasised. Baptism is the celebration of a living faith; so even in the case of babies there must be some faith to celebrate. Hence the emphasis on the faith of the parents and sponsors.

As well as original sin there is also 'original grace', which is a more ancient idea. This means that human nature, and everything about our life and this world, has been 'graced' by the presence of Christ in it. He was the fully mature man, the perfect human being. He invites us to become more fully human, to accept the human condition, to journey through life with its risks and possible failures by living a way of life which he has shown us: a life that does not end with death. He invites us, in fact, to live our lives by the same power with which he lived his – the Holy Spirit. We receive this power to begin the lifelong journey with him through our baptism.

Also, since the Council, there has been the reintroduction of the catechumenate as the normal means of receiving adult converts into the Church. This means that their progress is once again the responsibility of the whole community and not just of one priest. Their gradual initiation is accompanied by liturgical celebrations until their full initiation takes place at the Easter Vigil.

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