Perhaps we can approach it from the perspective of birthdays. Celebrating birthdays is such a central feature in modern living. Life is precious and we ought to celebrate the day we were born. But there are other birthdays too. For example, do you remember the day of your baptism? For the majority amongst us, it is truly a non-event. We can be sure that babies, in general, have no memory of the rite. So much so that the Anabaptists and some of their offshoots have a tradition that only adult baptisms are valid. For them, the criterion for the sacrament’s validity is being able to make a conscious decision to accept and ask for baptism.
In a way, the belief of the Anabaptists mirrors the experience of some of our RCIA candidates who are to be envied for if they had undergone a genuinely life-altering baptism, they will generally make better Catholics than some of us cradle-baptised.
A little anecdote of how insignificant baptism is for some of us. I was ordained a deacon in AD1999 and then a priest at the turn of the millennium. Went back to complete my licentiate after the sacerdotal ordination and then returned to full service in AD2001. After conducting many prenuptial enquiries, I thought it might be a good idea to obtain a fresh copy of my baptism certificate since we were always demanding for their latest copy. One day, I was passing through Malacca and so decided to step into St Theresa’s Church, the family’s parish, to request an extract. A couple of months later, I was in Malacca again and went to parish office to enquire but still, there could not locate my baptismal record. Long story short, this terrible “harassment” of the parish office staff took 3 years. Finally, they managed to obtain an extract for me. They traced through the Confirmation record they had kept to the Church of the Seven Sorrows, Macalister Road in Penang. It was embarrassing but more importantly, it simply highlighted how insignificant “baptism” can be for some of us.
Jesus today was baptised as an adult. Firstly, He had no need of it because John’s baptism was a rite of repentance which was a symbolic and outward expression of an interior desire for change. Precisely Jesus was sinless and yet He submitted Himself to the rite to show His solidarity with humanity. Yet, John pointed to Him as the Lamb of God who takes the sins of the world—Jesus.
Secondly, as Luke detailed, coming out of the water, He prayed and heaven was opened. That was an important milestone in His life. It was the confirmation of His Father’s love and also signalled the start of His public ministry.
Perhaps we could also rethink the ways we could celebrate our baptismal anniversary. So far, our focus is on birthdays. They are tangible milestones but do you know that there is a tradition in some countries, where the predominant Church is either Catholic or Orthodox, to celebrate a person’s name day.
Every day of the calendar has a name associated with it and it is usually that of a Saint. Thus people should celebrate the day that they took on a new name which happened to be the day of their baptism. But with a heavy emphasis on originality and individuality, we tend to accentuate the uniqueness of a person as reflected in the most “fantabulous” names parents can conjure.
A name day is coming from another angle and it is based on imitation and it is also exemplary. Moreover, assuming a new name represents a change in one’s life direction. Like Simon becoming Peter and Saul transforming into Paul, their names changed signalled their newfound purpose to be missionaries of Christ. Likewise, it is for us. When we take on a patron saint’s name at baptism, we indicate that we are part of that mission to be apostles of Christ and that our patron saint is a concrete model to emulate.
This is borne out by our liturgy too. When a drop of water is added to the wine, the priest says sotto voce, “May we come to share the divinity of Christ who humbled Himself to share our humanity”. He came to be one of us and through the grace of our baptism, we should strive to be like Him. The pantheon of saints are shining beacons that beckon us to follow their examples.
In other words, baptism is such an important event in our life, that not even our birthdays rank as high. There is a rule for celebrating a saint’s feast day. The day we commemorate a saint is usually associated with the day he or she died. The day they died is called “dies natalis”, the day that they are born into heaven.
Our baptism is both a death and a birth. The waters of baptism mortify as well as vivify. We die because of our sins but at baptism we also die to our sins. But what feels like death is actually a rebirth, like for example, a child in the womb who needs to “die” in order to be born. Thus the death to sins is a birth in the Spirit. Baptism, our second birth initiates our journey on earth that must end with our birth into the fullness of life in heaven. Let us live for that final birthday, the “dies natalis”, when we will be counted amongst the saints and friends of the Lord in eternity.
