Monday 11 January 2021

Baptised to be Social


W

hen were you baptised?

Most Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians were baptised as infants. Christians of other denominations tend to be baptised as youths or young adult, some reject the validity of baptising infants altogether—despite biblical evidence to the contrary (children would have belonged to the households that were baptised, e.g, Acts 10; 16:1-34), and its occurrence since the early Church.

Without denigrating the equal value of those baptisms which happen to be valid, carried out upon those who are older, sometimes because they or their family discovered Christ when they were older, sometimes because they simply didn’t get around to it, or it was the custom of their particular ecclesial community—objectively speaking, the younger the better.

Once we appreciate what Baptism is and does to the soul, we cannot but arrive at this conclusion. A conclusion which the early Church arrived at, for which reason, it established itself as a sacramental and liturgical tradition. This is attested in the Apostolic Tradition (xxi.4), attributed to Hippolytus (approx. 230 AD), or by some scholars, as late at 400 AD: 

And (δ́ε) they shall baptise (βαπτ́ιζειν) the little children first. And if they can answer for themselves, let them answer. But if they cannot, let their parents answer or (́ἠ) someone from their family (γ́ενος).1

Anyhow, this isn’t an apologetic article defending infant baptism. This is just a brief reflection on what can often be brushed off as a boring and forgettable topic.

It’s easy to brush the topic of baptism off as something that happened to us in the past, or some rite we’re used to attending for babies in the family.

When was the last time you thought about your baptism?

Do you know the date you were baptised?

Have you ever thanked God for the gift of your baptism?

If you were baptised as an infant or child, have you ever owned your baptism?

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” (Jn 3:5).

To be born in the flesh is to be born in the natural order and is to be ordered to a natural end, and in this fallen world, that end is death.

We’re pretty much stuffed if that’s all there is. Without God, without the reality of the spiritual domain of existence, our natural birth orders us to the natural end of death. Compost for worms. Or, for those who try to romanticise the latter—star dust. Some people actually rejoice at this idea. Star dust for eternity? It's like the worst ending ever. Not even slightly romantic. One probably needs to get out more if that's an appealing idea for an eternal destiny.

The minds of many settle on this and may fain an attitude of either dogged nihilistic resignation, “Meh. Such is life,” or else pretend eternal annihilation of their personal being is somehow 'beautiful.'

The human heart is not satisfied with this answer, not because there’s something in us which strives to survive in vain, in spite of the cold hard reality of things, but because our heart knows a truth which our minds may have forgotten, which our culture and world has long forgotten. Our heart, beating not so much between our lungs, as it does in our soul, beats with a truth beyond empirical observation: we have an immortal soul which can only be satisfied if it can live forever and be happy forever. Anything short of this, and the human heart is not satisfied. It can’t handle compromise on this point, even if the mind is willing to be duped so as to do away with the strangeness of having to believe in what cannot be seen with the eyes, and cannot be known without the aid of faith.

Faith is what it takes to believe in the words of Christ: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” (Jn 3:5). It takes faith to believe that we can be born again and are born again in baptism. It sounds obvious, but have we actually, and do we actually, believe in our Baptism?

Faith is a gift, and it comes to those who ask for it. Yes, it’s infused into the soul at Baptism, but still, it needs to be used, we have to actively choose to believe, to want to believe. “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mk 9:24).

Those of us who have been baptised before the age of reason, in a special way, have to at some point profess our belief in the mystery of what took place at our Baptism, saying, “I believe”. We do so publicly as a congregation when we recite the Creed, “I believe in one baptism,” but there’s value in doing so on our own, privately, between just God and ourselves. Even then, it doesn’t hurt to renew our belief and gratitude in the baptism we have received.

What exactly is it we are believing in?

If by our birth in the flesh, in the natural order, we’re ordered to a natural end—death, by our supernatural birth in the Spirit, a birth in the supernatural order, we’re ordered to a supernatural end—eternal life. Our first birth takes place in temporality, within time, in the world, our second birth takes place outside of time, in eternity, in God (albeit through time and the elements of the world).

That’s all well and good. It’s 101 Christian stuff. But we’ll never be able to appreciate enough the profundity of this truth of our Baptism. Just as a newborn child must still grow in the order of nature, so too we must grow in the supernatural order. Nevertheless, even if we have much growing to do, those of us who have been baptised can say with St. Paul, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; the life I now live in the flesh [here and now], I live by faith in the Son of God, the one who having loved me and given himself up for me” (Gal 2:20).

We’re in Jesus. We live in Jesus.

Grave and mortal sin may crucify this life within the soul. By it we commit spiritual murder against the life of the Son of God within us. It’s not that we harm Him who is now glorified, but we harm ourselves, the presence of His life within us, and contribute in the past to that single crucifixion by which all sins, past, present and future, played a horrifying part.

Perfect contrition and repentance restores this life. The Sacrament of Confession its ordinary and visible guarantee.

The Eucharist nourishes this life. By it we grow. The Mass is the feast at which we’re nourished.

Hours of Adoration and prayer is the company we need to be socially fit for communing for heaven. That’s what prayer is—socialising with God. We all know what happens to people who fail to be properly socialised. Especially to children who fail to be adequately socialised. I can recall to mind the images of children who were neglected and left to be raised by packs of wild dogs, or wolves. Studies show the effects improper socialisation has on the development of the human brain. There are milder examples too—people we know, decent people, but who suffer with social inabilities. Maybe ourselves as well.

