By Father Christopher Kubat
Recently at one of the state prisons somewhere south of the Platte River, I visited an inmate who entered the Catholic Church not long ago. He happens to suffer from several serious illnesses. The more his health deteriorates, the stronger his faith becomes.
As we talked, he asked me this question: Since babies are too young to have committed any actual sins, why are they baptized? He rightly understood that we humans inherit a sinful condition from our first parents Adam and Eve, but just wanted further clarification.
I explained that when our first parents were created by God, they were created with the very life of God in their souls. This Divine Life is called Sanctifying Grace. Since they were created as such, they were not destined to die. But because they rebelled, they lost the grace in their souls and death entered the world. (Rom 6:23) In addition, the gates of heaven were closed to them.
Since a parent cannot transmit to their offspring something they do not possess, we inherit this graceless condition called Original Sin. Cars have gas tanks; we have grace tanks. Our grace tanks are our souls. We all know what happens to a car if its gas tank is empty, or if it runs out of gas. We also know where to obtain gas – at gas stations.
Only souls with grace can enter purgatory or heaven after death. Once a soul is filled with grace, only by filling it regularly with grace can it be kept running properly. This is why we have grace ‘stations’ otherwise known as sacraments. This is why baptism is the most essential sacrament because when a baby is baptized, Sanctifying Grace or the very life of God enters the soul for the first time.
Baptism with water is the normal way a person receives grace in their souls for the first time. This is why we baptize babies, to remedy the graceless condition of Original Sin. They are baptized in order to fill their souls with grace. If a person is past the age of reason, baptism removes any actual sin as well.
Since after baptism, our wounded nature remains, it is vitally important to go to the grace stations of the other sacraments such as confirmation, the anointing of the sick if we have a serious illness, confession as frequent as we can, and the Blessed Sacrament to regularly top off the tanks of our souls. This was only made possible by the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is what we celebrate each Easter.
Notice when our first parents were banished from the garden, they lost access to eat the fruit of the tree of life, from which they formerly had permission to eat. The new tree of life is the cross, and the fruit from this tree is the water and blood from the side of Christ, namely, baptism, the Eucharist and the rest of the sacraments.
It is our prayer at Catholic Social Services that you have a blessed and holy Easter and Easter Season and commit yourselves to frequently filling your souls with grace from the two sacraments that can be received frequently—confession and Holy Communion. That is what this inmate mentioned above is committed to do. Happy Easter!
