Perhaps we should first ask a broader question: What is a sacrament? What "happens" to us when we receive a sacrament? Quite simply, a sacrament is a celebration of God's love, a love that was made real in the person of Jesus Christ, a love that continues to be bestowed upon the followers of Jesus through the centuries. Years ago, when I was a child, I was given the impression that sacraments were a kind of "entrance ticket" that would get you into heaven. The more the ticket got "stamped" with grace, the better your chances of getting into heaven. Of course, baptism is the first sacrament you receive, the pre-requisite for receiving the other sacraments. Therefore, baptism gave you the ticket itself which then could be stamped with grace each time you received another sacrament.

However, God doesn't want to wait till we get to heaven before he can give us his peace and fulfillment; he desires that we would be able to enjoy these gifts even here on earth. Sacraments, therefore, are ways that God visibly loves us in this journey here on earth, ways that he can fulfill our human needs and longings even now. Those deepest human needs have actually been placed into our hearts by God our creator. We were not made as creatures who could stand "on our own two feet," capable of bringing about our own fulfillment. Rather, we were created with certain needs that could only be fulfilled by God's infinite love. In other words, God has placed those needs and longings in our heart so that, from the very moment we are created, we can be drawn into a life of loving communion with Him and with others. I believe that what happens in the celebration of a sacrament is that we are reminded of a specific human need and, at the same time, we celebrate our belief that God, working through His family the Church, will fulfill that particular need in our life.

To appreciate this understanding of sacraments, I invite you to look at some of the particular needs we have as human beings and to see how each of the sacraments celebrates God's promise to fulfill those deepest human desires. Let's look at one of the most primitive of human needs -- the need for nourishment. Obviously, we are united with all other living creatures in this desire for sustenance; however, what makes our need for nourishment uniquely different from the need that exists in lower life-forms is the fact that I desire to be fed in community. Our deepest joy is to share food in the company of the people we love. Conversely, how lonely it is to take a meal alone. Even if we were to go to a restaurant by ourselves to eat, we would bring a book or a newspaper along with us. In that case, while we are physically alone, we are at least mentally uniting ourselves with a whole community of people. This unique human need -- to seek nourishment in community -- is celebrated in the sacrament of the Eucharist. We gather as a family of love to be nourished by God's word and by the bread of eternal life, Jesus Christ. In the Eucharist is God's eternal promise that all our deepest hungers will be satisfied.

Let's look at another human need and how God's response to that need is celebrated in one of the seven sacraments. We all have a need to receive healing in moments of sickness. Once again, this need is shared by other life forms; animals, plants, trees have specialized doctors to care for their well being. However, the unique aspect of the human need for healing is that it is accompanied by a need to know that other people care about us. A child falls in the playground, and that scraped hand is held up to her mother's lips to receive a kiss. From a strictly medical point of view, kissing a wound only risks infection; from a holistic point of view, kissing a wound is a sign of love and compassion. Even a child instinctually knows what will bring real healing in those times of hurt. Our Church celebrates this particular need in the sacrament of the anointing of the sick. What used to be called "extreme unction" or the "last rites" is now called the sacrament of the sick. With the name-change comes a change in the focus of what is celebrated. In this sacrament of anointing, the Church community is invited to gather with those who are ill, as a sign to our brothers and sisters who are ill that they are not alone -- that indeed we do care for them with the very love of Jesus himself. Once again, we see that sacraments are more than just entrance tickets into heaven; they are ways that God wants to bring wholeness into our lives in the present.

We could look at other human needs and their sacramental counterparts: confession celebrates our need to be unconditionally loved and to receive a second chance (or more) after we have failed. Marriage celebrates our need to love and be loved by another. Confirmation celebrates that need to be empowered to make a marked difference in the world. Holy Orders celebrates that need to have people designated in the community to lead us through the rites of passage in life. Each of these sacraments, of course, are not just celebration of the need itself -- after all, what is so glorious about celebrating needs? But, having gotten in touch with that deep human longing, we celebrate the promise of our God to bring fulfillment to our lives in this present age.

Baptism: The need to belong

If you have ever had the experience in life when you felt that you did not belong or "fit in," then you begin to see how deep a need this is in our life. So much of our life is given to seeking the avenues that bring us a sense of belonging. This need is perhaps most acutely felt during our adolescence. In those teen years, we are so concerned about who is part of the "in group" and who is not. We constantly look for the badges that will bring us a sense that we fit in, and we avoid those things that will make us an "outcast." The right jeans, the right sneakers, the right "style" all give us the hope that maybe we will be recognized as someone who is "in." What is so obviously played out in our adolescence is a need that really exists within our core throughout every stage of life. We want that circle where we feel accepted -- that special place we call "community" where I know that I am esteemed and valued as a member.

