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II.2. Baptism, the Sacrament of Adoption and Initiation: Death and Life

Summary. — Baptism, the first of all the Sacraments. — I. Sacrament of the Divine adoption. — Il. Sacrament of Christian initiation ; symbolism and grace of Baptism explained by St. Paul. — III. How the life of Christ contains the double aspect of “ death” and of “life” that Baptism reproduces in us. — IV. All Christian life is only the practical development of the double initial grace given at Baptism: ” death to sin” and "life for God”. The sentiments that remembrance of Baptism ought to give birth to in us: gratitude, joy and confidence.

HE first attitude of the soul towards the revelation made to us of the Divine plan of our adoption is, as we have seen, faith. Faith is the root of all justifi- cation and the principle of the Christian life. It embraces, as to its primordial object, the Divinity of Jesus sent by the Eternal Father to work out our salvation: Haec est vita aeterna ut cognoscant te solum Deum verum et quem misisti Jesum Christum 2.

From this principal object, faith radiates on everything referring to Christ: — the Sacraments, the Church, souls, the whole of revelation and, when it culminates in love and adoration yielding all our being to the full accomplishment of the will of Jesus and of His Father, it reaches perfection.

But faith is not enough.

When Our Lord sent forth His Apostles to continue His sanctifying mission upon earth, He said ” he that believeth not shall be condemned”. He adds nothing further as for those who will not believe because, faith being the root of all justification, everything done without faith is valueless in God’s sight: Sine fide impossibile est placere Deo*, but for those who believe, Christ adds the reception of Baptism as the condition of incorporation into His kingdom. ” He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved?”. St. Paul likewise says that ’ as many of you as have been baptized... have put on Christ?”. Baptism is the first in date of all the Sacraments; Divine life is first infused into us at Baptism. All divine and supernatural communications converge towards this Sacrament or normally pre-suppose it : thence its value.1

Let us stay to consider this; we shall find in it the origin of our titles to supernatural nobility, for Baptism is the Sacrament of Divine adoption and of Christian initiation.

At the same time we shall especially find in it, as in its germ, the double aspect of ” death to sin” and ” life for God” which ought to characterise the whole existence of a disciple of Christ.

Let us ask the Holy Spirit, Who with His Divine virtue sanctified the baptismal waters in which we were regenerated,to make us understand the greatness of this Sacrament and the engagements it involves. Its reception marked for us the ever blessed moment when we became children of the Heavenly Father, brethren of Christ Jesus, and when our souls were consecrated as temples of this Divine Spirit.

I

Baptism is the Sacrament of Divine adoption.

I have shown you it is by Divine adoption that we become children of God. Baptism is like the spiritual birth by which the life of grace is conferred upon us.

We possess in us, first of all, the natural life, the life we receive from our parents according to the flesh; by it we enter into the human family; this life lasts some years and then ends in death. If we had only this natural life, we should never behold the Face of God. It makes us children of Adam, and, by that very fact, stained from our conception, with original sin. Issued from Adam’s race, we have received a life poisonéd at its source; we share in the disgrace of the head of our race; we are born, says St. Paul, Filii irae, ” children of wrath”; Quisquis nascitur, Adam nascitur, damnatus de damnato*. This natural life which plunges its roots in sin, is of itself sterile for heaven: Caro non prodest quidquam*.2

But this natural life, Ea voluntate viri, ex voluntate carnis, is not the only one. God, as I have said, wills to give us a higher life which, without destroying the natural life in so far as it is good, surpasses it, upraises and deifies it. God wills to communicate His own life to us.

We receive this Divine life through a new birth, a spiritual birth by which we are born of God: Ex Deo nati sunt”.

~This life is a participation in the life of God; it is, of its nature, immortal*. If we possess it here below, we have the pledge of eternal beatitude, heredes Dei; if we have it not, we are forever excluded from the Divine fellowship.

Now the regular means, instituted by Christ, for us to be born to this life, is Baptism.

