By Wendy Kachermeyer
Director of Religious Education

Wendy Kachermeyer

You must think of yourselves as brought out of Egypt, freed from harsh slavery, in which iniquity was your master; as having also passed through the Red Sea through baptism, which was marked by the bloodstained Cross of Christ. As for the enemies pursuing you from behind: consider them to be your past sins because, just as the Egyptians perished when the people of God passed through, so were your sins obliterated when you were baptized. St. Augustine – Sermon 260B

This Holy Season of Easter is the joy after the desert. The Catholic Church celebrates the resurrection of our God with everything she has. It is amazing!! We live because of Christ’s resurrection so we try to bring this joyous experience to its greatest level of life.

The liturgy itself is filled with sight, taste, smell, sound and touch that we don’t always experience during regular Sunday Mass. All Masses are beyond Holy; however at the Easter Vigil Mass we become new with remembering our own Baptism publicly. Every person that is in attendance has already experienced the scripture readings that describe our salvation story. When it is time for us to move in procession to quietly dip our fingers in the newly blessed Holy Water and make the sign of spiritual life (The Sign of the Cross…In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit) we are recalling the lifesaving, life giving and real life beginning Baptism.

Easter Vigil is also when people on the outside of the Catholic Church who have undergone months/years of study and spiritual enlightenment become one with the Catholic Church throughout the whole world. We welcome those who were never baptized, those who are baptized from another faith (Catholic Church does not re-baptize if water and the Trinitarian words were used) and those who were baptized in the Catholic Church but didn’t have any catechesis into full communion. I have had the wonderful privilege to witness infant, young children, teenage and adult baptism. Each baptism is a great grace from God. I always think of how pure these people are once they walk out of the baptismal fount, zero sins. Wow! I also think of the permanent seal they received on their souls. The seal of Baptism cannot be removed from a soul no matter what a person says or does. It makes a person step back for a second when you think of baptism as forever in Christ.

Reflection: My image of a person receiving the rite of Baptism

Stepping down into the pool of Holy Water and allowing a Priest to push you under and hold you there for a second or two makes your heart race. The water flows over you in a rush that kills your hearing, sight and the ability to breathe freely. You feel the pressure of the Priest’s hands on your chest and back holding you under as you hear the muffled words, “I baptize you in the name of the Father” up you come out of the water to quickly catch your breath and right back down for another one or two seconds and your heart is beatings so fast you feel it pounding in your ears. You hear the Priest say “and of the Son” and out of the water a second time and back down, this time you couldn’t catch any air, you feel the moment, you’re not thinking, you just are. You hear the Priest say “and the Holy Spirit” and the water parts away from your body with gentleness as you pull the breath of your new life in to the purest form your body will ever be in. Your soul and heart are very light and filled with excitement and over whelming joy from the evil you just died from and the graces you just received. Now you can truly live.

Saint Augustine understood adult baptism very well because he was an adult when he finally received the sacraments. His holy mother Saint Monica prayed for him every day for years. Just before she died her prayers were answered. Her son was very intellectual and enjoys over indulgence and led a life of unspeakable behavior and after a change in his heart received the sacraments of the Catholic Church then became a bishop and one of the early fathers of the Catholic Church and a great saint.

Discern your Baptism. What does it mean to you and your relationship with Christ? He turned His life over because of His love for us.

Wendy Kachermeyer is Director of Religious Education and R.C.I.A (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults) at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church, Dunkirk, NY