BAPTISM: "YE MUST BE BORN AGAIN"

"Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations; baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you. And look, I am with you always; yes, to the end of time."

The following excerpt is from the book A TOUR OF THE SUMMA, by Msgr. Paul J. Glenn, published by TAN BOOKS and PUBLISHERS. The teachings of Saint Thomas Aquinas on the sacrament of Baptism.

1. In the sacrament of baptism, we consider three things: (a) that which is sacrament only, that is, the sacrament as sign; the water used in baptizing; the washing; (b) that which is reality only, that is, inward grace; justification; (c) that which is reality and sacrament, that is, the sacramental character impressed by baptism on the soul of the person baptized.

2. Baptism received the power of conferring grace when Christ was baptized. This was the institution of baptism as a sacrament. But the obligation of receiving this sacrament was officially imposed on mankind by our Lord, after his Passion and Resurrection.

3. Water is the matter of baptism, that is, it is the material used in making the sign which is a sacrament. In St. John (3:5) we read: "Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."

4. Any true natural water may be used for baptizing. If alien substances be mingled with the water, yet not in such quantity as to destroy its nature as true water, they do not make it unavailable for baptizing.

5. In every sacrament, we distinguish matter and form. The matter, as we explained above, is the material of which the sign is constituted. The form is the authentic and determinate formula of words used in confecting the sacrament, that is, making the sign into a true sacrament. In baptism, the matter is, remotely, water; proximately, the matter is water applied in the act of baptizing. And the form, in baptism, is the set of words to be used in applying the matter, namely, the words, "I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" (Matt. 28:19).

6. We read (Acts 8:12) that the apostles baptized "in the name of Jesus Christ." This does not mean that the apostles changed the essential formula which names the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. It merely means that the apostles baptized by the authority of Christ, and that they used the name of Jesus Christ in connection with baptism. By special divine revelation, the apostles were instructed to employ the holy name of Jesus Christ to win it reverence among people, both Jew and Gentile, who had been taught to hate it. These people were to see that the Holy Ghost was given in baptism at the invocation of the holy name of Jesus.

7. The word baptism means a washing. Now, a washing may be done by immersion in water, by the pouring of water, and even by the sprinkling of water. Therefore, immersion is not requisite for baptism.

8. "Trine immersion" or its equivalent "threefold pouring" is used in baptism solemnly conferred according to the ceremonial of the Church. Yet this is not essential for valid baptism; one pouring suffices.

9. Baptism cannot be repeated. If a man is spiritually born by baptism, he cannot be born again spiritually. Baptism imprints on the soul of the person baptized an indelible character which, being once impressed, cannot be impressed again. And baptism always takes away original sin. Once original sin is taken away, it does not recur or return to the soul.

10. The essentials for baptism are: the matter (water applied), the form ( the prescribed words ), and the minister (who brings matter and form together to constitute the sacrament). For solenm baptism, the Church has surrounded these essentials with suitable ceremonies and prayers.

11. The sacrament of baptism is baptism conferred with water. The effects of the sacrament, except for the imprinting of the character, may be produced in a soul in two other ways. A person unbaptized who sheds his blood for Christ is said to have the baptism of blood. A person unable to receive baptism (because he knows nothing or because his efforts to obtain it are-unavailing) may be conformed to Christ by love and contrition, and thus is said to have baptism of desire. Baptism of blood and baptism of desire take away sin and give grace. But they do not imprint the sacramental character on the soul. Hence they are not truly the sacrament of baptism. Therefore, a survivor of bloody torture endured for Christ, and one whose desire for baptism is no longer thwarted, are to be baptized with water.

12. Baptism of blood is most excellent in its sacramental effects, for bloody suffering brings a man who has charity into union with Christ's Passion from which baptism has its efficacy. Still, it does not impress the sacramental character.

1. One who confects or confers a sacrament is called its minister. In solemn or ceremonious baptism, the priest is the ordinary minister. (In the older practice of the Church, a deacon was not permitted to baptize solemnly "except in cases of extreme urgency." In modern days, a deacon may baptize solemnly if there be a good reason, and the pastor or the bishop authorize the action). A deacon who baptizes solemnly, is called an extraordinary minister of baptism.

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2. It belongs to the special office of priests (and, of course, bishops) to baptize.

