Fr. Roger J. Landry
St. Christopher’s Church, Tiverton RI
Baptism of Hanah Amica Cincotta (born May 7)
July 30, 2000
Ezekiel 36; John 3
When we look at the Cross, we see just how much Jesus suffered for us. And today we know why he suffered so much. He suffered to make this day possible. He died so that Hanah today might be reborn to eternal life.
Hanah was born with an invisible but real defect. Because of the sin of Adam and Eve, she was born with a bad heart, a disoriented heart, a heart of stone, as the prophet Ezechiel tells us in the first reading. God promised to take out this heart and place in her a new heart and a new spirit, a heart of flesh, a heart capable of truly love and not just sin. God promised to place his Spirit in us. How did he promise to do this? As we heard, by sprinkling clean water upon us, purifying us of all our impurities. This we do today for Hanah in baptism, when three times we will pour water over her head and baptize her into that new and everlasting Covenant which Ezekiel prophesied and Jesus fulfilled by his death and resurrection.
Imagine that Hanah were born with a genuine physical defect in her heart that would cause her to die unless she received a heart transplant. Then imagine the father of another child, knowing this, said that he would give his own son’s life so that Hanah could receive a heart transplant and live. The reality of what is happening today is even greater than this. That other Father, the first person of the Blessed Trinity, sent His Son here on earth to die so that Hanah might get such a transplant! Hanah’s salvation was worth the death of so great a Savior, Jesus. This is the foundation of Hanah’s great dignity. And, since all of us, too, are baptized, this is the foundation of our dignity as well. Today we have the opportunity to renew the baptismal promises our parents made at our baptism. With our eyes on Jesus on the Cross, may we make them with all the fervor your parents made them soon after your birth!
In the Gospel we have just read, Jesus says to Nicodemus that unless one is born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of God, he cannot enter heaven. Nicodemus asked a very logical and sensible question in response: how can a man be born again? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born? Jesus replied that he has to be born of water and the Spirit. That birth by water and the Spirit, that second birth, happens here at this baptismal font. This is the womb of the Church. This is the one womb from which all of God’s children are born, where man, no matter how old or how young he is, is reborn into eternal life. Because each one of us has been born from these saving waters, we are all spiritual brothers and sisters, with one Father, the first person of the Blessed Trinity in Heaven, and one Mother, the Church.
Because we have all been born from this one womb of our Mother the Church, each one of us is, necessarily, a spiritual older brother or older sister to Hanah, who is about to become a member of God’s family through baptism. For this reason, every single one of us here today, is called by God and the Church to help Anthony and Jennifer raise Hanah in the faith. All of us are need to be in a certain sense Hanah’s spiritual godparents. And likely Anthony and Jennifer will need all of us. The culture in which we live is not very sympathetic to the values of the Gospel, to the values for which Jesus himself lived and died, the values for which all of those saints whom we will soon invoke in the Litany lived and died. We have to help create an environment, by our words, actions and lives that will help Hanah to grow in the faith into which she is about to be born.
Toward the end of baptism, we will clothe Hanah in a white garment and I will say to Hanah on behalf of the Church, “Behold in this white clothing the outward sign of your Christian dignity. With family and friends to help you by word and example — that is all of us — bring that dignity unstained into the everlasting life of heaven.” And this white garment is naturally linked to another white garment with which Hanah will one day be dressed: the white garment, the pall, that she will be covered with on the day of her funeral. Because of this day and this white garment of baptism, that future day does not have to be a sad one! This day, this baptism, gives Hanah eternal life, so that that future day will not mean death, in the true sense of the word, but a passing into eternal life, provided that she can arrive at that day with this garment clean, through baptism and through the sacrament of reconciliation. And this is the importance of this day. This is the glorious day on which Hanah will die in this font so as to rise in Christ and never have to die again! This is truly the most important day in Hanah’s life. How lucky we are to share it with her! And how lucky we too are to have the opportunity here, in beholding her baptism, to reflect upon our own baptism, to reflect upon our own white garments, to ask for God’s help to keep them clean, and to thank God for the extraordinary gift of salvation which Hanah is about to receive and we have all received.
This is our faith. This is the faith of the Church. How proud we truly are to profess it, in Christ Jesus Our Lord!