This need to belong is a truly deep human need -- we were created, after all, as social animals. It was God who at the beginning of creation declared, "It is not good for the man to be alone." (Genesis 2:18) While we may desperately search out those avenues that will bring us a sense of belonging, baptism celebrates the fact that God himself will immerse us into a community of love. He takes the initiative without our even having to work it out for ourselves. On the day of your child's baptism, your child is made a member of God's people. Prayerfully reflect on these scripture passages which speak of this belonging:

And so, baptism creates a lifelong bond for your child with a community of faith that says, "we love you and we accept you as a member of this body." Godparents ought to be carefully selected as people who will represent the tradition of faith that is being passed onto your child. They represent the unseen hundreds of millions of members of the Christian faith who make a promise to support and help your child to achieve his or her greatness here on earth. The bonds even go beyond the presence of the living members of the Church -- there are also the bonds with the communion of saints in heaven above. Standing with you and your child on the day of baptism (in a mystical kind of way) are all the heros of our faith: our Blessed Mother, St. Peter, and even the deceased members of our family who were models of faith for us. Through this beautiful moment of baptism, we become connected to all.

Imagine, if you will, the following scene. You and your spouse enter a very classy restaurant. This establishment happens to be one of those places whose reputation for excellent food and service is well known and much talked about. You walk up to the reception desk and the hostess is busily writing something into the reservation book. After a minute or two of waiting for her to look up from the book and notice you, you begin to nervously cough in order to get her attention. She still doesn't look up. Then someone enters the restaurant behind you and the hostess looks right past you and addresses these newly arrived diners, "Yes, may I help you?" Pushing you aside, the hostess proceeds to seat this party while totally ignoring the two of you.

Obviously, in such a situation, we would feel hurt and angry over being treated like a non-entity. Whether we like to admit it or not, we all have a need to be recognized. At first, we might be inclined to think that we don't have a need for recognition; we might even go so far as to say that we avoid those situations where we would be forced to stand out in the midst of a crowd. However, deep in the core of our being, we want people to treat us with the dignity and respect which we believe we rightfully deserve. We certainly resent others gaining preferential treatment over us. Jokingly, we might say, "What am I, chopped liver?"

In situations similar to the one described the example above, we have come to believe that in this bureaucratic age, it is not what you know, it is who you know that makes all the difference. You can get to the head of the line if you know the right people, drop the right names, make enough of a fuss. But does life have to be that hard? Can't we receive recognition and respect simply by virtue of the fact that we are human beings? Do we really have to know someone of influence in order to get our needs met?

Well, you do know someone of influence in your life. That person of influence is seated at the right hand of the Father, at the throne of God himself. More importantly, that person of influence knows you personally. You were baptized in His name. Baptism celebrates the permanent bond of love between you and Jesus, the one who has claimed you as his very own. Not only does baptism bring you into a real and life-long relationship with Jesus, it establishes your true identity -- you are an adopted child of the God the Father. Prayerfully read the following passages:

Our tradition, right from the time of the New Testament, has claimed that baptism makes us adopted sons of daughters of our Father. That means that the Father loves us with the same intensity with which he loves his own Son. As the father declared to Jesus at the moment of his baptism in the river Jordan, "You are my beloved Son upon whom my favor rests," so too the Father sees us as his own beloved. Through baptism, we have a dignity and a worth that no one can ever take away from us. Sadly, while there may be times when we are ignored or slighted by others, we know our real worth as the "favored ones" of the Father.

The rite of baptism celebrates our need to be recognized.

So many symbols in the ritual of baptism are reminders of this worth and dignity that is ours as a member of the family of God. At the beginning of the ritual, the parents announce the name of their child, that name by which God will eternally know us. Soon after that, the child is signed with the cross by which we are "claimed for Christ our Savior." By that beautiful gesture, we are "signed" as a member of the divine family, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Following the actual pouring of the water, a child soon receives a white garment as "an outward sign of his (her) Christian dignity."