You know that episode related by St. John*, of the interview of Nicodemus with Our Lord. This doctor of the Jewish law and member of the great council comes to find Jesus, doubtless so as to become His disciple, for he regards Christ as a Prophet. Our Lord replies to his question: ” Amen, amen, I say to thee, unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God”. Nicodemus, not understanding, asks Christ: ” How can a man be born when he is old?” What does Our Lord reply? What He had already said, but explaining it; ” Amen, amen, I say to thee, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God *”. And Our Lord next contrasts the two lives, the natural and the supernatural. ” That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit, is spirit”. And He concludes anew: ” Wonder not, that I say to thee, you must be born again ””,

The Church, at the Council of Trent*®, determined the interpretation of this passage, applying it to Baptism: The

  1. Joan. vi, 64. — 2. Ibid. 1,13. — 3. Renati non ex semine corruptibili sed incorruptibili per Verbum Dei vivi et permanentis in aeternum. I Petr. 1, 23. — 4. Joan. m, 1.sq. — 5. To be baptized, that is to say, to be plunged in the water, in order to be purified, was something very well known to the Jews ; it only remained to explain to them that there was to be a Baptism in which the Holy Spirit, uniting Himself to the water, would renew the spirit of man. Bossuet, Meditations upon the Gospel. XXXVIth day. — 6. Sess. VII. De Baptismo. can. 2. water regenerates the soul by the virtue of the Holy Spirit. The ablution of the water, sensible element, and the effusion of the Spirit, divine element, join to produce the supernatural birth. This is what St. Paul has already said: ” God saved us, not by the works of justice we have done, but according to His mercy... by the laver of regeneration, and renovation of the Holy Ghost, Whom He hath poured forth upon us abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour; that being justified by His grace, we may be heirs, according to hope of life everlasting? ”.

Thus, you see, Baptism constitutes the Sacrament of adoption. Plunged in the sacred waters, we are there born to the Divine life; that is why St. Paul calls one who is baptised, “a new man?”. God, in making us partakers of His nature in so liberal a manner, by a gift infinitely exceeding all we could hope or expect, creates us, so to speak, anew We are — it is still the great Apostle’s expression — ” a new creature”, Nova creatura*; and because this life is Divine, it is the whole Trinity Who makes this gift to us.

At the beginning of time, the Trinity presided over the creation of man; Faciamus hominem ad imaginem et similitudinem nostram‘*; it is also in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost that our new birth is wrought. It is however, as the words of Jesus and of St. Paul denote, especially attributed to the Holy Ghost, because it is especially through love that God adopts us ; Videte qualem caritatem... dedit nobis Pater ut filu Dei nominemur et simus °.

This thought is laid stress on in the prayers for Holy Saturday when the Bishop blesses the baptismal waters to be used in the Sacrament. Listen to some of these prayers, they are very full of significance: ” O Almighty and Eternal God... send forth the Spirit of adoption to regenerate the new people whom the font of baptism bringeth forth...” ” Took down, O Lord, on Thy Church and multiply in her Thy new generations”. Then the Bishop calls upon the Divine Spirit to sanctify these waters: ” May the Holy Spirit vouchsafe by a secret impression of His Divinity to render fruitful this water for the regeneration of men: to the end that those who are sanctified in the immaculate womb of this divine font, and born again new creatures, may come forth a heavenly offspring”. All the mysterious rites which the Church multiplies at this moment, all the invocations of this magnificent benediction replete with symbolism, are full of this thought: — that it is the Holy Ghost Who sanctifies the waters in order that those who are plunged in them may be born to the divine life, after having been purified from all sin: Descendat in hanc plenitudinem fontis virtus Spiritus Sancti... regenerandi faecundet effectu, ’so that all who receive this sacrament of regeneration may be born again, new children of perfect innocence ”.3

Such is the greatness of this sacrament: it is the efficacious sign of our divine adoption; it is by it that we truly become the children of God and are incorporated with Christ. It opens the door to every heavenly gift. Remember this truth: all God’s mercies towards us, all His condescension proceed from our adoption. When we turn the gaze of our soul towards Divinity, the first thing that is unveiled to us of the eternal counsels regarding us, is the decree of our . adoption in Jesus Christ; and all the favours God may shower down upon our souls here below, until the day when He communicates Himself to us for ever in the beatitude of His Trinity, have for their first link this initial grace of Baptism, to which they are attached. At this predestinated moment, we entered into the family of God, we became members of a Divine race, assured in principle, of an eternal inheritance. At the hour of our baptism, Christ engraves an indelible character upon our soul, we receive the pignus Spiritus 1, the pledge of the Divine Spirit, which renders us worthy of the complacency of the Eternal Father, and assures us, if we are faithful to preserve this pledge, of all the favours God gives to those whom He regards as His children.

