Transcript

Why does Christian baptism use water?

How much water do you need?

Who can baptize?

Why do we baptize babies?

What's the word baptize mean anyway?

We'll answer all these questions in this episode.

Baptism is the Christian sacrament where one person washes another person with water while saying that the person is being baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Why does baptism use water?

First of all, Jesus instituted baptism when he was baptized with water in the River Jordan by John, and this is fitting because baptism cleanses us from sin and gives us a share in God's life.

Water signifies the spiritual cleansing of the soul and the gift to it of new spiritual life.

Even on the natural level, water is key for life.

Think of a hot desert without water; it's very hard for life to exist there.

But if you find a shady oasis in that desert, you'll see a big difference: life thrives around water.

Also, besides deserts, water is found pretty much everywhere on Earth.

About 71% of the Earth is covered with water, and rain or snow gets to most other places.

Water is universal; it's everywhere, and this itself suggests the universality of salvation that Christ wants to give to all peoples, salvation that comes to us through baptism.

Also, if you're tired, hot, and thirsty from work, and if you see a glass of water, that water signifies coolness and rejuvenation.

Also for us human beings, for our skin type, water signifies cleansing.

Unlike chickens, who clean themselves in dust, we clean ourselves with water.

That's why to baptize, we use clean water free of dirt and impurities.

Furthermore, water is translucent; we can see through it because light passes through it.

Water can thus signify the light of faith, the passage of God's grace to our intellects such that we can assent to God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

But baptism is not just about having water.

If you're lost in the desert and you see an oasis but you can't reach it, then that water is not helpful.

If you've got a pitcher of water over here and an unbaptized baby is over there, but they never physically come in contact, there is no baptism.

For baptism to signify active cleansing and rejuvenation, one person has to wash another with water.

The Church instructs us to wash the recipient's head during baptism.

Why?

The head is our noblest part, and it signifies our highest acts of thinking and willing.

To signify human thriving, baptism entails a clean face and a clean head.

How much water do we have to use?

You need enough to really signify a washing.

It's not enough to have a drop of water fall on you; a drop does not clean.

Water must flow over the head.

We need moving water, which can symbolize the washing away of dirt.

So baptism takes place by pouring water over the head or by immersing the person, dunking them under water.

Western Christians have tended to baptize by pouring water over the head; Eastern Christians have tended to baptize by immersion.

Shifting our attention from the sacramental matter to the sacramental form, an interesting feature is the verb baptize, as when a baptizer says, I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

The word baptize comes from the Greek word baptizine, which means to plunge.

The baptismal recipient is being plunged, immersed into the name, the inner life of the Most Holy Trinity: the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

And the baptismal recipient is being plunged into the death of Christ so as to rise with Christ, as St. Paul said.

So the verb baptize specifies that this washing with water is not about getting physically clean, such as after a long hike; it's about entering something, being plunged into the life of God, being incorporated into the life of Christ and his Church.

When someone is baptized, there is a minister of baptism: the baptizer, the Baptist.

You can't baptize yourself; no one causes his own salvation.

The sacraments are something you receive.

The minister washes the recipient with water and says the baptismal formula.

The baptizer acts as the instrument of God in doing the baptismal rite instituted by God incarnate, Jesus Christ.

The baptizer cooperates in Christ's salvific mission of giving grace.

Ideally, the baptizer would be a Catholic bishop, priest, or deacon.

This is because the Catholic clergy signify Jesus Christ in their ordained personhood.

But if a cleric is not available, the baptizer can be any baptized Christian who signifies Christ as one of Christ's lay faithful.

In an emergency, even a non-Christian can baptize.

What's essential is that the baptizer, whoever he or she may be, baptizes according to the intention of Christ and his Church.

That means that they physically wash with water and say the Trinitarian baptismal formula and intend to do the sacrament.

Insofar as God is the primary agent, he can even work with baptizers who understand only imperfectly the full implications of what they are doing.

This dynamic between God as the primary agent and the human baptizer as the instrumental agent is so strong that baptism can even work when done by a grave sinner.

St. Augustine wrote that whether the Apostle St. Peter baptized or St. Paul baptized or even the traitor Judas, so long as it was Christian baptism, Christ baptized.

Whether the minister of baptism is good or bad, he is acting as an instrument of God, and God can use that instrument to bring about a true and effective baptism as long as the minister really washes a person with water and says the baptismal formula intending to baptize.

Baptism involves the conversion of a sinner through faith, belief in Jesus and his Gospel.

In the case of an adult recipient, conversion implies a personal informed response by the sinner.

But what is the role of God?

Baptism indeed involves something more fundamental than the convert's personal act.

Baptism is primarily a gratuitous divine act whereby God converts a sinner.

God always has priority in saving us.

This is why baptism can save even infants who, by their conception after Adam and Eve, are subject to the stain of original sin.

Infants below the age of reason cannot will something against God as adults can, but infants can receive the divine baptismal blessing to be freed of original sin and to be enlivened in grace just as cooperating adults can be.

As the letter of St. Paul to Titus says, Christ saved us, not because of deeds done by us in righteousness, but in virtue of his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit.

Thanks be to God for his mercy and the sacrament of baptism.

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