Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - On Sunday 13 January, on the Feast of the Lord's Baptism, Pope Benedict XVI Mass in the Sistine Chapel during which he administered the Sacrament of Baptism to 13 children. In his homily the Pope said it great him great joy to administer the Sacrament of Baptism “one of the most expressive moments of our faith, when, through the signs of the liturgy, we can almost see the mystery of life. First of all human life represented here especially by these 13 babies… then the mystery of divine life, which today God gives to each of these little ones through new birth of water and the Holy Spirit”.
Pope Benedict XVI then explained the significance of the sacrament: “at Baptism a tiny human person receives a new life, the life of grace, which enables the child to enter into a personal relationship with the Creator, which will last for ever, for all eternity. Sad to say, man can extinguish this new life with his sins and fall into a situation which the Sacred Scripture calls ‘second death’. While in other creatures, not called to eternity, death means only the end of life on earth, in us sin creates a whirlwind which could engulf us for ever, if it were not for our Father in heaven who holds out his hand to us … God chose to save us by going himself to the pit of the abyss of death so that each one of us, even those who have fallen so low that they can no longer see the heavens, can find and grasp the hand of God and so rise up from the darkness and see once again the light for which we were created. All of us feel and sense in our hearts that our existence is longing for life which invokes fullness, salvation. This fullness of life is given to us in Baptism.”
Commenting the Gospel on Jesus' own Baptism in the River Jordan - a very different baptism compared with the sacrament administered from then on, although profoundly related to it - the Pope recalled that "baptism" in Greek means "immersion". Thus “the Son of God who shares fullness of life with the Father and the Holy Spirit from all eternity, was ‘immersed’ in our reality as sinners, to enable us to share His very life: he became incarnate, he was born like us and, on reaching adulthood he revealed his mission beginning precisely with the ‘baptism of conversion’ given by John the Baptist…in fact Jesus “came to bring mankind life in abundance, eternal life, … the purpose of the life of Christ was in fact to give humanity the life of God, His Spirit of love, so every person might draw from this inexhaustible source of salvation… this is why Christian parents… bring their children to the baptismal font as soon as possible, knowing that the life, which they communicated to them, calls for fullness and salvation which God alone can give. Moreover in this way parents become co-workers with God handing on to their children not only physical life but also spiritual life.”
The Holy Father recalled the duty of parents, assisted by the godparents, to help the baptised children grow in “faith, hope and charity, the theological virtues proper to the new life they are given in the sacrament of Baptism”. Besides material care and attention to their human growth, it will be indispensable for the little ones “to know, love and serve God faithfully, in order to have eternal life”. The Pope urged the parents to be for their children “the first to witness true faith in God ” and “through listening and meditating on the Word of God and frequent communion with Jesus in the Eucharist” to nourish the flame of the faith, symbolised at baptism by the gift of the candle lit from the Easter Candle. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 14/1/2008, righe 42, parole 639)