That is why the Saints, who have such clear insight into supernatural realities, have always held baptismal grace in most high esteem. The day of baptism was for us the dawn of Divine liberality and future glory.

II

Baptism will appear even greater to us if we consider it under the aspect of the Sacrament of Christian initiation.

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Our Divine adoption is made, as I have said, in Jesus Christ. We only become children of God in order to be made conformable, by grace, to the Only-Begotten Son of the Father. Never let us forget that God has only predestined us to adoption in His beloved Son: Praedestinavit nos in adoptionem filiorum per Jesum Christum... ut esset Ipse primogenitus in multis fratribus*. Moreover, the satisfactions of Christ have merited this grace for us, as it is always Christ Who remains our Model when it is our. will to live as children of the Heavenly Father. We shall perfectly understand this if we recall the manner in which neophytes were primitively initiated in the Christian mysteries.

In the first ages of the Church, as you know, Baptism was ordinarily conferred only on adults after a rather long period of preparation, during which the neophyte was instructed in the truths he was to believe. It was on Holy Saturday, or rather, during the very night preceding the Pascal solemnities, that the sacrament was administered in the Baptistery, a small building detached from the Church, as is to be seen in Italian cathedrals. The rites of the blessing of the baptismal font by the Bishop being ended, the catechumen, that is to say, the aspirant to Baptism, descends into the font: there he is as the Greek word indicates Baxz:oety, ” plunged” into the water while the Bishop pronounces the sacramental words: “I baptize thee in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost”. The catechumen is then, as it were, buried under the waters whence he next comes out by the steps on the opposite side: there the god-father awaits and ministers to him. When all the catechumens are baptised, the Bishop gives each of them a white garment as a symbol of the purity of their hearts; then he signs the brow of each with an unction made of consecrated oil, saying: ” May Almighty God Who has regenerated thee with water and the Holy Ghost, and has forgiven all thy sins, Himself anoint thee unto eternal life ”. When all these rites are ended, the procession returns to the basilica; the newly-baptised walk in front, clad in white and bearing lighted candles in their hands, the symbol of Christ, the Light of the world. Then begins the Mass of the Resurrection, celebrating the triumph of Christ come forth victorious from the tomb, and animated with the new life He communicates to all His elect. The Church is so happy in this new increase which she has just added to Christ’s flock that during eight days they have a place apart in the basilica, and the liturgy will be full of the thought of them during all the Paschal octave?. As you see, these ceremonies are, to begin with, full of symbolism. They symbolise, according to St. Paul, Jesus Christ’s death and burial, followed by His Resurrection, in which the Christian shares.4

But there is something more than a symbol, there is the grace that is produced. And though the ancient rites, laying stress on this symbolism, have been simplified since the custom was introduced of baptising infants, the virtue of the Sacrament remains the same. The substantial rites are retained, bearing in them the inward grace of the sacrament.

St. Paul gives us a very deep explanation of the primitive symbolism and of baptismal grace. This summary of his leading idea will make us better understand his words afterwards.

The immersion in the waters of the font represents the death and burial of Christ: we have our part in them by burying in the sacred waters sin and all affection to sin which we renounce. The ” old man?” stained by Adam’s sin, disappears under the waters and is buried (only the dead are buried) asin a tomb. The coming forth from the baptismal font is the birth of the new man, purified from sin, regenerated by the water made fruitful by the Holy Ghost; the soul of the baptized is adorned with grace, the principle of Divine life, adorned too, with the infused virtues

