On Holy Baptism

by Father Franz Schmidberger
Superior General, The Society of St. Pius X

Hand in hand with the decline of the supernatural order goes a disregard for the ways and means leading to it. People no longer know the Holy Sacraments of the Church and live by them.

What follows has been written in order to reawaken an understanding of Holy Baptism and of Christian life as such.

When parents take a newborn baby to be baptized, the priest receives them at the entrance to the church, vested in a purple stole since the child is still a heathen, that is, as yet has no right of abode in God's sanctuary. Then follows the first questions addressed to the child:

"If then you desire to enter into life, keep the Commandments. 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with thy whole mind; and thy neighbor as thyself.'"

Then the priest breathes three times into the face of the child, saying, "Depart from him (her), unclean spirit, and give place to the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete."

Is one thus to conclude that this tiny, innocent child was in the power of the Devil, that it was a plaything of evil spirits? That is precisely the case, for with their own fall, Adam and Eve dragged all future generations with them into corruption so that their descendants are born not into light, but into darkness, subject not to God's grace but to His wrath. That is why the baptismal rites of the Church include a number of exorcisms intended to wrest the child from the clutches of the Evil One, to break the power of the Devil over it and to transport it into the "everlasting kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace."

The next step is for the priest to trace the sign of the cross on the child's forehead and heart. This signifies that our faith is above all a faith of the Holy Cross, which we bear on our brows as a profession of faith and sign of victory, carrying it in our hearts as a sacred inheritance. The child's spirit is from now on to derive its principles from the Cross of Christ, and both heart and will are to take their orientation exclusively from the Crucified Lord.

The priest then places his hand on the child's head in order to show that through him, the servant of His Church on earth, God wishes to take complete and final possession of this infant.

Then the priest puts a little of the salt he has blessed into the mouth of the child, the salt of wisdom, by which the child is to walk in the paths of righteousness, to keep God's commandments and judge everything in a supernatural light. After a further prayer and exorcism, that is, at the end of a lengthy purification rite, he conducts the child into God's sanctuary with the words, "Come into the temple of God, that your lot may be with Christ in life everlasting."

Thus, in the measure that it is removed from the Devil's embraces, cleansed of sin and guilt, and taken possession of by God, the child to be baptized is introduced to the mysteries of Christian salvation. This is verified by the fact that in the early Church the catechumens were solemnly dismissed from divine worship with the words, "Ite missa est," before the sacrifice proper began, since, not yet being baptized, they were not allowed to be present at the celebration of the most profound mysteries of our faith.

On their way to the font, the priest prays the Creed together with the godparents. This is because faith is the prerequisite for hope and charity, the basis of all Christian life, and the foundation upon which the life and activity of the Church rest. "Without faith it is impossible to please God," St. Paul says in his epistle to the Hebrews. These words sound like an echo of Christ's command to baptize: "Go, therefore, teach ye all nations: baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you," (Mt. 28,19f), and "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be condemned" (Mt. 16,16).

Now the child for the first time prays (through the godparents) the Our Father, in which it turns to its Creator as a loving, caring father. As a Christian nothing is closer to the child's heart than that God's name be hallowed, above all in him or herself; that the Kingdom of God shall come as a kingdom of grace and truth and that the world (in the sense of St. John the Evangelist) may pass away; that God's will be done everywhere and completely on earth as it is in heaven.

This is followed by the "Ephpheta Rite." The priest takes saliva from his own mouth and moistens the ears and nose of the child with it as the Lord did when healing the deaf and dumb man (Mk. 7, 33ff). Since the Fall we are dumb, our innermost being is closed to the truth, the faith and Holy Gospel. Now it is to be opened for God's Word and commandments. Our sense of smell is also to be opened so that we may savor the sweet fragrance of Christ, i.e., find pleasure in His virtue and sanctity. The freeing of the tongue from its bonds is included here: the Christian is not to hold his tongue, but to adore and praise God as well as proclaim the Gospel in word and deed to his fellow men.

Now the moment has come to solemnly renounce once and for all the Devil and all his works and delusions, all his company and accomplices:

Then follows the anointing with the oil of catechumens, which is applied on the breast and between the shoulders. The breast is the seat of the heart and thus of feelings, thus symbolizing love, a love which should be given completely to God. The anointing of the neck symbolizes that the child should receive the strength to follow in the footsteps of the Man of Sorrows in carrying the Cross to Calvary: every Christian is a Simon of Cyrene. This is something that even the early Christians seem to have forgotten since St. Paul admonishes them with a broken heart: "For many walk as enemies of the Cross of Christ. Their end is destruction; their god is their belly; their glory lies in their shame" (Phil. 3,18f).