Of course there are certain responsibilities that come from this relationship with the Father. Remember your own parent's words of challenge when we wanted all the privileges of family but none of the responsibilities: "As long as you're a member of this family, you have certain duties." Living out our baptismal calling is taking on the life-long duty to create the family of God through our own acts of loving kindness. As St. Paul reminds the people of Ephesus, "I, then, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace: one body and one Spirit, as you were also called to the one hope of your call; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. (Ephesians 4:1-6)

There is a special ritual within the celebration of the sacrament of baptism that reminds us of our duties and responsibilities to other members of the Body of Christ. Immediately after the pouring of water, the child receives holy chrism, an oil that will later be used in the child's Confirmation. This anointing with chrism looks forward to that day when your child will be fully initiated into the Christian family through Confirmation, receiving the gift of the Spirit which empowers us to be living and active witnesses to the values of Jesus. On the day of baptism, your child will be anointed as Christ was anointed "priest, prophet and king." As a member of God's priestly people, we have the responsibility to pray for one another. As a member of God's prophetic people, we need to speak out the truth of the gospel when others prefer to live the lie of self-deception. As a member of God's royal family, we must "administrate" this world in such a way that all created things are in their proper perspective.

We have all probably heard of "original sin" when we were younger, and we may vaguely recall that it has something to do with Adam and Eve. We may also recall that we were taught that baptism washes away Original Sin. However, maybe none of this made much sense to you as a child; after all, it does sound so "theological" and beyond our understanding. What is Original Sin, and how does baptism set you free from that?

Once again, I invite you to picture a scene which may be familiar to you. You and your family are driving to the beach on a hot summer day, and there is bumper-to-bumper traffic along the parkway heading for the beach. There is no way of getting off the parkway -- you feel frustrated as you sit there, stuck in traffic. Then, from out of nowhere, a car of beach-goers comes riding along the shoulder of the parkway and passes you and the countless number of cars in front of you. Some thoughts immediately flash into your mind: "I hope a cop catches them and writes them out a huge ticket. But, what if there is no cop along the causeway? Maybe they're going to get away with it? Heck, why should they get away with cutting this line and not me? Maybe I should ride along the shoulder myself? After all, who's going to stop me? Why should I be stupid enough to sit here when other people are getting to go where they want?"

We get annoyed when life seems unfair to us, when playing by the rules doesn't seem to get you where you want to go. In times like this we might be tempted to seize happiness into our own hands! After all, we say, it's a dog-eat-dog world out there and if you're not going to take care of number one, no one else will. Maybe it is better to take some shortcuts in life -- after all, everyone else does!

Reflecting on these feelings that we may have from time to time gives us a sense of what Original Sin is all about. Do you remember the story of Adam and Eve who were placed in the garden of Eden? As the story goes, God gave Adam and Eve all that they needed in order to survive and be happy. The only restriction in this vast garden of happiness was that Adam and Eve were told not to eat of this tree of knowledge of good and evil. Now, into that beautiful idyllic scene enters the serpent, "the most cunning of all the animals." Remember how the serpent begins by asking Eve, "Did God really tell you not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?" He begins to sow the seeds of doubt that maybe God is not so benevolent and kind as we would want to believe. Eve, however, is quick to defend God saying, "No, that's not true. We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; it is only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, 'You shall not eat it or even touch it, lest you die.'" But then the serpent responds, "You certainly will not die! No, God knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is bad."

You can see what the serpent is saying: How do you know God is really on your side? How do you know that God is really going to take care of your needs? Maybe God is holding out on you, and it is better to seize happiness into your own hands. Don't trust in God, don't wait on his promises. Take care of yourself! After all, if you don't take care of yourself, who else will do it for you?

Sadly, once those seeds of doubt are sown into the world, and once someone acts on that doubt as did Adam and Eve in taking the forbidden fruit, it becomes inevitable that everyone else is going to be tempted to follow in that direction. Like staying on a traffic-jammed parkway, as soon as someone cuts the line we feel that inclination to take things into our own hands for ourselves. Why should we just sit there and obey the rules when everyone else is getting what they want out life?

The ultimate question that was being posed to Adam and Eve in that biblical story is the same question that is posed to humankind ever since: Are you going to trust God or are you going to try to seize upon your own happiness in life? God, of course, is hoping that we are going to choose a life of trust and surrender to Him. His promise is that, in surrendering our will to his will, we shall find the ultimate path to happiness and joy. Of course, the pathway to God, the path of letting go and surrendering in trust, does not always bring immediate satisfaction of our needs. Therefore, we are much more inclined to follow the path of Adam, to take the shortcuts in life which bring about a more immediate gratification and the fulfillment we desire.

Throughout the history of God's interactions with us, God has tried to point out that the path of Adam is a path of slavery. The more we try to seek our own happiness apart from God, the more we make ourselves slaves:

-- slaves of obsession (believing that this thing is going to bring about my ultimate happiness and I must have it at all costs).

-- slaves of resentment and jealousy (why should someone else get their needs met and not me?)

-- slaves of fear (how do I know that God is really going to take care of me?)

When we say that God wants to free me from Original Sin, we are saying that God wants to reverse the trend of mistrust that began when Adam and Eve first decided to take happiness into their own hands. As children of Adam and Eve, in other words, as children of the human race, we are born into that ambience of mistrust; we are born into a world-view that makes surrender to God difficult, nearly impossible!

