THE sacraments, as we saw in the previous chapter, are a marvellous new creation on the part of Christ Our Lord. They are like nothing else upon the face of the earth. By their means those actions whereby Christ redeemed and sanctified are caused to exist in a new and mysterious way in certain signs which He selected for the purpose because they are now vehicles now of His action - are things which we do, it follows that actions of Christ become our actions. It is only through the sacraments that we can make His actions ours.

Now the most important of His actions were His death and resurrection By means of a sign, done by as is the way with sacraments) His death and resurrection, He makes those actions our actions. Which means that we die with Him and rise with Him to a new life. The sign which He chose for this is what we call baptism. A rite of baptism was in use before He came; we find St. John the Baptist using it because it represented a washing - so that those who underwent it manifested their desire to be purified from sin. But, as I said before, the sacraments have sometimes a multiple power of signifying - and this is a case in point. Going down into the water (the way it was done in Our Lord's day and for many centuries afterwards in warm climates) represents also going down into a grave - a dying. And rising up out of the water represents rising from the grave - a coming to life.

And Our Lord made this into a sacrament, one of those signs which effect supernaturally what they signify naturally. So, when someone is baptised, he goes through rites which naturally represent burial and resurrection, and also naturally represent cleansing. Wherefore the effects upon his soul are that he dies and rises again in the supernatural order, and is like wise supernaturally cleansed.

This is what St. Paul told the Romans very clearly:

"Know ye not, that as many of us as were baptised in Christ Jesus are baptised in his death? For we are buried together with him by baptism into death; that, as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection" (Rom. vi, 4). You will notice that the Apostle does not say "we were baptised in his death"; he says "in the likeness of his death" - that is, in its representation or sign, which baptism is.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem has a most instructive passage about this in one of his catechetical sermons:

"O extraordinary and paradoxical fact! We do not actually die, are not actually buried and brought to life after crucifixion, but all this happens to us in a likeness; yet our healing is actual. It was Christ who was truly crucified and buried and rose again; but He has given all this to us, so that we, by partaking in the likeness of His passion, might in reality receive its effects. What love beyond measure! Christ suffered the nails in His sacred hands and feet, and yet He gives to me, without suffering and pain, His salvation! So let no one think that baptism is merely the wiping out of sin. . . We know much more precisely that though it is indeed a cleansing from sin, it is also a sharing in the death and resurrection of Christ. Everything actually happened to Christ. But in your case it is a likeness of His passion and death which happens. His salvation, however, you receive not in mere likeness, but in fact" (Second Mystagogical Catechesis, 5).

When Christ rose from death He "walked in newness of life". He was different - He had new powers. So, when we have done that which signifies His death and resurrection (namely, undergone baptism), we also "walk in newness of life" in the supernatural order. Which means, firstly, that we are living with the "Christ-life" of grace, as described in an earlier chapter. And it means, secondly, that we too, have new powers. In this we are likened to Christ, or "conformed to Him" (as St. Paul puts it). There is a name for this "likeness to Christ" - it is called "the baptismal character". The soul of the baptised person is different from that of the unbaptised; it is different because it has power to do things which other souls cannot do.

One thing which non-Christian souls are incapable of doing is to give fitting worship to God. They are but natural souls, having only natural life, and so are not really worthy to enter into that close familiarity with God which worship involves. The Christian soul, by contrast, has the life of grace and the dignity of adopted sonship of God. Divine worship is henceforth one of its functions. It is, as St. Thomas Aquinas expresses it, "deputed to worship". And as worship is done through the "Mysteries of Christ" - the sacraments (especially through that sacrament which is also a sacrifice) - this means that in baptism the soul is destined to, or orientated towards the Christian Mysteries.

We reach just the same conclusions (but perhaps come to an even fuller understanding of all that they mean) if we regard baptism from another, equally true, angle. It is the beginning of a new life; and we may describe the beginning of life as "birth". That is how Our Lord Himself described it when He was explaining to Nicodemus that merely natural life was an insufficient equipment for the happiness of heaven. "A man cannot see the kingdom of God without being born anew," He said. "No man can enter the kingdom of God unless birth comes to him from water and from the Holy Spirit. What is born by natural birth is a thing of nature; what is born by spiritual birth is a thing of the spirit" (John iii, 5, 6).

In baptism, then, by "water and the Holy Spirit" we acquire new life; we are "born again". God imparts to us a life which is of the same kind as His own life - supernatural life, which we studied in Chapter II. And, in the chapter which followed, we saw that when God confers on any living being a type of life above its own - which changes its plane or level of existence - He does not do this directly or individually. He does it by making that being a part of a pre-existing organism which already lives with the higher type of life. This, then, is what happens in baptism. We, who are therein given a share in the divine life, receive it by becoming part of a pre-existing organism already living with the divine life. And we have seen what that organism is: it is the Mystical Body of Christ.

