Today, on the feast day of St John the Baptist, I want to start a seven-part homily series on the Sacraments. Long, I know, but it is very important for our faith to know the power of the sacraments and how they save us.
John the Baptist is a good representative of the mystery that we receive in baptism. When we are baptized we are made priests, prophets and royalty. John exemplifies the first two as he was from a priestly family and he was the last of the prophets to herald in our Lord.
To begin with, why do we need baptism? We need baptism because if we are not baptized heaven is not our inheritance. You see, when we are baptized we become a son or daughter of God and the son or daughter has a place in their father’s house. Heaven is not an automatic thing that we are all welcomed to. We must accept the way that God has set up for us. It is true that God has other ways to save us besides baptism, but if we have refused to take His way, the ordinary way, why would He offer something extraordinary when we could have simply received what was offered? The Church definitively teaches that baptism is necessary for salvation. Jesus commands His disciples to baptize in His Name. We must know that God doesn’t suggest things but that perhaps there is something better. No, God only tells us what to do because it is good. He is not like a counsellor who is trying to help us through trial and error. He knows the way to heaven and has offered it; teaching or presuming otherwise is reckless in a most terrible way.
Let us look at a few reasons why it is necessary to be baptized. First, because we can’t save ourselves. Why can’t we? Because in order to enter heaven we must be like God. Heaven is not about doing more good than bad. Heaven is not merely avoiding a few bad things. Heaven is allowing God to make you like Himself. God has to save us and we have to accept that salvation.
When Jesus baptizes us (yes, that is right, Jesus is always the one who baptizes through whoever is baptizing), He clothes you and I with His very self. He gives us power to be like Himself. When we are baptized, we are given the three-fold grace of being a priest, a prophet and royalty. This starts the life of grace.
You might be asking yourself, if that is true, if that is who we are, why are the baptized as bad as anyone else? There are many baptized people who have done horrible things, Hitler and Stalin to name a couple are part of the baptized. I agree there are many baptized people that have done evil. So, we can see that baptism doesn’t prevent you from being bad, we will retain our free will, but what it does is give you the ability to do good, good like no one else has ever done. There are good unbaptized people out there who do good things, but it is quite probable that they used the grace available to them and yet they never rose as far a person like Mother Teresa who accomplished so much good with nothing, who brought hope to the hopeless. No one, apart from the baptized, have the power to do miracles and change the world for the better and inspire people to be their greatest. The baptized who have chosen to use the grace available have achieved super human feats. The baptized have the power to rise above their brokenness or to use their brokenness to achieve great and holy things. Not only does baptism open heaven to us but it allows us an abundance of grace. Though it is right that there are many failures of the baptized, we must not look to the failures to define whether something works but the one who followed the program and used the grace to judge whether a thing works. Just as with a math equation: when the answer is wrong it is not the equation we blame but the person who does not follow the process which brings about the correct answer. The right answer for humanity is to be all that it can be above its weak nature. To make the ordinary extraordinary. That is achieved by grace. Grace is started in baptism.
You may question that I am baptized so why don’t I seem to be better for it? Good point. I think many people probably feel that way and so we have given up on getting better and accepted our weaknesses and thought maybe my weakness or sins simply aren’t that bad. I will simply try to be better than someone else. Of course, we do not simply think this thought but we live it every time we judge another to be worse than ourselves. We are not created to be better than another person we are created to compare ourselves to God, see how we do and adjust accordingly. We can do this with grace.
How then do we live the grace of our baptism? If baptism is so wonderful, how does it work? It works the same way all grace does: when you have grace, you have to ask to use it. One way we can remind ourselves to receive the grace is each time you enter the Church and dip your hands in the Holy Water, you can ask for the renewed grace of baptism. If you are not baptized, you can ask for the grace to desire it.
In the Old Testament, water was used to save the people, the Israelites, who went from slavery in Egypt to freedom as the sons and daughters of God. It is also not an accident that Jesus is called the Beloved Son in whom the Father is well pleased upon His baptism. Our baptism frees us from slavery. You may think I am no slave. But do you fear? Are you proud? Are you in sin? Are you attached to human esteem? Does money determine your worth? Are you thinking that one person will come and give you your value? Is there something that controls you? If you think that you only need 25% more of anything to have it made, you are enslaved to an ideal and you don’t have control and so then you are a slave. Your baptismal graces can offer you freedom in this area. Whenever you are tempted or in fear you can say, “Lord, renew the grace of my baptism. Let me live as your child.” You can ask God when you are feeling insecure about your status in life, “God, what do you think of me?” These are simple ways to use the graces offered you in baptism. The way to live God’s grace of baptism is to daily contact Him, to allow Him opportunities for Him to perfect you. You can’t expect to learn anything from a teacher when you don’t attend their class. When I was in Whitehorse, I met a group called the, “Neocatechumenal Way.” They believe that you can spend your whole life unpacking your baptism. We need to be like this if we want to live our baptism, to daily spend time with our new parents, God and the holy Mother Church, in order to understand and use the graces we have received. It is our daily contact with Scripture that helps us live our baptism and be perfected in the graces. It helps us understand the way God is inviting us to grow. A simple time each day with God is so important to living the grace and allowing the grace to perfect us.
So to conclude:
- Baptism is necessary for salvation.
- The grace received in baptism can help you to live your life as another Christ, if you invite it to.
- You receive that grace by asking for it and daily spending time with the Teacher/Sanctifier in the Scriptures and prayer.