Fr. Don’s Weekly Letter ~ 12 January 2025

Dear Good People of Saint Bernadette,

The God of power and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has freed you from sin, given you a new birth by water and the Holy Spirit, and welcomed you into his holy people.

He now anoints you with the chrism of salvation. As Christ was anointed priest, prophet, and king, so may you live always as a member of his body, sharing everlasting life.

All: Amen.

These are the words the celebrant says when anointing a newly baptized child with Chrism. Sacred Chrism is the oil consecrated by each bishop at the Chrism Mass during Holy Week, and in the same way the bread and wine are the forms under which the real Body and Blood of Jesus is present and received, so the Church teaches that under the form of Chrism it is the Holy Spirit who is present and received. At your baptism, you were anointed priest, prophet and king, a royal priesthood, a holy nation.

As priest, Jesus sanctifies, reestablishing the lost link between divinity and humanity; as prophet, he speaks - and is - the Word of divine truth; as king he leads us, the ultimate servant leader.

So many scriptural references fill our minds: This three part identity of Jesus is why he says, literally, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (literally, the life, the truth and the way). John the Baptist explained how his baptism was a baptism of repentance with water, but Jesus will come and baptize with water and the Holy Spirit.

Of course, it is Jesus himself whom we encounter in every sacrament, and I find it a powerful reflection to consider how it is his own Spirit that he pours into our hearts first in Baptism and Confirmation so that we can become him in Eucharist. He is our identity. “I must decrease, he must increase.”

Remember - in the early years of the Church to become Christian well might be a death sentence. You wouldn’t baptize an infant; you would wait until the candidate could run faster than Roman soldiers or outsmart them. The three sacraments of initiation (Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist) were received all at once as you may have experienced at the Easter Vigil Mass. Once
Christianity was legal, infants were baptized.

In the western Church, only a bishop can confirm (in the Eastern Rite Catholic churches and the Orthodox Churches priests confirm), so that the separation we know between the first Chrism of Baptism and the full chrismation of Confirmation is our practice simply because bishops couldn’t be everywhere all at once for baptisms.

We are incorporated (embodied) into the person of the Son. We all are baptized to serve as priests through our sacrificial efforts to bring people to God. We serve as prophets through our witness to the truth in word and deed. And we all serve as kings in our efforts to lead others—again through word and deed—to use their talents to advance the Kingdom of God (Catechism, 1241). It is so much more than just membership, though that, in itself, is perfectly beautiful.

It is the same Holy Spirit who enters the heart of every person baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and all are validly members of God’s family. We are brothers and sisters with all the baptized. God cannot give himself partially: each newly baptized person is an entirely new creation as Jesus is. He is “begotten, not made” of the same substance (consubstantial) as the Father, as we profess in the Nicene Creed at Mass. He cannot be otherwise. But we who are baptized, though made by God, also become begotten of him as members of the Body of Christ. This is entirely new. It is also called the Mystical Body but I think the word mystical, for some, might not mean real. Don’t buy it: you are the real deal.

We don’t hear enough today about the common priesthood of the faithful, a popular topic in the documents of Vatican II. Or maybe you are not convinced because we put so much emphasis on the ministerial priesthood of ordained clergy. One of the things that Vatican II sought to do was restore the dignity and vitality of lay members of the Church and the important role that you are to fill in the life of the Church. The priest, though necessary, is no more important than anyone. It is not a matter of importance, really. That is what is meant by clericalism. He has, in God’s mercy and by his willingness, been given a unique role as the servant leader of the faithful who has the responsibility to empty himself for you, as Jesus did. His identity is rooted, just the same as yours, in Baptism.

The Lord be with you.