You entered the Church tonight as one person and now, having been baptized, confirmed and received Holy Eucharist, you sit before me as an entirely new creation. More than simply gaining entry into the Church as a community of faith, you have been initiated into the life of Christ so fully that you have become members of His Body. It is my hope that, by better understanding the new creation you have become and the gifts you have received, you can fully utilize them in the new life that awaits.
Until the moment of your baptism, you have been engaged in a mighty struggle against the devil, striving to escape his power.[1] Tonight, through your sincere and heartfelt conversion and the graces of God, the devil has been renounced and thoroughly defeated.[2] The ancient pact that Adam entered into with the devil has been broken.[3] You have been freed by Christ, the New Adam, from the dominion of Satan, and have been reintroduced into the Paradise of union with God for which you were initially created.[4]
Although full entry into this Paradise has not yet been achieved, you have been fortified by God to strengthen you until it comes to fruition. You have been anointed by holy oil that has not only purified you from sin but has also “put to flight all the invisible powers of the Evil One”.[5] This does not mean that your days of temptation are behind you, but rather that you have been healed in body, soul and spirit, freed from every trace of sin so that you may have the strength to triumph over the attacks you inevitably will face.[6]
Through the Baptismal waters, you have been grafted into Christ’s death by participation.[7] Water consecrated by the Holy Spirit has been poured upon you three times, each immersion symbolizing one of the three days Jesus immersed Himself in darkness in His descent into hell to defeat the devil before He rose again.[8] Through the gift of the Holy Spirit, you have been allowed to go down into the waters dead in sin, and emerge to life in justice.[9] You were buried with Christ so that you might rise with Him.[10]
As St. Paul explained:
Are you not aware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Through baptism into his death we were buried with him, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live a new life.”[11]
After emerging from the consecrated waters, you were sealed by a sign of the cross on your forehead, called the sphragis, forever marking you as belonging to God. The sphragis has imprinted in your soul the image, the likeness of God, according to which man was created from the beginning.[12] Your soul has been restored at this moment to what God had intended it to be. You have been clothed by the garment of salvation, that your soul may be pure and your body incorruptible, covered in the supernatural grace of God, returned to the blessed state Adam and Eve experienced before the fall.[13] Having been configured to Christ, you are now empowered to live a life that leads to the future glory Christ has promised. You have been illuminated by the Light of Christ, and tasked with bringing it to the world.[14]
You have also now been fortified to serve valiantly in God’s army.[15] Just as Christ arose victorious from His descent into hell, you too are now armed with the grace of God to prevail in the holy contests you will undertake under the direction of Christ.[16]
Through the sphragis you have also been marked with a sign of God’s pledge of protection and salvation.[17] Just as the cross defeated Satan, the cross by which you have been sealed is a constant reminder to these evil forces of their defeat, a sign designed to send them fleeing.[18] It is a seal of God’s new covenant in Christ, an irrevocable promise by God to bestow His blessings of grace upon His people.[19]
As your Baptism configured you to Christ dead and risen again, your Confirmation configured you to Christ anointed by the Holy Spirit, the source of spiritual joy.[20] The Holy Spirit has now been perfected within you, His gifts poured out upon you and your spiritual life strengthened.[21] You are now not only equipped and called to serve the Lord with the Spirit of Wisdom and understanding, counsel and fortitude, knowledge and piety and holy fear, but your soul has been made docile to the movement of the Holy Spirit within you.[22] The perfumed chrism by which you were anointed carries within it the very essence of Christ. Your vocation, as His Church, is to allow the “sweet perfume of Christ” to emanate from you until it fills the whole world.[23]
Just as you have now become part of Christ’s Body called to reflect His Love and Presence into the earthly world, you have also been invited to participate in the heavenly liturgy of the Mass. As Jesus perpetually offers His entire Being to the Father for the salvation of all in communion with the angels and saints, we unite our voices with those of the angels and join in the official worship of creation- the worship for which we were created. This worship centers upon the priestly action of Christ in His Passion and Resurrection[24] and enables us to receive His True Presence in the Eucharist. It enables your body to become His temple. As God provided daily nourishment for the Israelites in the desert with manna sent forth from heaven, God now calls you to receive your daily bread as the True Bread of Life in the Eucharist for your daily nourishment.[25] As you continue to participate in the sacramental life of Jesus in the Sacraments, the Eucharist will continue to bear fruit within you, providing spiritual joy and wisdom, an understanding of the things of God.[26]
As Christ died, descended into hell, was resurrected and ascended into heaven, so too have you now died with Him, descended into the baptismal waters in a state of sin and emerged in a state of grace. You have now been anointed by the Holy Spirit with all of the gifts to enable you to continue to seek union with Him in eternal life. A life in the Church is a life rooted in the celebration of its sacraments, all of which enable us to participate in the life in Christ now so that we might be blessed to share eternal life with Him when He comes again.
[1] Danielou, p.21.
[2] Id, p.34.
[3] Id, p. 27.
[4] Id, p.33.
[5] Id, p.40.
[6] Id, pp.40-41.
[7] The Old Testament reveals how God has historically used waters as instruments of creative forces of good and destructive forces of evil. As seen in the parting of the Red Sea during the Exodus and the Deluge by which only the faithful servants of Noah and his family were saved, God used the sacrament of water to deliver a spiritual people from a spiritual tyrant to cause them to go from the world to the kingdom of God. Id, p.89. So has He done the same for you in Baptism.
[8] Id, p.41, 44.
[9] Jean Danielou, S. .. The Bible and the Liturgy. 1st ed., University of Notre Dame Press, 1956., pp41-42.
[10] Id, p.44.
[11] Romans 6:3-4 and Danielou, p.45.
[12] Id, p.57.
[13] Id, p.49-51.
[14] Id, p.93.
[15] Id, p.58.
[16] Id, p.41.
[17] Id, pp. 56-57.
[18] Id, p.61.
[19] Id, pp.67-68.
[20] Id, p.118.
[21] Id, p. 119-120, 126.
[22] Id, pp.119-120.
[23] Id, p.125.
[24] Id, pp. 135,155.
[25] Id, pp. 148-149.
[26] Id, p. 184.