On Sunday we will chat about our baptismal identity.
His Eminence Donald Cardinal Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington, D.C., released a pastoral letter on Pentecost Sunday (May 24, 2015) entitled “Being Catholic Today: Catholic Identity in an Age of Challenge.” We are going to present this letter in installments for our upcoming chatroom sessions. Cardinal Wuerl carries forth Pope Francis’s constant emphasis on the importance of our identity as Catholics.
Chapter One: Baptism and the Uniqueness of being Incorporated into the Body of Christ
A favorite stop on pilgrimages to Rome is the magnificent Baptistery of the Basilica of Saint John Lateran. Built in the fourth century, the Baptistery was where Christian converts were reborn in the waters of new life. Above the font is this inspiring inscription: “The brood born here to live in heaven has life from water and the nurturing Spirit. Sinner, seek your cleansing in this stream that takes the old and gives a new person back…Children of the water, think no more of earth; heaven will give you joy; in heaven hope. Think not of your sins too many or too great: birth in this stream is birth to holiness.”The Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks of baptism as the “plunge” into the waters symbolizing the person’s burial into Christ’s death, “from which he rises up by resurrection with him as a new creature” (1214). By this sacrament, all sin – original and personal – is washed away and the person is permanently marked with the sign of Christ. Just as in the beginning, when God created everything and sent his Spirit to form out of nothing everything that was to be, so in his new creation the Spirit is sent to bring forth a whole new level of life in each believer – life in the Spirit.
Being made into a “new creation” speaks of the new character one receives in baptism. Once cleansed of sin and restored to a state of grace, we become God’s adopted children, “heir of all things” (Hebrews 1:2). Baptized into Christ, we are one with him and incorporated into his Body.
Saint John Paul II noted, “Since the ‘Good News’ is Christ, there is an identity between the message and the messenger, between saying, doing and being. His power, the secret of the effectiveness of his actions, lies in his total identification with the message he announces; he proclaims the ‘Good News’ not just by what he says or does, but by what he is” (Redemptoris missio, 13). As the Body of Christ in the world, there is likewise in the Church “an identity between the message and the messenger, between saying, doing and being.”
This linkage between the person baptized and Jesus – between the message and the messenger – is not just a matter of our own personal salvation. It is not only an action of personal piety. Rather, we are engaged in a new life of the Spirit so that working in and through us, the Spirit might transform the whole world. Being a Catholic means to recognize a unique and special relationship with Jesus risen from the dead, and his mission to bring everything to God the Father. We are not bystanders but rather participants in this work.
“In virtue of their baptism, all the members of the People of God have become missionary disciples,” Pope Francis affirms. “All the baptized, whatever their position in the Church or their level of instruction in the faith, are agents of evangelization. . . Every Christian is challenged, here and now, to be actively engaged” (Evangelii gaudium, 120).
Our Holy Father is making the point that all the baptized, not just the clergy, share responsibility for the primary mission of the Church to evangelize and share our faith with the world. Baptism gives each of us a common identity and role in the life and mission of the Church. We each have a part to play.
We’ll be talking about our baptismal identity during our chat session on Sunday. Here are some questions that will guide our discussion:
- What does this mean that by dying with Christ we are reborn with a new identity?
- This new identity is inherintly linked to the life of the Holy Spirit in us. What does this teach us about conversion not being a one-time-event but an on-going event in our lives?
- As beautiful as the teaching on baptism is, we are immediately presented with the reality that it comes with a responsibility to bear witness to the faith in our personal holiness and by evangelization. How can we more effectively bear witness to this identity?
- In public we sometimes become shy about expressing our faith (especially, for example, doing the Sign of the Cross). we too should not be ashamed to publicly express our identity. How can we become more comfortable with this identity as God’s children?
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