So baptism is a sacrament of incorporation. It makes us members of the Mystical Body of Christ. When Christ acts through His Mystical Body He acts through us. His action is our action. That is why the "Mysteries of Christ" are our actions, as well as His actions. But these "Mysteries of Christ" are the worship of God. It is thus through our incorporation into the Mystical Body (that is, through baptism) that we are enabled, given power, to worship. We are "deputed to worship"; we are "conformed to Christ" in His worship. And this conformation is called the baptismal character.

The same result, you see, though reached by a different line of reasoning from a different starting-point.

Let us now repeat - though without any arguments - just what baptism signifies and does. It signifies the death and resurrection of Christ. Hence, it effects, in the supernatural order, that Christ's death and resurrection (now sacramental realities) become our death and resurrection. Moreover baptism signifies cleansing. Hence it effects, in the supernatural order, a cleansing of our souls from sin. By rising with Christ we begin a new sort of life - are "born again". Our new life is not a direct, individual gift, but comes from Christ's Mystical Body through which He is acting in this, as in all sacraments. We are thus incorporated into - made members of - that Mystical Body.

Wherefore we have the power to share in the acts of that Body - in particular in the act of worship. We are "deputed to worship" - empowered to do it because now conformed to Christ, having that character which distinguishes the Christian soul from the non-Christian, merely natural, soul.

If that is all clear, we can now go a stage further. Our conformation to Christ is not complete with baptism. The Christian has, indeed, supernatural life as the result of his new birth. But that is not enough - there is more to come. Even in the natural order it is not sufficient merely to have life, as we can see from thinking a while about any new-born babe. It has life indeed; but its powers are so very limited. It is, as a baby, of no use to human society because it can only receive from, and not give to, the rest of mankind. In the course of years there are developed the powers of maturity which render the living human being capable of taking its full part in social life.

So also the Christian soul, new-born in baptism, has powers so limited that it cannot function fully as a useful member of Christian society - the Mystical Body of Christ. It needs further powers which will enable it to give as well as to receive from that Body. It needs yet further conformation to Christ who has, and who exercises, the fullness of spiritual powers as Head of the Body. And so there is a sacrament for effecting this - and it is called confirmation. Its external sign is the anointing with oil and laying on of the hands.

Anointings were much used in olden days; there were ointments employed in healing bodily ills, and oils were used in the massage of athletes to develop their strength. Health and strength, then, are signified by this sacramental anointing; in consequence, spiritual health and strength are caused in the supernatural life of the soul.

The laying on of hands was also customary in the conferring of some office or responsibility on a person faced with new duties, or entering a new state of life. In confirmation, then, the Christian is charged with the duties of full participation in the life of the Christian community of the Mystical Body - which involves, in particular, the Christian Mysteries of worship (cf. St. Thomas, Summa Theologica III, q. 72, a. z).

This explains why confirmation was given immediately after baptism in early days when those to be made Christians were mostly adults. It explains also why confirmation is recognised a completion of the effects of baptism conforming the soul still more perfectly to Christ by imparting further powers. The fact that it does this means that it, like baptism (and holy orders, as we shall later see), confers a "character" or likeness to Christ. The characters of all these three sacraments are, according to St. Thomas, progressive sharings in the priestly powers of Christ (Summa Theol. III, 63, 3). In confirmation those concerned are the powers to be exercised in the public or social worship of the Church, as contrasted with individual acts of worship.

Hence there is obviously something else to follow in order that the Christian soul, endowed with Christian life and equipped with Christ-like powers, may attain that fullness of union with Christ for which all that has gone before is but a preparation. That sharing in the death and resurrection of Christ which is baptism, that other sharing death and resurrection of Christ which is the Mass That likeness to Christ conferred in the characters of baptism and confirmation, and which is a sharing in the priesthood of Christ, demands its expression in the exercise of the priesthood through the offering of Christian Sacrifice. Baptism and confirmation thus lead to the Mass: to the Mass, moreover fully by the most important act of lay-participation which is Holy Communion.

The Eucharist, then, completes the process of Christian initiation; it is only through baptism, confirmation and the Eucharist that a man comes to the complete activation of that - Christian life which is his as a member of the Mystical Body. This accounts for the practice of the early Church - which was continued for many centuries - of conferring these three sacraments successively in the one rite of initiation.

How vividly all this was brought home to the Christians of early times, in the magnificent ceremonies of Eastertide, when these were done with their full and glorious ritual. Early Christians celebrated at Easter not merely the resurrection of Christ, but also the resurrection of mankind, from the death of sin to the new life of grace. It was the great feast of Christian initiation.

With all sorts of instructions, ceremonies, exorcisms, scrutinies lasting throughout the time we now call Lent, the Christian community prepared those who had but natural life for that incorporation into Christ which would bring them supernatural life. On Holy Saturday evening they all met together; with prayer and song they blessed the new fire and lit up their church, replacing darkness with light culminating in the paschal candle which stood for Him who was the "Light that shineth in the darkness".