  1. The catechumens who are hindered by absence or insufficient preparation, from receiving Baptism on the night of Easter, will receive it on the eve of Pentecost, the solemnity which. commemorates the visible coming of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles, and at the same time closes the Paschal season. The same solemn rites of the blessing of the font and of the administration of the sacrament, are repeated. To the Paschal symbolism, which remains in its entirety, is then added more explicitly the intention of the Holy Spirit, Who, by His Divine virtue, regenerates the soul in the baptismal waters. Like the Masses for the Easter octave, those of the octave of Pentecost, contain more than one allusion to the newly-baptized. — 2. The "old man” denotes with St. Paul, the natural man such as he is born and lives from the moral point of view as the son of Adam, before being regenerated in Baptism by the grace of Jesus Christ. and gifts of the Holy Ghost. It was a sinner who was plunged into the font, he has there left all his sins, and it is a just man who comes forth from it, imitating Christ come forth from His tomb and living the Divine life +.

Such is the grace of Baptism, expressed by symbolism, a symbolism especially full of significance, when Baptism was administered on Easter night.

Let us listen to St. Paul’s own words: ” Know you not that all we who are baptised (in order to become members of the mystical body of Christ) are baptised in His death ” ? That is to say, that the death of Jesus is for us the model and meritorious cause of our death to sin in Baptism. Why. are we to die? Because Christ our Model died: complaniati facti sumus similitudini mortis ejus. And what is it that dies ? Vitiated and corrupt nature, the ” old man”. Vetus homo noster stmut crucifixus est. And why? That we may be free from sin: Ut destrwatur corpus peccati et ultra non serviamus peccato. "We are”, St. Paul continues, in explaining this symbolism ” buried together with Christ by baptism unto death, that as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life?”.

This explains the engagement by which we are bound through the grace of Baptism to ” walk in newness of life” that life which Christ our Model shows us in His Resurrection. Why is this? Because “If we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His Resurrection; knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him that the body of sin may be. destroyed, to the end that we may serve sin no longer: for he that is dead is justified from sin*”. So then at Baptism we have renounced sin for ever.

  1. Ut unius ejusdemque elementi mysterio et finis esset vitiis et origo virtutibus. — Solemn blessing of the baptismal font on Holy Saturday. — 2. Rom. vi, 3-13. Sicut ille qui sepelitur sub terra, ita qui baptizatur immergitur sub aqua. Unde et in baptismo fit trina immersio non solum propter fidem Trinitatis sed etiam ad repraesentanduri triduum sepulturae Christi, et inde est quod in sabbato sancto baptismus in Ecclesia celebratur. S. Thom. In Epist ad Rom. c. VI, 1, 1. — 3. "Sinful man,” Says S. Thomas, "is buried, by baptism, in the Passion and Death of Christ; it is as if he himself suffered and died with the sufferings and death of the Saviour. And as the Passion and death of Christ have the power of satisfying for sin and all the debt of sin, the soul associated through Baptism with this satisfaction is free from all debt towards the justice of God.” ILL fq#txrTx Va. 2.

That is not enough. We have besides received the germ of divine life, and it is this germ that we must, likewise for ever, develop in us. This is what St. Paul adds: ” Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall live also together with Christ”: and that, unceasingly. ” Knowing that Christ, (Who is not only our Model, but Who infuses His grace in us) rising again from the dead, dieth no more; death shall no more have dominion over Him: for in that He died to sin, He died once; but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God”.

St. Paul concludes his demonstration of this truth, with this application addressed to those who, by baptism, are partakers of the death and life of Christ, their Model : ” So do you also reckon that you are dead to sin, but alive unto God, in Christ Jesus, Our Lord”, with Whom you are incorporated by the grace of Baptism: ITA ET VOS existimate, vos mortuos quidem esse peccato, viventes autem Deo in Christo Jesu?.

Such are the words of the great Apostle. According to him, Baptism represents the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus, and it produces what it represents: it makes us die to sin, it makes us live in Jesus Christ.

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The better to understand this profound doctrine, we must clearly define this double aspect of the life of Christ which is reproduced in us from our Baptism and ought to affect our whole life.