After the conclusion of the purification rite the priest now exchanges his purple stole for a white one. He then questions the child on his faith:

"Do you believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth?"

"I do believe"

"Do you believe in Jesus Christ His only Son, our Lord, who was born into this world and who suffered for us?"

"I do believe."

"Do you believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting?"

"I do believe."

"Do you wish to be baptized?"

"I do."

And now the solemn moment has arrived. In the name of the Most Holy Trinity, the priest pours the baptismal water over the child's head three times in the form of a cross, thus giving birth to it anew to a godly life of grace. A great miracle takes place at this moment, greater than the creation of a whole world; for whereas in the latter life comes into being out of nothingness, here a sinner is made righteous, a servant of Satan is turned into a child of God. Adam's age-old guilt is wiped out through the working of the blood of Christ—and in the case of an adult being baptized his personal sins and the punishment belonging to them are erased, too. This creature is now a member of the Mystical Body of Christ, a grape on the living vine with the sap of the life of the Most Holy Trinity itself flowing through it. The Living God, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, has made this child into His heaven, living His divine life in him. The Father begets His Son in this human soul; Father and Son breathe the Holy Ghost in it. And this is not merely pious talk, but a living reality. The Lord Himself said so in the Gospel: "If any man love me [...] My Father will love him: and We will come to him and make Our abode with him" (Jn. 14, 23). Faith, hope and charity are sowed as seeds in the soul of the child together with the whole supernatural organism: the seven gifts and twelve fruits of the Holy Ghost as well as the eight beatitudes, "...you may be made partakers of the divine nature," St. Peter calls to the first Christian (II Pet. 1,4). This is put even more explicitly by one of his successors, namely Pope St. Leo in his first Christmas sermon:

St. Paul addressed the first Christians as "dearly beloved and chosen," as "cleansed and purified"; he wrote to the "saints of Corinth and Rome." Would he use the same terms when turning to today's post-conciliar Catholics? Would he still address his letters to the "saints of Paris, Rome, Bonn, Zurich and Vienna"? Would he not rather have to address himself to "those living in an adulterous relationship with the world, the murderers of their children through the pill and abortion, the parents who irresponsibly give their children over to godless teachers, the disloyal, cowardly and indifferent who are crucifying the Son of God anew"?

In the early Church it was customary to demand long public penance for serious sins committed after baptism; absolution was postponed, on occasions until the hour of death. For, anyone who had solemnly renounced sin and the world really could and should not fall back into his old ways.

In the baptismal rite a further anointing takes place, this time with Chrism on the crown of the head. The head of the Church is Christ, in whose threefold office as prophet, priest and king the child now participates. He shares in the prophetic office in that every Christian is sent into the world to bear witness to the truth; he participates in the priestly office not in the sense that he shares the Lord's priestly functions, but in that Baptism is the gateway to the other sacraments and that the Christian has to offer himself, his thoughts, words and deeds, in fact, his whole life, on the sacrificial altar of Christ with every beat of his heart; his share in the kingship is summed up in the words of Pope Pius XII when he said that "the Christian is raised to an elevated position from which he can judge everything without himself being judged," and also shown in the fact that in the strength of Christ he steps over the head of evil spirits. In the Old Testament both prophets and kings were anointed, too.

After this the child is given a white garment as a symbol of the supernatural order of salvation, of the shining grace of God, the splendor of Heaven, which is now mirrored in his soul:

After that he receives a burning candle to symbolize the light of Christ that is to illuminate his innermost being as well as the path he treads in life. And like the candle, the Christian, too, should burn himself up in his love of Christ and his fellow-men; when the sacrificial candle of his life is burnt out, he returns his soul to his Maker.