3. Because of the necessity of this sacrament, it was ordained that it is to be conferred with matter easily available, namely water, and that in case of necessity when solemn or ceremonious baptism is out of question, it can be conferred by anyone who has the use of reason, and who uses the water rightly, and says the required words, and intends to baptize.

6. Several people cannot concur in baptizing, one saying the words of the form, another or others applying the matter. The minister of baptism takes the place of Christ; there is only one Christ; there should be only one minister of any one baptism. If several were to concur in baptizing, applying the matter and saying the form, the first to utter the form would actually confer the sacrament. And if all spoke absolutely together, since each one would have the intention of baptizing, the baptism would be valid, but the several ministers would be guilty of improperly treating a sacrament.

7. The priest, after baptizing solemnly, turns over the newly baptized person to "his sponsor and guide." The sponsor is thus said, in an ancient phrase, "to raise the baptized person from the sacred font." That is, the sponsor receives the newly baptized person for the purpose of instructing him, and guiding him in the way of life which he takes up by being baptized.

8. The duty of sponsors is a real obligation laid upon them. St. Augustine (Serra. 168) says: "I admonish you, both men and women, who have raised children (that is, who have stood sponsor) in baptism, that you stand before God as sureties for those whom you have been seen to raise from the sacred font."

1. Baptism is necessary for each person. All mankind are required to be baptized. Without baptism, there is no salvation. For baptism makes a person a member of Christ, through whom alone salvation can be attained.

2. To be saved, a man must have at least the baptism of desire. [Note: Desire for baptism is explicit in a person who knows at least something of what baptism means, and who, with Christian faith and contrition and charity, longs to receive it. Desire for baptism is implicit in a person who sincerely wants to do what God would have him do, and who does his honest best to live by his conscience; such a person may not even have heard of baptism, and yet may have this implied desire to receive it.] Baptism of blood has all the sacramental power of baptism of water, except for the imprinting of the character, and it remits all sin and the penalties due to sin. Baptism of desire remits sin and the eternal penalty due to it, but does not remit all the temporal penalty due.

3. Since baptism is necessary for salvation, it should be conferred promptly on infants, both because of the danger of death, and because infants have no ability to elicit a desire for baptism. Adults who wish to be baptized should be put through a time of instruction and probation so that they may receive the sacrament with understanding, reverence, and the firm will to discharge with fidelity the duties of the Christian life. Still, if adults be well instructed and disposed, they should not be made to wait for baptism. Nor should adult baptism be deferred during sickness, especially when there is danger of death.

4. An adult sinner who has no repentance and no intention of abandoning his sin is not to be baptized. A sinner who is repentant and well resolved should be baptized.

5. No kind of penance or work of satisfaction is to be imposed on an adult who is baptized, for baptism takes away all sin and all punishment due to sin. To impose a penance at baptism would be to dishonor the Passion and Death of Christ which make full satisfaction for all the sins of the person baptized.

6. An adult who is to be baptized must have some sorrow for his sins, but he is not required to confess them, beyond the general confession implied in the words of the ritual, by which he renounces Satan and all his works and pomps.

7. An adult to be baptized must have the intention of being baptized. Such a person seeks baptism at the hands of the Church; he asks to receive it; hence he expresses his intention of receiving it.

8. To receive grace, the person to be baptized must have faith. But even in the absence of faith, a person who intends to be baptized and undergoes the rite of baptism, is actually baptized, and is marked with he sacramental character.

9. Since infants are in original sin, they need baptism. For a person capable of incurring the guilt of sin, even original sin, is capable of receiving grace. Hence, infants are to be baptized. Not only does baptism confer its wondrous and indispensable benefits on the souls of children, but it also sets them in the way of Christian living at the very beginning of their lives, and thus gives greater assurance of their persevering than would be the case if their baptism were deferred.

10. Children of Jews and other unbelievers are not to be baptized without their parents' consent. By natural justice, young children are under the rule and control of their parents. Besides, baptism is not conferred, according to the usage of the Church, on those who will have no normal opportunity of living the Christian life in conformity with the obligation imposed in baptism.

11. A child cannot be baptized while it is yet in its mother's womb. [Note: This is no longer true. Modem methods in medicine and surgery make it feasible to convey water to the child in the womb, so that the baptism is at least probably valid. Such a baptism is licitly conferred, under conditions set by church law, when the child is unlikely to have a normal birth, or to live until birth.]