Once the damage is done, it’s hard to remedy. Often, it’s not simply the fault of the one who struggles to socialise to maintain a healthy social life. Everyone has their issues, and some have scarring backgrounds. In some ways, maybe we can’t all be aptly sociable, but the real question is, are we aptly sociable in the Spirit or are we spiritually antisocial? Are we antisocial in the eyes of God and heaven? This is a domain of socialising, by grace, within every Christian’s capacity, and our own weakness is an asset in this! (2 Cor 12:8).

Do we want to die as lame-o’s when we get to heaven? Shy little squirts incapable of relating to God, to Christ, to the angels and saints?

Forget about hell, that’s the antisocial domain of eternity—there’s no socialising down there, even if some joke about ‘having a beer’ with Satan. Sorry, the fallen angel who chose eternal spite and hate over eternal joy and love isn’t exactly going to be anyone’s mate. There's no frosty's down there, and certainly if there were, there would be no 'happy hour.'

For those who die with Christ’s life in them, bestowed by God in the Sacrament of Baptism—not the only, but the ordinary, and only guaranteed and visible way He bestows this life—heaven is a guarantee. But purgatory is the meantime place where those go who, while dying with Christ's life in them, remain somewhat socially inept for heaven, and here, in purgatory, they complete their socialisation—learning how to love and commune with Love itself, with God who is a Triune Community of Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Here the soul learns to commune with God, is purified to relate with He Who is Power and Might, Who loves with a power and might enough to destroy trillions of universes. No wonder we need to be “socialised” to this great God. It’s quite a process to allow His grace to equip our fragile nature with the capacity to commune with Him on a supernatural level face to Face.

Why would we want to wait and delay the eternal company and intimacy for which we were made for? We shouldn’t want to go to purgatory, and we need not, God can do all things with an open and generous heart.

To grow in the flesh as a normal, healthy human being with a balanced life, we need to be social.

Thus, here and now, not later, we need to socialise with God, with Christ, especially as He is present in the Eucharist, and after that, in the Word, and in the People, who make up His Church, especially the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Joseph, the Saints, and by fellowship on ground-zero with those who make up the visible Church in our midst.

Venerable Archbishop Sheen describes Confirmation as "the great social sacrament" (Your Life is Worth Living, Sheen). Confirmation, as we know, is the Sacrament which fortifies and emboldens the supernatural life we receive in baptism. It would be wrong to say it completes baptism, but rather, it helps bring to completion that which baptism brings us: the Trinitarian Life, the Great Social Life, the Super-Social Life, the Beyond-Social-Life!

John the Baptist says of Christ and His Baptism—the Baptism into which we as Christian’s were Baptised:

“He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit” (Mk 1:8b).

Both the Greek and Aramaic texts render the following translation:

“He will baptise you in the Holy Spirit,” or, to be more literal, to escape the true and valuable, but sometimes obfuscating etymological weight of the word “baptism,” we can equally say:

“He will immerse you in the Holy Spirit”.

We’ve been immersed in the Spirit. Not any old spirit, not some abstract dimension of reality or impersonal force that imbibes the universe. We have been immersed by our baptism into the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Living God, God Himself, Who is Holy Spirit. This Spirit is the Love, the Life, the Gift, the Donum, the Communion, between Father and Son. To be immersed in the Spirit is thus to be immersed into a Communion, into the Relationship of relationships, the Relationship of the Holy Trinity: of Father and Son in the Holy Spirit.

Yes, like Paul, we live our mortal life down here, but our real life is the eternal life of Christ, and thus, inescapably, of the Holy Trinity, we received in Baptism.

Is it dead in us? Then it is time to let Christ awaken it through Confession.

Is it alive in us? Well, let’s thank the Lord for it! Let us live this life in prayer and community. By prayer, we socialise directly with God, and by participating in human community, especially in Church, we socialise with our neighbour in whom God indwells.

Let us “walk not according to the flesh,” living by putting the stuff of this mortal life as our motivating goal but let us “walk… according to the Spirit… setting our minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death,” for that is all that’s waiting for us at the end of this natural life of ours—the moth, the worm; but “to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace,” for the Spirit will not end, and nor will that life we live now by faith in the Son of God who loved us, who loves us, and will love us forevermore (cf., Rom 8:4-6).

To be baptised, to be immersed in the Love of God, is to live, walk, move, work, sleep, pray, build relations, reach-out, help, rest, love, all for the Love of God, the Love of Christ, which makes us love and give ourselves up for Him “who has loved and given himself up for me” (Gal 2:20).

Our life has but one purpose, we were baptised for one purpose: to be enabled to live forever so that we can love Him forever, and forever enjoy His love.

Yes, we were baptised to be social. To live in high society. To be social with God, and in Him, with Him, and through Him, with angels and men.

 

1. The Apostolic Tradition as translated in Gregory Dix and Henry Chadwick, The Treatise on the Apostolic Tradition of St Hippolytus of Rome, Bishop and Martyr. 2nd, rev. ed. ed. United Kingdom: Routledge, 1995. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203060988.