As I have said, the Divine plan of the supernatural adoption conferred on Adam was crossed by sin; the sin of the head of humankind was transmitted to all his race and excluded it from the eternal kingdom. In order that the gates of heaven might be re-opened, reparation was needed for the offence against God, an adequate and total satisfaction which should efface the infinite malice of the sin. Man, being only a creature, was incapable of making it. The Incarnate Word, God made man, took the charge upon Himself; and on this account, all His life, until the moment of the consummation of His sacrifice, was marked with a character of death. Certainly, Our Divine Saviour has neither contracted original sin, nor committed any personal sin, nor borne the consequences of sin incompatible with His Divinity, such as error, ignorance, sickness. He is in all things like to His brethren, save that He never knew sin. He is rather the Lamb Who takes away the sins of the world. He comes to save sinners. But God has laid upon Him the iniquity of sinners; and Christ, from His entrance into this world, having accepted the sacrifice His Father required of Him, all His existence, from the Crib to Calvary, bears the mark of the victim?.5

See Him in the humiliations of Bethlehem; see Him fleeing before the wrath of Herod; toiling in a workshop, and, during His public life, suffering the hatred of His enemies; see Him during His bitter Passion, from the moment of His Agony that filled Him with weariness and anguish, to the abandonment by His Father, on the Cross; see Him like a lamb led to the slaughter? ; like a worm cursed and trodden underfoot , for He is come ” in the likeness of sinful flesh”; being the propitiation for the crimes of the whole world, it is not until His death on the gibbet that He pays off the universal debt. This death has won for us everlasting life. Jesus Christ slays and destroys sin at the very moment when death strikes Him. He, the innocent One, is the victim of all the sins of men:

Mors et vita duello conflixere mirando Dux vitae mortuus regnat vivus *.

” Together Death and Life in a strange conflict strove: the Prince of Life Who died now lives and reigns”.

The Prophet had long before exalted this triumph of ‘Christ: ” O Death, I will be thy death; O Death, where is thy victory” ? And St. Paul, repeating these same words, replies: ” Death is swallowed up in victory ”, the victory of Christ coming forth from the tomb®. Mortem nostram moriendo destruxit et vitam resurgendo reparavit”.

  1. Christ however, cannot be said to be a " penitent” in the strict sense of the word; a ” penitent” must pay a personal debt to justice ; Christ ‘is a holy and sinless high priest; the debt He pays is the debt of the ‘human race, but He only pays it because He substitutes Himself, out of love, for us all. — 2. Jerem. x, 199. —3. Ps. xxi, 7. —4. Rom. viut,3. — 5. Sequence for Easter Sunday. — 6. I Cor. xv, 54-55; cf. Osee x, - 14. — 7. Preface for Paschal time.

Christ, the life of the soul. Ir

For, once risen, Christ has taken a new life. Christ dies. no more, “death has no more dominion over Him”. He has destroyed sin once for all, and His life is henceforward a life for God, a glorious life to be crowned on the day of His Ascension.

But, you will say; Has not Christ’s life always been a life for God ? Certainly it has; Christ Jesus only lived for His Father. On coming into the world, He gave Himself up entirely to His Father’s will: Ecce venio ut faciam, Deus, voluntatem tuam. That is His food: Meus cibus est ut faciam voluntatem ejus qui misit me*. He accepts even His Passion because He loves His Father: Ut cognoscat mundus quia diligo Patrem*. Despite the repugnance of His sensibility, He takes the chalice offered in His agony and does not die till all is consummated. He can truly sum up all His life in saying that He always did the things that pleased His Father: Quae placita sunt ei facio semper *, for He ever sought His Father’s glory: Non quaero gloriam meam, sed honorifico Patrem meum °.

So then it is true that, even before His Resurrection, Our Lord only lived for God. His life was entirely devoted to the interests and glory of His Father; but, until then, His life was also entirely shadowed with the character of a victim ; — whilst, once risen from the tomb, free henceforth from any debt towards Divine justice, Christ no longer lives except for God. It is henceforward a perfect life, a life in all its fulness and splendour, without any infirmity, any perspective of expiation, death, or even suffering: Mors illi ultra non dominabitur. Allin the Risen Christ bears the character of life — glorious life, of which the wonderful prerogatives of liberty and incorruptibility are manifested, even here below, to the dazzled eyes of the disciples, in His body freed from all servitude; a life which is an uninterrupted song of thanksgiving and praise; a life to be for ever exalted on the day of the Ascension, when Christ was definitely to take possession of the glory due to His Humanity. This double aspect of death and of life characterising the existence of the Incarnate Word amongst men, and realising its maximum of intensity and splendour in His Passion and6