The only way that the Father could redeem us from this situation which leads to our own self-enslavement and eventually to our own self-destruction is to send us his Son. Jesus showed us the way to the Father which is the path of surrender and trust. As Christians, we believe that the death of Jesus on the cross is the ultimate act of loving surrender. Here is the innocent one who chooses not to seize power or revenge in that hour when all seemed so horribly unfair, but chooses instead to place his life and his work into the hands of his Father. In the garden of Gethsemene, just as Jesus is about to be arrested by the temple guard, and Peter is about to take things into his own hands by brandishing a sword in defense, Jesus says to Peter, "Put your sword back into its sheath, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do you think that I cannot call upon my Father and he will not provide me at this moment with more than twelve legions of angels?" (Matthew 26:52-53) All through the trial and crucifixion, it seems that Jesus does nothing by manner of self-defense. Finally, from the cross Jesus says his final words: "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit."

In the celebration of the sacrament of baptism, the major ritual symbol which we use to show this passage from fear to trust, that is, the passage of rebirth that makes us members of a new human race under the "new Adam," is the pouring of water. The ritual gesture, as it exists in most present-day celebrations of the sacrament, may not clearly communicate this important meaning of the sacrament, namely, that we are joined with Jesus in his ultimate act of surrender to the Father. If we have been to other baptisms, we have seen the priest pour water on the baby's forehead, and in seeing this gesture we conclude that the action means that we are washing the baby clean from all sin. But the baby is not a sinner -- a baby has not had the opportunity of making a choice against God. So what is this pouring of water all about?

Years ago, people were baptized in pools of water by the act of immersion, that is, an act of being lowered into the water. Sadly the ancient practice of immersion generally gave way to the simpler gesture of pouring water over the baby's forehead. Still, the practice of immersion reamins today. Perhaps we may have witnessed how other Protestant denominations have maintained this ancient practice. There are even some Catholic Churches which have taken up this method of baptizing both adults and even infants. The Catholic ritual even tells us that immersion is the preferred way of celebrating the sacrament. But, you may ask, what's so good about dunking?

In the ancient days, water had many different meanings. It was a source of refreshment and life; it was also a chaotic force that could not be controlled. If someone were totally immersed in water, you were reminded, at a very primitive level, that life can be chaotic, that we are not always in control of the forces of the universe. Try to fight and struggle while being immersed under water, and we would drown (we even hear how life-guards must sometimes knock out a drowning person so that they will not struggle and endanger their rescue). The only path to life is to surrender to the chaos in hope and in trust. In the celebration of baptism by immersion, we rise from those waters of chaos, as Christ rose from the dead. Thus we receive the promise that chaos will not have the last word in our life -- if we only trust and surrender to a Father who loves us beyond all imagining.

To be a Christian means to be joined with Jesus in this ultimate act of surrender and to receive, with Jesus, the promise of real life. All throughout our life, it will be a real challenge to surrender when the rest of the world says to seize happiness into your own hands. Left on our own, it is impossible not to be drawn into the seductiveness of a world that is full of empty promises: this thing will make you happy, revenge is sweet, you can be the author of your own happiness. The temptation to make those choices will be present throughout the course of your child's life. However, through baptism, we have received a real power to resist those choices and the false hopes that they offer. In our tradition, we call that power grace; we say that a sacrament confers the grace that it signifies. In other words, we believe that through the celebration of the sacrament of baptism, we have access to the very power of Jesus himself to be able to choose the pathway to freedom, the pathway of loving surrender, the pathway that will ultimately bring us life. This life of grace is meant to be nourished throughout our lives, most particularly through our frequent and life-long celebrations of the Eucharist. Not only have we been baptized into the mystery of Christ's death and resurrection, but we are constantly nourished and strengthened to follow his example each and every time we receive communion.

And so, what do you ask of God's Church for your child? You are asking that your child be connected to a loving family; you are asking that your child will always know his or her worth as an adopted child of the Father, and you are asking that your child will have the power to follow a pathway in life that will bring freedom and true peace. At the very same time, our loving Father is making a promise that he will bring to fulfillment all these desires of your heart and soul. Just as our Father has placed this child into your waiting arms, so too he places your child into the arms of Jesus, that is, into the arms of His body on earth, the Church. The Father breathes into this child the gift of his Spirit, that bond of love that unites your child to a believing community. Your child does belong! From all eternity, our Father has rejoiced in the life of this child whom he has created, and now he eagerly awaits those moments in time when others will come to recognize your child's worth and dignity.