Then followed the blessing of the font. In those days the font was not like ours - a basin on top of a pillar - but was usually a kind of bath, below floor level, with steps leading down into the water. First the Christ-candle was lowered into the depths and brought forth again - just as once Christ descended into the grave and rose again. Then the catechumens in turn descended into the waters as though being buried with Christ; and being washed from their sins, they arose from the font as Christ rose from His grave unto newness of life - no longer natural men but Christians, conformed to Christ in the baptismal character, destined members of the Mystical Body, filled with grace, to worship God in and through the Christian Mysteries.

By now it was early on Sunday morning, about the time when Christ, as a matter of history, rose again from the dead. How fitting, then, that at this time Christians also should rise in mystery from the death of that sin which their mystical Head had conquered, thus celebrating the resurrection of head and members together!

Arrayed now in white robes symbolic of their fresh innocence, those who had been newly-begotten in Christ were brought to the presiding bishop who anointed them with chrism and laid his hands upon them. Thus they received the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Ghost, becoming "other Christs" - for the very word "Christ" means "anointed".

Fully equipped now with the life and the powers proper to members of the Mystical Body of Christ, the new Christians singing "in the joy of their youth" went with all their brethren "unto the altar of God"; gathered around this altar, in the brightness of Easter dawn, they exercised for the first time their privilege and duty of worship by participation in those particular Mysteries of Christ in which there is to God the Father - through Christ and with Him and in Him - all honour and glory.

Though we may not have experienced it all in such a vivid and inspiring manner, we must never forget the fact that all this did, in very truth, happen to us. Owing to the happy restoration of the Easter Vigil by Pope Pius XII we are now enabled to enter into the spirit of it much more fully than before. We have been baptised - we made our introit into the death and resurrection of Christ; we were really - though "in mystery" - buried with Christ, and with Him we rose to newness of life. We were equipped in confirmation with all the powers needed for full activity as members; conformed to Christ the Priest by sacramental characters, enabled to carry out our functions in the Christian Mysteries, and to be united sacramentally with Christ and with each other.

If only we realised this as we should, our minds would be filled with wonder, and our hearts would sing with gratitude to God, with joy and exultation at all these marvels. The worship of God would be for us no mere duty, but a privilege which we rejoice to fulfil. Our religion would be seen for what it truly is - "good tidings of great joy". Such an attitude would bring into its right perspective our task of living a good Christian life.

"The three sacraments of initiation," writes Dom Godfrey Diekmann, O.S.B., "the sacraments that bring us the fullness of the Christ-life, are also the sources of Christian living. Only because we have the Christ-life can we perform Christ-like actions. And because we have the life, we must act in a Christ-like manner. . . . How we have managed to obscure this in practice, to our very great spiritual loss! We have made of Christianity a s stem of moralising - do this and don't do that - almost as if we were still in the Old Testament. Christian life becomes a matter of laboriously striving to imitate the example of Christ, a painful and discouragingly slow process, in which we are helped by the grace of God, and in which we persevere because we want to get to heaven (or perhaps, really, only to avoid hell). The emphasis is almost solely on our effort. And the result? Well - let us say that, by and large, it is not exactly worth boasting about!"

And finally, I quote a beautiful passage from Monsignor Hillenbrand:

"The liturgy endlessly insists upon this simple truth - that the world with all its present disabilities, is now more glorious, is now more fraught with possibilities for our divine life, than paradise would have been. . . It is idle beyond words to lament that paradise has vanished. The world is full of that lament. It is futile and self-pitying. For every regret that escapes our minds, there ought to be a cry of astonishment and delight - so far does the re-creation in Christ surpass the original divine creation in Adam.

"Doubtless one of the reasons why we are such dull, routine Christians and have so little effect upon the world is that we have no sense of this, no sense of our newness in Christ. We are so much engrossed with the riddling effects of the first sin. We sense the collapse, not the restoration. We sense the fall, not the lifting up. We sense the ancient enthralment, not the release into the new glorious freedom, the freedom of the sons of God. Our thinking is so pre-Incarnation, if I may put it that way. We direct our attention to the lost paradise, rather than to the infinitely more wonderful, though immensely more difficult, world that we now have. We live by sight rather than by faith, for the lost paradise is everywhere manifest, but the glorious world is in the realm of the invisible, the divine.

"Because of this, Christianity is not the good news, the glad tidings that shall be to all the people. Because of this, Christianity has often come to seem a burden; not a joy; a constraint, not a liberation; a disadvantage almost, not an enrichment. We lack, in brief, this tremendous sense of the newness which St. Paul says should have such a decisive influence on our lives, and for which the world hungers never so much as now."

Let us all, then, cultivate this sense of newness, of freedom, of joy in our Faith, so that it may overflow into our actions and cause us, as it were spontaneously, to live holy lives whereby we may become united, ever more closely, to Christ our Head. "Let us give thanks, dearly beloved, to God the Father, through His Son, in the Holy Spirit; for when we were dead in our sins, He made us alive with Christ, that we might be in Him a new creation. Be conscious, O Christian, of your dignity! Remember the Head and the Body of which you are a member. Recall that you were rescued from the power of darkness and brought out into God's light and kingdom" (St. Leo, Sermon I, 'On the Nativity').