Resurrection, ought to be reproduced in every Christian, in all those who have been incorporated with Christ in Baptism, for we became disciples of Jesus in the sacred font, by an act symbolising His Death and Resurrection. That is what St. Augustine so well says: ” Our way is Christ: therefore look at Christ. He has come to suffer in order to merit glory; to seek to be scorned in order to be exalted. He has come to die but also to rise again?”. This is the very echo of what St. Paul says: Ita et vos existimate. We should regard ourselves as dead to sin ?, as having renounced sin, so as only to live for God. When we contemplate Christ, what do we find in Him? A mystery of death and of life: Tvraditus est propter delicta nostra et resurrexit propter justificationem nostram*. The Christian continues in his life this double element that makes him one with Christ. St. Paul is very explicit on this point; he says: ” buried with Him in Baptism, in Whom also you are risen again... And you, when you were dead (to eternal life) in your sins... He hath quickened together with Him, forgiving you all offences*”. As Christ left the winding-sheet — the image of His state of death and life subject to suffering — behind Him in the tomb, so have we left all our sins in the baptismal waters; in the same way that Christ came forth free and living from the sepulchre, so we have come forth from the sacred font, not only purified from all sin, but with the soul adorned, through the operation of the Holy Ghost, with grace, the principle of Divine life, and its train of virtues and gifts. The soul has become a temple where the Holy Trinity abides, and the object of Divine complacency.

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There is one truth we must not lose sight of, and to which St. Paul has already alluded. It is that this Divine, Godgiven life is only in a state of germ. It must grow and develop in the same way as our renunciation of sin, our ” death to sin” must unceasingly be renewed and sustained.

We lost everything at once by one single fault of Adam, but in Baptism God does not give us back at once all the integrity of the divine gift. In order that it may be a source of merit because of the efforts it calls forth, He leaves in us concupiscence, the source of sin, which tends to diminish or destroy the divine life. Therefore our whole existence ought to be the realisation of what Baptism inaugurates. By Baptism, we communicate in the mystery and divine virtue of Christ’s death and risen life. ” Death to sin” is wrought; but on account of the concupiscence remaining in us, we must maintain this death by continual renunciation of Satan, of his suggestions and works, and the sollicitations of the world and the flesh. Grace is the principle of life in us, but it is a germ we must cultivate; it is that kingdom of God within us that Our Lord Himself compares to a grain of mustard-seed which becomes a great tree. So it is with the divine life in us.7

Listen how St. Paul points out this truth. He tells the Colossians that by Baptism they have stripped themselves of the old man with his works of death (descended from Adam): and have put on the new man created in justice and truth (the soul regenerated in Jesus Christ by the Holy Ghost) ” according to the image of Him that created him*”. St. Paul likewise tells the faithful of Ephesus who have been taught in the school of Christ, ”’to put off, according to former conversation, the old man who is corrupted according to the desire of error, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind. And put on the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness of truth?”. As long then, as we are making our earthly pilgrimage here below, we must pursue this double work of death to sin and life for God: Ita et vos extstimate.

In God’s designs, this death to sin is definitive, and this life is, of itself, immortal: but we can lose this life and fall again into death by sin. Our work therefore is to guard and develop this germ until at the last day we arrive at the fulness of the age of Christ. All Christian asceticism proceeds from baptismal grace. Its aim is to cultivate the divine germ cast into the soul by the Church on the day of her children’s initiation, so that being free from all obstacle, it may open out and blossom. Christian life 1s nothing else but the progressive and continuous development, the practical application, throughout our whole life, of this double supernatural result of “death” and of "life” produced by Baptism. There is all the program of Christianity. In the same way too, our final beatitude is nothing else but the total and definitive freedom from sin, death, and suffering, and the glorious unfolding of the divine life sown in us when we received this sacrament.8

