We continue our series on the spirituality of synodality with a focus on the importance of baptism. It's easy to feel all warm and fuzzy when we share in an infant's baptism. And it's equally as easy to renew our baptismal promises along with everyone else. Here's what's not as easy. Rejecting evil. Living as a son/daughter of the Creator of the Universe; living in such a way that others recognize God-with-us, through us. Fulfilling our responsibilities to Christ and the Body of Christ now that we belong. And now, synodality is reminding us that one of those covenanted duties is being co-responsible for the missionary effectiveness of the Church.
Photo Credit Rodica Stoicoiu (c) 2022
We've had two infant baptisms at the Mass I attend in the last month. I love all the hope, promise and messiness of immersing a baby in the font. The photo is a picture of the font in my parish, St. Agnes in Shepherdstown, WV. What you can't see completely is the upper shell shaped pool in which infants are immersed, and in which we all mark ourselves as we enter and leave our sanctuary. Trust me. It's there...and trust me when I say adults are fully immersed in that pool at the Easter Vigil, disappearing under the water and arising, facing the altar, to enter into communion with Jesus and with the rest of us. Our community loudly proclaims by the size, shape and placement of this font that baptism matters...baptism is central...baptism shapes our identity.
The Synod on Synodality agrees. There's an identity, a unity that crosses denominations, a communion with all the baptized, living and dead, and a mission flowing from baptism. The Church is the baptized People of God, those who have said "Yes!" to intentionally allowing Jesus Christ to be the center of their lives. This description of who the Church is has been beautifully expressed in Lumen Gentium, the Vatican II Constitution on the Church. The Synod on Synodality is working to give concrete expression to this reality. Synodality is a means to live out this understanding of who the Church is and how its members are responsible for Her ability to be a light for the nations.
According to Towards a Spirituality for Synodality., here are some of the dispositions, beliefs and practices that flow from fully embracing baptismal dignity:
All the baptized belong to one another as children of God, brothers and sisters to Jesus, covenanted to live in Christ. ALL the baptized. It does not matter what denomination you claim as you live out your baptismal dignity. It also does not matter if you are not actually taking your baptismal identity seriously. It also does not matter if you've just walked away from this whole idea. Baptism links us one to another. This is why there's no synodality without ecumenism. That's why synodality sends us to the peripheries where many of the baptized dwell. Baptism unites us and mission animtes us, no matter our other differences (SS, 22ff).
Baptism means that we are part of the Mystery of the Trinity, part of the love that flows between the Father and the Son, part of the community of persons we call God. We receive this love and belonging. We give it away, to all other baptized peoples, and togerther with them, we generously cover our world with it. To live within the Trinity is to live dynamically giving and receiving God's kind of love: other centered, for the common good, healing, hopeful, missionary and meaningful.
We are baptized into the life, passion, death and resurrection of Jesus whom we call the Christ. Jesus' perspectives, Jesus' actions, Jesus' sense of community and justice, Jesus' healing and hopeful presence, Jesus' focus on doing the Father's will...all this (and more) mean that Jesus' place is our place. We belong to the Lord (Romans 14:8). Baptism means this is our newly created identity. Baptism was our "Yes!" to this lifestyle, these relationships, this mission.
Because we are united with all baptized people, living and dead in a marvelous mysterious communion, we are at home in the 'house of many dwelling places' (John 14:2). We know we belong to the Lord and to his people, and we are therefore at home wherever there are God's people. We cross national boundaries, religious boundaries, spiritual preferences, language groups, skin colors, gender identitues, sexualities and even political polarities, uniting our hearts with the Lord and each other, refusing to close off rooms in this magnificent 'house of the Lord.' I love this vision of the Body of Christ. It can only come to be when we have deeply appropriated our oneness in the Lord, our baptismal identity.
Some of you by now are noting that this focus on our unity because of our common dignity in baptism is one element of our communion. Common unity are the two root words of community, communion and communication. So before we commune together at the Lord's Table, we are brought into communion through the waters of baptism. We practice communion by remembering we all dwell in the house of the Lord; remembering that every baptized person has a place in this house of many rooms, and therefore opening doors of dialogue, narrative hospitality, shared seeking, and accompaniment. We repent when we realize we participate in fracturing this communion. Why? Because we all have the same dignity in baptism, and that fundamental understanding infuses our attitudes and actions.
Another aspect of our baptismal identity that binds us together is our propensity to fracture this communion and so be in need of repentance. We fail often, regularly and sometimes in large numbers at the same time, to live out our baptismal dignity. So we remain in communion as sinners and we repent together, crying together the tears of sorrow for our sin and receiving together the Lord's assurance of mercy. That's wny the Sacrament of Penance is known as a second baptism.
And that shared redemption, our unity in our diversity, our unity in our need for mercy, our unity in our forgiveness and penance, our unity in all these ways is how communion finds its expression.
Can you bear to read just two more points? These change the focus from how baptism unites us in God's Triune life to two of the effects of baptism on how we live together as the Church.
The first is that all of our service to Christ and one another flows out of baptism, and the common priesthood of all believers. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1268). Closely related to this however, is the reality that within this baptized people there is an ordering of roles and a charge to place trust in competent authority ( CCC 1269). We belong now to the Church and so have rights and responsibilities within this Church. One of our responsibilities is to accept the differing roles and to have the humility and prudence to submit to competent authority (Ss, 36)
The second impact of baptism is that we are given certain responsibilities within the Body of Christ, the Church and as baptized people our disposition is once of accepting co-responsibility and accountability for enacting the Spirit's discerned pathways/will for the Church. This is one of the terms of the baptismal covenant...one the baptized regularly selectively embrace (SS, 36-37)
The spirituality that creates us anew in the waters of Baptism is powerful, demanding and a source of our ongoing conversion. It's also very easy to miss when we celebrate infant baptism and then don't really talk again about how we are to embrace this identity deep within and then to live it out in vital relationships with Christ, one another and the organized Body of Christ we call the Church.
For synodality to take root, we are going to have to bolster our understanding and acceptance of our baptismal identity. Why not take your parish on retreat and explore this with adults, giving them a means to embrace the dignity, spirituality, attitudes and practices that flow from baptism? Living Wet is our contribution to laying this spiritual foundation for synodality. We'd love to walk this part of the #synodjourney with your parish!
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