2014-01-12        Daniel Daring      2013 articles       2012 articles

Did you hear about the baby baptised with milk?

Isaiah 42:1-4.6-7; Acts 10:34-38; Matthew 3:13-17

(Comments welcome here)       

             They say it really happened. It is supposed to have taken place on the day of his ordination. All the guests were congratulating his parents for generously giving their only son to the service of the Church. Then suddenly, they heard his grandmother saying: “I'm so happy. I was always dreaming that we would have a priest in our family. I knew that you were the one, so I baptized you with milk instead of water to make sure that you would become a strong and healthy boy.” The new priest was speechless. “Grandma! Is it true?” - he asked in disbelief. “Yes. Since there were no priests in our village and you were sickly, I immediately baptized you pouring milk over your head. And look how much good it did to you.” A week later, he was in front of his bishop, hearing the obvious truth: “All sacraments have to be repeated. Baptism with milk is invalid and since it is the gate to becoming a member of the Church,  its invalidity nullifies all other sacraments you have received. We have to repeat everything.”

            Perhaps, it is just a story with a message that baptism, together with the Eucharist and Confirmation, initiates a person into the mystery of Christian faith and should not be taken for granted. And yet it is difficult for us to see its significance, because we were baptized as infants. So we do not recall seeing “the heavens opened” and “the Spirit of the Lord” coming down and resting on us; we do not have the feeling of being a beloved son or daughter of God (Matthew 3:16-17); and we are not aware of any transforming experience that takes us from death to life, from darkness to light. Should we, then, also repeat everything? But how? How can anybody be baptized again?

            The answer does not lie in performing another ritual, but in experiencing the power of this sacrament, which depends on our faith in Jesus, the Son of God. Let me illustrate this fact with two baptismal stories from the Acts of the Apostles. The first one is that of the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:26-40). He was reading the Bible while the Apostle Philip met him on the way from Jerusalem to Gaza. Philip explained to him the Scriptures and proclaimed the good news about Jesus. Then, the Bible records this dialogue:  

The eunuch: Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?

Philip: If you believe with all your heart, you may.

The eunuch: I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

            The second story is even more striking (Acts 10). Peter, amazed that he was being sent to a gentile, a centurion of the Italian Cohort named Cornelius, begins to preach the message about Jesus Christ. To the astonishment of everybody “while Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the world” (Acts 10:44). Then we encounter this passage: “'Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?' So he [Peter] ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ” (Acts 10:47-48).

            From these two stories, it appears that the sacrament of baptism seals our faith. Only if we believe “with all our hearts” in the good news about Jesus Christ are we ready to experience its transforming power; only if we eagerly listen to the narrative stories of what God has done for us in Jesus, can the Holy Spirit  fall upon us. The ritual comes later. Unfortunately, we have reversed this process. We begin with a ritual and we hope that faith will somehow come later in age with the help of parents and religion teachers. Thus, we have entire nations and large communities registered in our baptismal books, yet living as if Jesus and his values mean nothing to them.

            It is time to realize what this sacrament brings to our lives. The heavens are opened. We are aware that there is more to life than just this world. The Spirit of God comes down and rests on us. We are sealed; we are chosen; we belong to God. The voice from heaven is heard, which proclaims God's love for us: we are His beloved children. This sets us on a new course of life that is usually described by the metaphor of resurrection. “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:3-4).

            Not only milk can invalidate our baptism; our lives can do it as well. And in order to make things right,  repetition of a ritual is not enough. We need to experience what some call an inward baptism, namely, a real transformation of life through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Christianity was never meant to become a ritualistic religion, but a way of life (Acts 5:20) marked by its distinctive values. Baptism was always understood as the gateway to this new way of life and the beginning of an adventure in faith guided by the constant presence of the Spirit. Let us, then, open ourselves to the grace that this sacrament brings to our lives and continue our journey through life rejoicing and praising God.

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