As you see, the very life and death of Christ are reproduced in our souls from the moment of baptism: but the death is unto life. Oh! if we understood those words of St. Paul: Quicumque in Christo baptizati estis, Christum induistis. " As many of you as have been baptised in Christ have put on Christ?”. Not only have we put on Christ as an outer garment, but we are clad inwardly with Him’. We are ” engrafted” on Him, in Him, says St. Paul, for Christ is the Vine, we are the branches, and it is this divine sap that flows in us* to transform us into Him: In eamdem imaginem transformamur*. By faith in Him, we have received Him in Baptism: His death has become our death to Satan, the works of Satan, and to sin; Christ’s life becomes our life; that initial act by which we were made children of God, made us the brothers and sisters of Christ, incorporated us with Him, made us members of His Church, animated us with His Spirit. Baptised in Christ, we are born through grace, to divine life in Christ. That is why, says St. Paul, we ought to walk in novitate vitae”. Let us

  1. Gal. m, 27. — 2. This truth is signified by the white garment that used to be put on the neophytes coming forth from the baptismal font. At present, at the baptism of children, the priest, after the regenerating ablution, places a white cloth on the head of the baptised. — 3. Si vadix sancta et rami... Tu autem cum oleaster esses... socius radicts et pinguedinis olivae factus es. Rom. x, 16. sq. There is a magnificent prayer of the Church which contains all this doctrine, namely, the one that is said on Whitsun Eve shortly before the solemn benediction of the baptismal font, and the administration of Baptism to the catechumens : "© Almighty and Eternal God, Who by Thy only Son hast shown Thyself to us as the Heavenly Husbandman ; Thou dost cultivate with love the branches rendered fruitful through their union with this same Christ, so that they may bring forth more abundant fruit ; let not the thorns of sin enter the hearts of the faithful whom like a vine transplanted from Egypt, Thou hast made to pass through the baptismal font; protect them by Thy sanctifying Spirit that they may be enriched by a continual harvest of good works.” — Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui per unicum Filium tuum, Ecclesiae tuae demonstrasti te esse cultorem, omnem palmitem fructum in eodem Christo tuo qui vera vitis est, afferentem, clementer excolens ut fructus afferat ampliores ; fidelibus tuts quos velut vinaeam ex Aegypto per fontem baptismi transtulisti, nullae peccatorum spinae praevaleant, ut Spiritus tui sanctificatione munttt, perpetua fruge ditentur. — 4. II Cor. m, 18. — 5. Rom. VI, 4. walk, no longer in the sin we have renounced, but in the light of faith, under the action of the Divine Spirit Who will grant us to bring forth by good works numerous fruits of holiness.

Let us often renew the virtue of this sacrament of adoption and initiation by renewing the promises made in Baptism, so that Christ, born in our souls by faith upon that day, may grow more and more in us ad gloriam Patris. That is a very useful practice of piety. St. Paul, in his letter to his disciple Timothy, admonishes him to stir up the grace of God he received at his priestly ordination. I would say the same thing to you of your baptismal grace: stir up in yourselves the grace received at Baptism, by renewing the promises then made. For example, when after Communion, while Our Lord is really present in our hearts, we renew with faith and love our dispositions of repentance, of renunciation of Satan, sin, and the world, so as to attach ourselves only to Christ and His Church, then the grace of Baptism springs up from the depth of our souls, where the character of Baptism remains indelibly engraved. And this grace produces, through the virtue of Christ, Who dwells in us with His Spirit, as it were a new death to sin, a new inflowing of divine life, a new intensity of union with Jesus Christ.

Thus, as St. Paul says, the outward man, the natural man, approaches ever nearer to death; but the inward man that has received divine life by the supernatural birth of Baptism, and been created again in the righteousness of Christ, ” is renewed day by day”. Ljicet is qui foris est, noster homo corrumpatur, tamen is qui intus est, RENOVATUR DE DIE IN DIEM *.

