Putting on Christ

This weekend, we celebrate the gift of Motherhood.  One of the greatest joys of being a mother is being able to clothe your children.  What mother can resist splurging on that adorable infant apparel?  What mother can’t remember the outfit her baby wore when the baby came home from the hospital?   Besides appearance, clothing has obvious practical purposes.  Clothing helps protect from the harm of cold, wind, rain or other elements.  The act of clothing, then, is an act of care and of love.

The Church, like a mother, recognizes this and therefore includes the ritual of clothing with a white garment in the Rite of Baptism.  During the clothing with the white garment, the presider speaks these words:

You have become a new creation, and have clothed yourselves in Christ.  See in this white garment the outward sign of your Christian dignity.  With your family and friends to help you by word and example, bring that dignity unstained into the everlasting life of heaven.

The garment is an outward sign of Christ, as St. Paul said, a sign that we have “put on Christ.”  The garment is a symbol that in baptism we become new people, people who are loved and cared for by God and the Christian community.  Though children are often baptized already wearing their baptismal garments, the Church envisions that the garment be put on AFTER the baptism, so that the significance of the act of clothing can more clearly be seen. 

The Church Fathers often preached on the symbolism of the baptismal garment.  Theodore of Mopsuestia saw it as a sign of incorruptibility.  Gregory of Nyssa said it recalled the restoration of grace lost in the Fall.  In the book of Genesis, though Adam and Eve turn away from God, God clothes them in a final gesture of love and protection.  God’s grace ultimately has the last word over sin. 

Likewise, when a Catholic Christian dies, one of the last things the Church does is to clothe the casket with a white pall, a reminder of one’s baptismal garment, a reminder of the Church’s love and care, a reminder of God’s eternal grace.