How much more deeply aware of the grace of baptism were the Christians of the first centuries as compared to today's bourgeois, worldly, affluent Catholics! They had to go through a long preparation period with instruction. Then came the scrutinies and exorcisms throughout Lent to which reference is still made in the present Lenten liturgy when the Gospels tell of the driving out of devils. And when the long-awaited moment of the Paschal Vigil at last arrived, the catechumens stood round the baptismal font thirsting for the renewing bath like deer panting for springs of fresh water. In the early Church it was the bishop himself who normally conferred the Sacrament of Holy Baptism. He immersed the person being baptized completely in the water three times, each time calling on the name of the Most Holy Trinity, for he was to die completely to the Devil, to sin and to the world—the old Adam in him was to be buried. The font is thus like a grave, but also like a fertile womb giving birth to life with Christ, for each surfacing from the water is like a resurrection. After that the newly baptized put on white garments, which they continued to wear for a week, until Low Sunday (the Latin name, Dominica in albis, still contains a reference to the white garments). Then they received the burning candle and processed into the church with the bishop, who then celebrated the Paschal Mass there and gave them the Eucharistic Body of Christ for the first time.

It is not without reason that St. Paul writes in his Epistle to the Romans:

And how vividly the liturgy of the Paschal Vigil sings of this mystery in the blessing of the baptismal water.

The same vein is continued in the procession to the font:

How greatly have Christians lost all awareness of the meaning of Holy Baptism in itself and of their own baptism! Instead of making a newborn child into a child of God as quickly as possible (as is, incidentally, expressly prescribed by Canon Law), parents often delay baptism for weeks or even months, changing it into a festivity with aunts and uncles, cakes and presents. Many already go so far as not to have their children baptized at all any more, arguing that the children can then decide for themselves later. Did they decide for themselves whether they wanted to be born into natural life? Do we have the right to leave it up to them to opt for or against what God Himself has declared a necessity for entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven? Parents who act in this way are bad fathers and mothers. And what harm is done to children, indeed to the whole Church, by the new baptismal rite! The exorcisms are omitted, the anointings are reduced to an insignificant gesture. No wonder the Evil One is gaining ever increasing influence and power over people's souls!

Often baptism is now seen merely as a rite introducing the child into the life of the parish. It surely goes without saying that with such an intention the sacrament does not take place.

And what about the baptized themselves? Are they aware of their dignity as the first Christians were, who, in a pagan world with all its luxury, baths, theatres and palaces, knew that they were worth far more than all this pomp and luxury, more than a whole populous city, more than an entire country? For we, they said to themselves, are bearers of Christ. Do our contemporaries, by contrast, take the grace of their baptism and the promises made at it seriously any more? How seriously do they, for example, embrace the Ten Commandments or even just the first three of them, those referring to their Creator and Redeemer himself? Do they love God with all their hearts, more than fields and houses, more than wife and children, more than themselves? Do they venerate and praise the name of God in good days and bad—or are not thousand fold grumblings, curses and imprecations directed heavenward every day? Has not bitterness taken possession of many a heart? And what about Sundays and Holy Days? Is it in accordance with the Christian ideal to devote them to senseless speeding in cars, to high performance commercialized sport, to a struggle on the part of industry to make full use of time and machines on Sundays as well? Was the rural population not once considered pious? Yet now we see farmers out hoeing and ploughing, sowing and reaping on Sundays, no differently than on weekdays. In LaSalette, Our Lady wept bitter tears over the profanation of the Day of the Lord.

From his days as a missionary in Gabon, Archbishop Lefebvre recounts a wonderful example which illustrates the exact opposite of such degenerate Christianity and recalls the fervor and ardent love displayed by the first Christians:

And the Archbishop continues:

But let us leaf back in our own history. It was a baptism that rang in the Christian West. At Christmas in the year 496, King Clovis, together with the nobles in his realm, immersed himself in the purifying waters in Rheims, on which occasion the following memorable words were uttered by Bishop Remigius, who adminstered the Sacrament: "What thou hast hitherto burned, shalt thou henceforth worship; and what thou hast hitherto worshipped, shalt thou henceforth burn."

The birth of the Child of Bethlehem, His birth in the soul of King Clovis and the birth of the Christian West unite into a harmony that shaped the whole of the Middle Ages in the flowing together of nature and grace.

May the Immaculate Conception, who did not need to be baptized since she was tainted by neither original nor personal sin, engrave the words of her Divine Son deeply in our hearts: "...unless a man be born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of God" (Jn. 3,3); and may she enable the baptized to understand her Gospel, which is summarized in the brief exhortation: "Whatsoever He shall say to you, do ye" (Jn. 2,5).