12. Insane and imbecile persons are to be baptized, like infants, in the faith of the Church. A person who, during his normal life, manifests no desire to receive baptism, is not to be baptized if he becomes insane. Yet an insane person may have lucid intervals during which he desires to be baptized; he is not to be refused. If he lapses into madness before the sacrament can be administered, the person baptizing should wait for the next period of sanity; if such an interval is not likely to recur, or if death threatens, the sacrament should be administered at once, despite the madness of the recipient. A person who is sane, but weak-minded, is to be treated as a normal person.

1. Baptism takes away all sin, original and actual. St. Paul says (Rom. 6:3): "All we who are baptized in Christ Jesus are baptized in his death"; and (Rom. 6:11), "So do you also reckon that you are dead to sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus Our Lord." By baptism, therefore, a man dies to sin, and begins to live in the newness of grace. Thus, every sin is taken away by baptism.

2. Baptism not only takes away all sin, but cancels completely the debt of punishment due to sin. By baptism a person is incorporated in Christ suffering and dying. And scripture says (Rom. 6:8): "If we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall live also together with Christ." Now, the Passion is satisfaction for all possible sins of all possible men. Hence, he who is baptized, and so incorporated into this perfect and plenary power of satisfaction, is freed from all debt of punishment due to his sins.

3. Baptism does not take away the penalties of sin that are to be undergone in this life. We must suffer, and endure, and die; this is for our merit, if we bear all hardship for God; this keeps us humble, hopeful, looking on to final resurrection, when all hardships and defects will be at an end.

4. Baptism takes away all sin and all punishment due to sin, and it confers grace and virtues on the person baptized. For baptism makes one a member of Christ; from Christ, the Head, grace and virtues flow through the members.

5. In baptism, a person is: (a) incorporated in Christ; (b) enlightened by Christ with knowledge of truth; (c) made fruitful of good works by Christ's infused grace.

6. Infants, by being incorporated with Christ through baptism, receive grace and virtues, even though their immaturity prevents the conscious exercise of acts that flow from grace and virtues.

7. Baptism, by removing guilt and the debt of punishment, takes away the obstacles that would block a man from heaven. Hence, we say that baptism "opens the gate of the heavenly kingdom" to the person baptized.

8. The essential effect of baptism (that is, the birth of a human being into spiritual life), is the same in everyone who is baptized. In adults, there is a varying degree of "newness" of life, according to the devotion and disposition they bring to the receiving of the sacrament of baptism.

9. The effect of baptism may be blocked, even though the sacrament is validly received, by what St. Augustine calls insincerity. A man may be insincere, with respect to baptism, in four ways: (a) when he does not believe; has not the faith; (b) when he has scorn for the sacrament; (c) when he receives baptism according to an unapproved rite; (d) when he has no devotion.

10. A man who is insincere, in any of these four ways, is validly baptized, and the sacramental character is impressed or imprinted on his soul. But he blocks out the grace and the virtues which the sacrament bestows. When such a man repents, and sincerely receives the sacrament of penance, his baptism will then produce its normal effects in him.

1. The rite of circumcision in the Old Law was a preparation for baptism, and a figure of baptism. For it was a proclamation of faith by which a man was aggregated to the body of the faithful.

2. Circumcision was instituted in the person of Abraham who was the first to receive the promise of the birth of Christ as of his seed or line (Gen. 22:18), and was the first to segregate himself from unbelievers.

3. Circumcision was established as a sign of faith; it was a work of the all-wise God.

4. Circumcision remitted original sin and conferred grace as a sign of faith in Christ's coming Passion. Baptism confers grace by the power of the sacrament itself as the instrument of Christ's accomplished Passion.

1. Instruction is to precede baptism, for our Lord said (Matt. 28:19): "Going therefore, teach ye all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Infants who are incapable of receiving personal instruction, are baptized in the faith of the Church. Yet the sponsor for an infant promises to use his best efforts to see that the child will be duly instructed.

2. Exorcism, which.is the casting out of evil spirits, should precede baptism. For the devil is the enemy of man's salvation, and he has a certain power over man in the fact that man is subject to sin.

3. The exorcism casts out demons lest they impede the salvation of the person baptized. In the ritual employed by the Church for solemn baptism, this exorcism is prescribed.

