3^rd Sunday in Lent, A             February 24, 2008

Our catechumen, Lynn Chittik, is looking forward with great anticipation to an extraordinary encounter with God in four weeks at the solemn Easter Vigil Mass.  What about that experience is so special?  Why is Lynn so excited about it and eager for it?

Jesus calls two inanimate objects “living.” The first one is water, water that conveys life.  Jesus said to the woman at the well, “I would have given you living water.”  Living water is the water of baptism.  It is living because it gives the gift of the life of God, the Holy Spirit, to us who are baptized.       

Even on a purely natural level, water does amazing things.  Nothing cleans better than water.  And on a spiritual level, nothing cleans better than the living waters of baptism.  We believe that in that spiritual shower as it were in baptism by pouring water on the head, adults are cleansed of all sins they ever committed, no matter how many or how terrible they were.  For infants baptism washes away what is called original sin, no, not some imaginary dark spot on the soul.  Original sin is the human condition from the very beginning, cut off from God by free choice, and unable by our own efforts to repair our broken relationship with God.  Original sin is the alienation and separation from God we are all born into.  Baptism ends that distance from God, ends our being left to our own devices.  Baptism ends our tendency to serve ourselves, ends our tendency to ratify by our own choices the evil brought by humanity into our world.  Baptism washes it all away in a cleansing shower of the love and life of God.

Notice, we are baptized only once.  God’s life and love are never taken away.  Jesus said, “Whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst.”  God is faithful; God stays with us forever.  And, should we close God out, we need only repent and experience forgiveness for God’s life and love given through baptism to be renewed in us. 

In nature water is more than a cleansing agent.  It is also the bringer of life.  We speak of the waters of birth, of the refreshing rain that makes the desert bloom, the water that quenches us and keeps us alive when we feel as though we are dying of thirst.  And of course, water is also the agent of death.  Think of the destructive flood, the tsunami, drowning in water. 

On the spiritual level, baptismal water is the agent of death.  In her immersion baptism on Easter, going down into the water will symbolize our catechumen, Lynn’s, dying to her selfishness.  The same water is the bringer of life.  Coming out of the water will symbolize her rising with Christ to new life, the life of God, to be hers forever.

That is why Lynn is so excited about her upcoming baptism.

The second inanimate object that Jesus calls “living” is bread.  Bread actually transforms into something else, something alive.  Jesus said, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven.  Whoever eats this bread will live forever.”  Living bread; eat it; live forever!  Now why is that not breaking news every day on CNN?  It should be.  Our catechumen, Lynn, is hungry to eat that bread for the first time.  How hungry are we for the Eucharist?  How aware are we of what it is and what it means?  Living bread; eat it; live forever!