Baptism: two approaches, one sacrament.

At this year’s Easter Vigil at St. Thomas Aquinas, 22 adults and children, age seven and older, were baptized, and thus far this year, 46 infants or young children under the age of seven have been baptized. This illustrates that both adult baptism and infant baptism co-exist as separate Rites of Initiation in the Catholic Church. But that hasn’t always been the case.

In the early Church only one rite of baptism was practiced. Both children and adults were initiated into the Catholic Church with a rite that included baptism, confirmation and eucharist—all in one ceremony. Eventually, the unity of these three sacraments of initiation disintegrated and confirmation and eucharist were separated from baptism. This was due in part to Rome’s insistence that only a bishop could confirm. It was also due to a growing belief that baptism was the sole means of salvation, which led the Church to baptize infants as soon as possible after birth. By the sixth to the eighth centuries, it was largely babies and young children who were being baptized, a practice that continued for centuries. The Second Vatican Council restored the ancient catechumenate for adults and children of catechetical age. That is why we celebrate baptism, confirmation and eucharist at the same time, as did the early Church. The Council also revised the rite of baptism for infants and young children.

Many a theologian across the Christian landscape has argued in favor of either adult baptism or the baptism of infants as the preferred practice. But the Roman Catholic Church sees the value of maintaining both. Both help to convey what baptism is all about.

Baptism, indeed every sacramental encounter, is based on divine initiative. It is God who calls us, who invites us into a relationship of unconditional love, and who bestows grace that is free and unmerited. While this divine initiative is present in adults who seek baptism, it is explicit in the baptism of infants and young children. Their baptism is a testament to God’s love, which is always a result of God’s desire to shower humanity with grace that is pure gift.

Baptism celebrates a share in the paschal mystery-the death and resurrection of Jesus. While this paschal focus is present in the rite of baptism for infants, it is more obvious in the baptism of adults which takes place at the Easter Vigil when the entire church celebrates the meaning of Christ’s passage from darkness to light, from death to new life.

Both rites of infant and adult baptism require catechesis, the support and guidance of the Christian community and conversion to be more like Christ. Conversion is at the heart of baptism. Whether we are baptized as infants, young children, or adults, the process of conversion never truly ends.

For centuries, the wreath has been a sign of hospitality, a warm invitation into one’s home. If you have used the front entrance of our church during this Easter season you likely have seen the living wreaths that hang on either side of the doors. Living wreaths are wreaths that are created using live plants. Made of small succulents, the wreaths are meant to last for a long time. We wanted to decorate the entrance with something that would last the entire fifty days of Easter. Whenever possible, the Church prefers the use of live plants as stated in the U.S. Bishops’ document Built of Living Stones:

The use of living flowers and plants, rather than artificial greens, serves as a reminder of the gift of life God has given to the human community. Planning for plants and flowers should include not only the procurement and placement but also the continuing care needed to sustain living things.

This preference not only applies to flowers but also to other items used in the liturgy:

Candles for liturgical use should be made of wax. To safeguard authenticity and the full symbolism of light, electric lights are not permitted as a substitute for candles. Votive lights are not to be electric … Above all, the paschal candle should be a genuine candle, the pre-eminent symbol of the light of Christ.

Clearly, the Church has a preference for liturgical décor and liturgical symbols that are living and authentic. That’s because the human community that celebrates the liturgy is living and authentic.

Live plants and candles made of wax also help to express death and new life. Plants die and then reseed. Wax melts and all of our leftover candle stubs are donated to the monastery in Conyers, where they are further melted to create new candles. These symbols help us to be more aware of our share in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

So as we celebrate this Easter season, may our flowers and our candles be reminders of our share in the Paschal Mystery and may our wreaths be a sign of God’s hospitality, welcoming guests from every corner of the globe. 

Reflections on Holy Week: Mercy Behind the Scenes

Today the Church celebrates the Second Sunday of Easter and Divine Mercy Sunday, a feast instituted by Pope John Paul II based on a devotion that was started by St. Faustina Kowalska, a Polish nun and early 20th-century mystic. The image associated with this feast depicts Jesus with the message, “Jesus, I trust in you.” I would like to take this opportunity to share a few of the living images of God’s mercy that I encountered during the past week.

Holy Thursday

Beatriz Garcia Ramirez proclaimed the second reading in Spanish at the liturgy on Holy Thursday. In that reading, 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, Paul retells the story of the Last Supper to the people of Corinth. Beatriz struggled with the nuances of the text. She wanted to get it right. She practiced a lot but mostly she prayed and then let go. After Mass a parishioner who did not speak Spanish went to Beatriz and thanked her. She said that though she didn’t understand the language, she grasped the message of the reading by the way it was proclaimed. God spoke through Beatriz despite her struggles. God’s mercy is bigger than our efforts.

Good Friday

On Good Friday during the Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion, Deacon Tom McGivney chanted the prayers of intercession. He had rehearsed for days. The first prayer was perfectly chanted and he felt confident about the next nine. But these prayers have two parts, the second of which is chanted by the presider. When that second part was chanted by the presider, Tom was thrown off key and he couldn’t find his way back. Frustrated with himself, he had to choose to either continue his frustration or let go. He let go and decided to chant the rest of the prayers on one single pitch. After the liturgy, he expressed his disappointment to me. He wanted to get it right. The next morning he was greeted by a candidate for Reception into Full Communion who was present at the liturgy the night before. She told him that she was so profoundly moved by the way he chanted those intercessions that she felt his voice reverberating in her heart during those prayers. God spoke through Tom despite his self-doubt. God’s mercy is bigger than our imperfections.