4. It is the work of priests to instruct and exorcise those preparing for, baptism, and afterwards to baptize them.

The following excerpt is from the book Radio Replies, 2nd Volume, Fathers Rev. Dr. Leslie Rumble, M.S.C. and Rev. Charles M. Carty, from TAN BOOKS AND PUBLISHERS, INC. (QUESTIONS: 716-721)

Because Christ came to redeem us from the death of sin, and to give us a new life of grace derived from Him. So He said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life" and again, "I am the vine, ye are the branches." As surely as the branches derive their life from the vine, we must derive our life from Christ. Now every life supposes a birth, and as no human being gets the life of grace given by Christ merely by being born of his earthly parents, a new birth is required. And it is by the rebirth of Baptism that we secure the supernatural life of grace which is derived from Christ and incorporates us with Him.

717. We Protestants are taught that when Christ said, "Ye must be born again," He meant a change of heart.

That would be a most inadequate explanation. For a change of heart means conversion from unbelief to belief in Christ, and from morally evil ways to morally good conduct. It therefore means repentance. Now our Lord did insist on repentance or a change of heart in all who sought baptism, but He did not identify it with baptism. He said, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." Mk. XVI., 16. When speaking of the rite of baptism itself, He said, "Unless one is born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven." Jn. IlI., 3. You will notice here that, whilst conversion or change of heart is an interior change in our own dispositions, the new principle of life comes from forces outside us. It is something put into us, and signified by an external rite. The good preparatory dispositions are from us; but the new life is not from us, but from God. The washing with baptismal water signifies the cleansing of the soul from the disease of sin belonging to children of a guilty race; and the Spirit of the Living God is mentioned as infusing into our souls a principle of new life altogether which is rightly said to regenerate us, and give us a new birth to a spiritual life of grace far beyond and above the merely natural life secured by natural birth.

The life He gives us is quite distinct from the life we secured at birth, and is derived from another source. Our very nature is changed and lifted to a higher plane, a plane therefore called supernatural. The starting point for Christians is the fact that the Eternal Son of God became man. But He descended to our level and shared our human nature by His human birth that He might lift us to His level and enable us to share His nature by a supernatural birth. In Him, God is given to us that we may become one with God. And as surely as His human life enabled the Son of God to live and experience our life in this world, so by our rebirth into the Christ-life we are to live and experience the life of God through grace in this world and through glory in heaven. It is obvious that such an experience is proper to God and not to man, just as an intellectual life in this world is proper to man and not to a tree. A tree would have to be elevated far above its natural life to be able to converse with man and share in man's activities. The human level would be supernatural in comparison with the level of mere vegetation. Far more is the God-level supernatural in comparison with man's level. For us to live the life of God, to know as He knows, love as He loves, and be happy with His happiness, we certainly will need a new principle of life, and new powers which are beyond those got by natural birth. And Christ communicates that new life to us by a baptismal rebirth which enables us to share in the Divine Nature, and gives a thought, love, action, and destiny in common with God. And we receive the principle of that life by the Sacrament of Baptism in which we are born again of water and the Holy Ghost. That life is in us by grace as the life of the oak tree is in the acorn; and it is that life of grace which will attain its full development and perfection in the glorious life of eternal association with God in heaven itself under conditions infinitely above the natural conditions of life in this world. That is what Christ meant when He said, "Ye must be born again."

719. Would not the general tenor off Paul's teaching suggest that the Gospel o] Christ was the power of God unto salvation, to all them that believe?

Yes. But the word "believe" there, is not to be taken in the restrictive sense of a theoretical faith in Christ, but in the universal and practical sense of one accepting the full religion of Christ, which includes the necessity of receiving that Sacrament of Baptism instituted by Christ. Nowhere did St. Paul ever suggest a dispensation from the necessity of baptism.

720. Is not the application of water merely symbolic, testifying an inward regeneration?

No. The sacramental external rite does not merely testify to an inward regeneration. It causes that regeneration. The Sacraments, as instituted by Christ and deriving all their power from Christ, are the very actions of Christ. He uses the Sacraments as instruments in the effecting of His work of grace, just as He used His humanity on earth as a medium of His power. We know that a woman touched but the hem of Christ's garments, and was healed. And Jesus felt virtue go out from Him. That was but an image of the conferring of grace by visible and tangible Sacraments instituted by Christ, of which baptism is one.

721. Is not the inward regeneration the result of believing and receiving the Gospel?

Yes, in the inclusive sense as implying the fulfillment of all the conditions laid down in the Gospel; including, therefore, the reception of baptism.