And this renewal, inaugurated at Baptism, continued during our whole Christian existence, remains until we arrive at the glorious perfection of eternal immortality: Quae enim videntur, temporalia sunt: quae autem non videntur, aeterna sunt*. Here on earth, this divine life is hidden in the depth of the soul. It certainly manifests itself outwardly by actions; but its principle is hidden within us. At the last day only, when Christ our Life shall appear, then we ” also shall appear with Him in glory”: Mortui estis et vita vestra abscondita est cum Christo in Deo: cum CHRISTUS ap- paruerit VITA VESTRA, tunc et vos apparebitis cum ipso m gloria’.9

Whilst awaiting the coming of that blessed day when our inward renewal will shine forth in its eternal beauty, we ought often to thank God from the depths of our hearts for this divine adoption given at Baptism: it is the initial grace whence all others proceed for us. All our greatness has its source in Baptism that gave us divine life. Without this divine life, human life, however full and brilliant it may outwardly appear, is worth nothing for eternity; it is Baptism that gives true fruitfulness to our lives. This gratitude ought to be manifested by a generous and constant fidelity to our baptismal promises. We ought to be so penetrated with the sentiment of our supernatural dignity as Christians that we shall reject all that is contrary to that name, and only seek after what is conformable thereto .

Gratitude is the first sentiment that baptismal grace should cause to arise within us. Joy is the second. We ought never to think of our Baptism without a deep sense of inward gladness. On the day of our Baptism we are born, in principle, to everlasting beatitude. We hold the very pledge of it in this sanctifying grace then given to us; having entered into the family of God, we have a right to share in the heritage of the Only Son. What greater motive of joy could there be for a soul here below than to think that, on this day of her Baptism, the Eternal Father looked upon her with love, and, naming her His child, called her to share in the blessings that overflow from Christ !

Lastly and above all, our souls ought to be full of great confidence. In our relations with our Heavenly Fatlier, we ought to remember we are His children through being partakers of the filiation of Christ Jesus, our Elder Brother. To doubt of our adoption and of the rights it gives us is to doubt Christ Himself. Let us never forget we put on Christ on the day of our Baptism: Christwm induistis, or rather we have been incorporated with Him. We have therefore the right to come before the Eternal Father, and say to Him: Ego sum primogenitus tuus: to speak in the

  1. Col. m, 3-4. — 2. Deus... da cunctis qui christiana professione cet- sentur et illa respuere quae huic inimica sunt nomini et ea quae sunt apta sectari. Collect for the 3rd Sunday after Easter. name of His Son, to ask Him with absolute confidence for all we need.

When we were created, the Holy Trinity said : ” Let Us make man to Our image and likeness”; when adoption was conferred on us at Baptism, the Holy Trinity engraved on our souls the very features of Christ. And that is why when the Eternal Father sees us clad in sanctifying grace, making us like to His Divine Son, He cannot but grant us what we ask of Him — not in our own name, but in that of the One in Whom He is well pleased.

Such is the grace and power that Baptism bestows: it makes us, by supernatural adoption, brothers and sisters of Christ, capable in all truth of sharing His Divine life and everlasting inheritance: Christum induistis.

O Christian, when wilt thou understand thy greatness and dignity?... When wilt thou proclaim, by thy works, that. thou art of a divine race ?... When wilt thou live as a worthy disciple of Christ ?...

Footnotes

    1. Joan. xvu, 3. — 2. Hebr. x1, 6.
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    1. Marc.xvt, 16.— 2. Gal. 11,27.— 3. St. Augustine. Enarr. in Ps.cxxxt1.
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    1. Tit. III, 5-7. — 2. Ephes. 11, 15 ; 1v, 24. — 3. If Cor. v, 17; Gal. v1, 15. — 4. Gen. 1, 26. — 5. I Joan. itt, 1.
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    1. Rom. vit, 29.
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    1. Rom. VI, 3-13.
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    1. Hebr. x, 9. — 2. Joan. Iv, 34. — 3. Ibid. xv, 31. — 4. Ibid. vimt,, 29, — 5. Ibid. 49-50.
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    1. Sermo LXII, c. 2. — 2. "To live to sin”,” to die to sin f are familiar expressions with St. Paul; they signify "to remain in sin’, “to renounce sin”. — 3. Rom. Iv, 25. — 4. Col. 1, 12-13.
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    1. Col, 1, 9-10. — 2. Ephes. tv, 20-24.
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    1. II Cor. tv, 16. —-2. Ibid. 18.
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Chapter 10 of 21