Congratulations newly baptized and confirmed Catholic Christians! What a joy it is for you to be within the arms of Mother Church. I welcome you wholeheartedly and am here to simply offer you ways in which, going forward, you can continue to draw on the sacraments for the rest of your life. We’ll begin by discussing your baptism and continue with ways in which you can approach and understand the sacrament of the Eucharist every time you come to Mass.
Now, to start, as you have learned in OCIA, the meaning of your baptism is your entrance into the Church. This entrance is an immersion into the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. When baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit with the pouring of holy water, you became a new man/woman. You effectively put off the old man (original sin) by dying with Christ in the water and become a new man in Christ when you emerge. In reflecting on your baptism in the days and years to come, you can use both the Scripture passages of Moses and the Exodus (Ex. 14:10-31) as well as the first Passover wherein the angel of death flew over the houses of those marked with the blood of the lamb sharing in the paschal feast that was prescribed by the Lord (Ex. 10:1-30).
We can first see how our baptisms are a reflection of Moses and the Israelites crossing of the Red Sea by remembering that the Lord saved the Isreaelites by parting the waters and allowing them to cross while drowning the Egyptians when they followed closely behind (Danielou, 88). Here, the enemy was in the sea and we were saved when we crossed the sea, while our enemies were destroyed in the water. Likewise, the devil drowns in the holy water of baptism and we emerge saved by the Holy Spirit (90).
In the first Passover, we see both the reflection of baptism as well as the Eucharist. Here, the angel of death passes over all of the houses that are marked with a cross using the blood of the sacrificial lamb. Similarly, by the blood of Christ poured out for us on the Cross (our Sacrificial Lamb), we are anointed with the sphragis in baptism and are no longer subject to the angel of death (167). Our bodies are now houses of the Holy Spirit marked as the Lord’s (164), and just as the Israelites had the paschal lamb within their homes, so do we, once baptized, consume the Paschal Lamb, Our Lord, Jesus Christ within us (168-9). Therefore, each time we receive Our Lord in the Eucharist at Mass, we remember the salvation we gained in our baptism and the sacrifice Our Lord made for us on the Cross. In fact, each time the host and the wine are consecrated, the Last Supper (Passover), the Passion, the Resurrection, and the Ascension are reenacted for our re-unification with Christ and thus our union with the Heavenly Trinity is restored (141).
Following your baptism, when you received the oil (chrism) of anointing in confirmation, you became worthy of the name Christian (little Christ) (116) receiving the spiritual seal and communication of the Holy Spirit once again making you docile to Him and the virtues (119). Thus, you were marked by the Trinity as one of His beloved and remain marked indelibly. Though, in your life, you can willingly choose to turn away from your heavenly Father, you are forever His from this moment on. You have been bathed in salvation, anointed with the spiritual seal, and risen with Christ.
In receiving the Eucharist, you entered more deeply into the life of Christ. You became one with Him in eating His flesh and drinking His blood. When receiving the Eucharist you enter into the marriage union between Christ and His Bride, the Church (191). You, as the Bride, receive Our Lord’s Body and Blood and are unified in flesh and spirit, making you truly one with Our Lord. Every time you come to Mass and receive Him, you are celebrating the great marriage between us and Christ, who consummated this union by dying on the Cross (192). It is truly a glorious occasion and each time you receive this sacrament you can ponder more deeply your unity with Him and the great graces that flow from that union.
In a similar vein, you ought to, each time you come to Mass, prepare yourself to be an offering for Christ as He offers Himself to you. Just like in a marriage, both parties lay down their lives for one another in body and spirit and become one for one another. As you approach the altar each time remembering Christ’s Passion, you can meditate on the offering of yourself—the dying of yourself—in response to the great gift of Himself that He has made possible in the breaking of the bread and dying on the Cross (139). In our offering and His perfect self-giving, we truly rise with Him to the Father—“We are no longer on earth, but in some way transferred to heaven” (135).
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Works Cited
Danielou, Jean. The Bible and the Liturgy. Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame Press, 1956.