A Letter from Our Bishop
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A Letter from Our Bishop |
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"... Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me." Mt 10:40 |
March, 2008
My dear Sisters and Brothers,
One of the most moving ceremonies of our Church’s liturgical year is the Easter
Vigil which commences with the lighting and blessing of the new fire. From the
fire, a flame is taken by a taper to ignite the Easter or Paschal candle which
is then carried by a deacon into the darkened church. At three different
stations in the main aisle, the deacon pauses and proclaims in song to all the
congregation gathered, “Christ our Light,” to which we all respond, “Thanks be
to God.” At each interval, the candle is lowered so that the congregants in that
area can light their individual hand candles. As the ceremony proceeds, the
Paschal candle’s light pierces the darkness like daybreak, and then gradually
spreads throughout the church building like the coming of daylight, symbolizing
that Christ has broken the bonds of darkness and death and has come to new life.
Old Testament scriptures are then proclaimed, detailing for us our salvation
history and how the Promised One, the Messiah, would come to save His people. A
New Testament reading from St. Paul is read and then the Gospel account of the
resurrection is solemnly proclaimed to us. The tomb is empty, Jesus is alive! He
has risen!
Immediately after the homily, the Rite of Baptism is celebrated. This part of
the ceremony is also very rich in symbolism. For a period of six months or more,
men and women—lovingly referred to as catechumens—have been preparing for this
moment. The RCIA or Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults was restored by the
liturgical reforms of Vatican II over forty years ago. Today, women and men each
year decide to join us in our faith journey as Catholics, and do so by entering
into the RCIA process which initiates them into Christ and His Church through
the Sacrament of Baptism.
You will notice that, in the light of the liturgical renewal, in many of our
newer churches and remodeled older church buildings, the baptismal font is
expanded into a baptismal pool.
This is to reflect what St. Paul wrote in his
Epistle to the Romans:
“Are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized
with Him through baptism into death so that, just as Christ was raised from the
dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life. For if we
have grown into union with Him through a death like His, we shall also be united
with Him in the resurrection. We know that our old self was crucified with Him,
so that our sinful body might be done away with, that we might no longer be in
slavery to sin. For a dead person has been absolved from sin. If then, we have
died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.”
In Apostolic time, a person being baptized would enter a body of water or a
baptismal pool and be totally submerged into the water, symbolizing his death to
his old life and sin, and would emerge rising from the water to the newness of
the Christ-life. What a powerful symbol this is! We who have been baptized years
ago are renewed by witnessing the baptism of the catechumens. The impact of this
scene should challenge us to a constant reform and conversion of ourselves from
our old ways to a deeper union with Jesus Christ.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is not simply just a past
historical event that we commemorate, but a vibrant reality which we live and
re-live each day of our lives. Having been incorporated into the Mystical Body
of Christ through our sacramental baptism, we carry in ourselves the Paschal
mystery, the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Receiving
baptism is not just a one-time event, but the beginning of a lived experience we
must cultivate all the days of our lives. As St. Paul states, “We have put on
Christ; in Him we live.”
But how do we maintain our Christ-life? Through prayer, reception of the
sacraments, living a moral and ethical life, reaching out to the less fortunate,
the poor, the sick, the homeless, the homebound, by being caring and loving,
forgiving and compassionate to all we meet.Only then will the tomb be empty.
Only then will Christ be alive, for He will live in and through you and me.May
we never, ever take for granted what we carry in our person through our baptism:
Jesus Christ.
Brothers and sisters, know your dignity! A Blessed Easter! Amen!
Most Rev. Paul G. Bootkoski
Bishop of Metuchen