Congratulations on newly entering the Body of Christ this past Easter Vigil! But, you might be wondering with all this preparation and understanding of who Jesus Christ is and how His Church spreads His word and lives out His incarnation in charity, what do the sacraments I received now mean for the rest of my life? Let’s delve into the biblical meaning of Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist to comprehend how these sacraments orient us to union with God in sanctifying grace.
Back in the fourth and fifth centuries of Christianity, the process of the catechumenate was significantly longer than what you all just experienced nine months before. Each person desiring to enter the Church had to embark on a three year preparation to receive the Sacraments of Initiation. Yes, this is very long but in order to receive all three of these sacraments, they needed to accept a radical change of life. As will be demonstrated through the rest of my talk, the foundation of the sacraments comes from salvation history, which allows all who receive the sacraments to partake in the all-inclusive narrative of salvation history today. So, what is the main narrative we enter into as Catholics?
The sacraments allow us to come back into a Divine Romance with God, who created all creation and humanity as His beloved. If we view the sacraments like this, the order and orientation of the Sacraments of Initiation become clear. As Jean Daniélou quotes from St. Cyril of Jerusalem, “‘If your wedding day were approaching, would you not leave everything else and devote yourself entirely to preparing for the feast? You are about to consecrate your soul to her heavenly Bridegroom’” (23). You have now been immersed in a Divine Romance with God through the sacraments, so examine Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist to clarify how this unfolds.
Since the time of the Church Fathers, the proper way to read and scrutinize Scripture was to read through typology, which follows a symbol or action in an earlier story and notice later how this symbol or action appears again and holds deeper significance pointing to, in our case, the sacraments.
The sacrament of Baptism washes away Original Sin and brings us into spiritual adoption with the Trinity. The former points back to the Church Fathers with the image of stripping away the ‘old man’ and putting on new garments. What is the ‘old man’? It is referring to the state of Adam and Eve after the Fall, specifically in their action to cover their nakedness with leaves. This first covering of their original nakedness is the tunic that separates man from God. With the physical stripping, “this baptismal nakedness signified not only a stripping off of mortality, but also a return to primitive innocence”, a restoration to the original holiness between man and His Creator (39). And immediately following, there is a ‘new garment’ placed on the baptized – sometimes physical white garments but more deeply the anointing of the chrism oil. The tangible mark or seal, as it is sometimes called, of the chrism oil was called the sphragis in the early Church centuries. Continuing further in salvation history, the idea of Jewish circumcision, beginning in the days of Abraham, correlates with the sphragis as God’s adopted. Just as Israel is God’s chosen people with the circumcision, “Baptism is the seal of the new alliance, and of incorporation into the new Israel” (63). Then, typological references throughout the Old Testament with washing and entering into a new life through the Great Deluge with Noah, the Crossing of the Red Sea with Moses, and figures washing in the Jordan from Naaman to Christ in the New Testament. The signifying actions of Baptism are reinforced over and over in the Bible.
For the sacrament of Confirmation, which in our Western world is little known about, it strengthens the soul from becoming the ‘new man’ in Baptism to maturing and receiving the Holy Spirit to become the ‘perfect man’ for the eternal Bridegroom. Looking back at the chrism oil of Baptism, the oil of Confirmation was called the muron. Within Confirmation, there is a laying on of hands, an anointing of the candidate. Where else is anointing seen in Scripture? Moses, by his brother Aaron, receives a laying on of hands after crossing the Red Sea and Peter, as the first Pope, receives and gives a laying on of hands as the visible head of the universal Church (117). Just with these two examples, these men received the muron as a strengthening of the grace needed to carry on their mission, which were pivotal roles in salvation history. Therefore, confirmation is not simply a congratulation for receiving Baptism and now you are old enough to graduate. But, “in Confirmation there takes place a new outpouring of the Spirit having for its object to bring to perfection the spiritual energies called forth in the soul by Baptism” (119). Inching closer to the Bridegroom, confirmation opens the heart to pursue the Lord fully in the Christian life.
As the source and summit of the Christian faith, the sacrament of the Eucharist gives us daily the sanctifying grace to be in union with God as the Eternal Bridegroom. The nourishment of bread is scattering in typology through the Old Testament with examples of the high priest Melchseidech offering bread to God and the sustenance of the Israelites with the manna in the desert. Bread as a type of sustenance for the people of God was known but how does this transition to the importance of the Eucharist for entering into intimacy with God as the Bridegroom?
With the Paschal Mystery that we just celebrated and are still rejoicing in the Easter season, Christ offers Himself as the Paschal Lamb. Following this theme of a seal or physical anointing, Christ as the Passover Lamb grants “the blood as a sign is the mystery (mysterion) in blood of the seal (sphragis)” (164). This sacrificial offering is offered in the present moment with the sacrament of the Eucharist, which is now a joining of types in the reception of bread and wine as sustenance from before but now elevates in a meaning of receiving Christ’s Body and Blood. And if Baptism was the marking of the seal (sphragis) as adopted and Confirmation is the strengthening of the Holy Spirit with the anointing (muron) as the perfected man, the blood of the New Covenant is now the seal of intimacy with God.
The partaking of the Eucharist is an entering into communion with God as the closest union within humanity; this understanding of bride and Bridegroom. God the Lover has placed a seal on your heart since Baptism. Jean Daniélou says it well: “the Eucharistic communion in which the Body of Christ is placed on the lips of the baptized who has been purified from his sins, is truly the kiss given by Christ to the soul, the expression of the union of love which He has contracted with her” (205). The Bridegroom imagery is so integral to how we should view the Sacraments of Initiation. You have embarked on a lifelong relationship with God, who now after receiving the Eucharist, you have entered into a Divine Romance with.
The Sacraments of Initiation have given you the grace to enter back into right relationship with God. They are more than just rites of passage. Jean Daniélou explains that “the true meaning of the sacramental mystery appears, beyond the veil of the rites. It is the mystery of the love of God for the soul, arousing the love of the soul for God. Through these symbols, which seem to take us further away from the literal meaning of the sacraments, their deepest truth is unveiled to our eyes” (201). Throughout the rest of your life now as a child of God, you have the grace to delve deeper into the beauty of the mystery of God as a Lover.
Quotations from Jean Daniélou’s The Bible and the Liturgy