Its appropriate this Sunday to remind us of the role of godparents in Baptism and of the Ritual of Baptism itself. We are lucky here at St. Catherine of Siena as baptisms are on the rise.

So what is Baptism in the Church? Answer: Baptism is a New Testament ordinance established by Jesus Christ just before His ascension into heaven. The Lord Jesus commissioned His disciples to proclaim the Gospel to all people, and to baptize new believers in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19; Mark 16:16). The rite is performed by immersing the person in holy water. Baptism is a sign to the new disciple of his fellowship with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection (Romans 6:3, 4, 5; Colossians 2:12) and of remission of sins (Acts 2:38; 22:16). Baptism is a sign (symbol, picture) because it shows spiritual realities by means of physical elements and actions (immersion in water).

The Sacraments are efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us. The visible rites by which the sacraments are celebrated signify and make present the graces proper to each sacrament. They bear fruit in those who receive them with the required dispositions…This sacrament is called Baptism, after the central rite by which it is carried out: to baptize (Greek baptizein) means to “plunge” or “IMMERSE”; the “plunge” into the water symbolizes the catechumen's burial into Christ's death, from which he rises up by resurrection with him, as “a new creature” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1131, 1214).

So, baptism is a sign of regeneration and cleansing of the believer. However, for the Catholic Church, baptism is something more than a sign. It is an “efficacious” sign; it “makes present” the grace that it “signifies.” Baptism is both a “sign” and the “instrumental cause” of justification (Council of Trent, session 6, chapter 7). So Baptism for Catholics is not a quaint ritual or a pre-party event, rather it a sign of God’s love for us, one that leads us on a spiritual path that ends with salvation in the form of eternal life—unending joy and peace.