Holy Saturday

Holy Saturday is the day we decorate the church for Easter. For weeks we looked for the perfect wreath to hang outside the church doors. We visited craft shops, floral stores, wholesalers, and searched online for wreaths that would both harmonize with the environment and last the full fifty days of Easter. We wanted to get it right. We finally found some wreaths but our real find came on the morning of Holy Saturday. Among the decorators hanging the wreaths was a blind boy from Colombia named Christian. To Christian, it didn’t matter what the wreaths looked like. What mattered was that he contributed to the beauty of Easter, though he himself will never be able to see that beauty. God spoke to us through Christian. God’s mercy is bigger than our agenda.

As these three images portray, we encounter God’s mercy not by getting it right, but by getting ourselves out of the way and allowing God to get it right. “Jesus, I trust in you,” is our motto not just for this Sunday, but for every day of the year.

Easter conjures childhood memories of daffodils that pushed their way through the soil to announce the arrival of spring, of Easter bonnets and baskets, and of special Easter food. At our house in western Pennsylvania, the kitchen surged with life in the days leading up to Easter. Dough was kneaded, placed gingerly in large bowls and covered with dish cloths so that it would rise slowly but steadily. Rice pies, a local delicacy, were crafted with care and a delectable leg of lamb, symbolic of Jesus, the Paschal Lamb, was prepared for the Easter feast.

The Easter after Mom died, I decided to host my own holiday dinner at our house as she had done for so many years. I invited our family, some of whom came from as far away as New York. I retrieved the Easter decorations from the attic and dressed up the house. I baked the Easter bread and the rice pies. I prepared the leg of lamb, put it in the oven and set the table—just as Mom used to do. Mom was no longer there, but somehow performing the ritual of our Easter dinner made her present. That’s what rituals do.

That’s what we do each time we gather for liturgy. We make present the person of Jesus through the rituals of the Mass. Liturgical symbols also make present the person of Jesus by helping us to relate to Jesus in new ways. Water washes us, renews us, and quenches our thirst. So does Jesus. Oil soothes us and heals us. So does Jesus. Light guides us and gives us direction. So does Jesus. Bread and wine nourish us and sustain us. So does Jesus. Liturgical symbols are packed with meaning. They invite us to see beyond the ordinary and to understand more deeply the mysteries they symbolize. That’s what symbols do.

Symbols are powerful. Today’s gospel reveals a powerful symbol. At the place where Jesus was buried, the disciples discover something completely unexpected—an empty tomb. Mary of Magdala sees the empty tomb and believes what appears to be obvious—the body of Jesus was stolen. But the other disciple sees beyond the obvious. The gospel tells us that this disciple saw the empty tomb and believed. That’s what faith does.

May we, who celebrate the rituals and witness the symbols of Easter, have the faith to see beyond the ordinary and beyond the emptiness to fullness of life in God. That’s what Easter calls us to do.

North Fulton Community Charities

Each year on Holy Thursday the universal Church makes a special request. The Church asks that the offertory collected at the Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper be given directly to the poor. At St. Thomas Aquinas, the offertory collected on Thursday evening will support North Fulton Community Charities.

St. Thomas has had a lasting relationship with NFCC. Before North Fulton Community Charities was established, St. Thomas partnered with other area churches to support The Community Clothes Closet, a local thrift shop that opened in 1971. In 1991, The Community Clothes Closet became part of North Fulton Community Charities. A year earlier, a parishioner of St. Thomas Aquinas, Barbara Duffy, who volunteered at the clothes closet became the first full-time employee of North Fulton Community Charities. Today, she serves as the organization’s Executive Director. I talked with her recently about the work of North Fulton Community Charities.

Tell me a little about North Fulton Community Charities.

Barbara Duffy: We serve the people north of the Chattahoochee: Roswell, Alpharetta, John’s Creek, Milton, and Mountain Park. We have a service center which includes a thrift shop and a food pantry. We give away nine tons of food a week and see one-hundred families a day. Last year, we helped 4,500 families. We partner with 72 area churches. We are not technically a faith-based organization, but we are all here in response to our faith, so we are walking our faith.

Is there anything new at NFCC?

Barbara Duffy: We just kicked off something we call Client Choice. When families come in for food, they get checked in and then they are directed to a computer where they can shop online. No longer is a volunteer shopping for them based on how many persons are in the family. They can get what they want and what they need. It’s much more powerful for the families because now they are in charge of what they take home. We also have an educational center across the street. We’ve always taught budgeting and English language courses, but now we offer four levels of English language, a computer lab, certification programs and job coaching, where individuals can work with mentors.

The other exciting thing is that we have been working with Kennesaw State University’s School of Social Work for the past year. We are designing a pilot study to track a group of families over a span of a decade or more who are stuck in generational poverty. What we were set up to do is to help families in situational poverty. When something happens to a family, we can help them until they get back on their feet. But the families in generational poverty are different. They live in the moment and the whole idea of planning and setting money aside is not what they know. We can’t fault them for that. We are coming with middle class values and that’s not what they grew up with, so we have to find new ways to help them.

At what would outsiders be most surprised?

Barbara Duffy: We often think that folks who need help have done something wrong or they’re lazy or whatever. The folks I know have worked harder than I ever thought of working. They’re trying to figure out how they are going to get to the grocery store when they don’t have a car and how are they going to get the kid home from school who’s sick and those kinds of things, the things we take for granted.

When I talk to new volunteers, they always say, “I don’t know if I did any good for anyone else, but I have gained so much from the interaction with people here.” I tell folks this is a place to serve and to be served and they’re both important.  We go out of our way to make a place for volunteers and a place for families to come where they feel they are part of a community.

For more about how to get involved in North Fulton Community Charities, go to NFCChelp.org.