Welcome to All Newly-Baptized Catholics

At the Easter Vigil service, the service that takes place on the Saturday night before Easter Sunday, a special event occurs in all Catholic parishes throughout the world.  Adults in each parish who wish to become Catholic are baptized as Catholics.  This occurs following an often year-long period of education called the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, abbreviated RCIA.  The baptism occurs following the homily during this first Easter Mass of the weekend, the first Mass that celebrates the Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus following the observance of his death and entombment on Good Friday.  Baptism is one of the seven sacraments in the Catholic Church.

The service also includes the sacraments of Confirmation and Holy Eucharist (for the first time) for these new Catholics.  There are two fundamental requirements for a baptism to be valid:  1) water must be used, and 2) the approved words must be uttered by the one doing the baptizing.  The approved words invoke the Holy Trinity:  “I baptism you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”  If these two requirements were met previously in a non-Catholic church for the new Catholic, the Catholic Church considers the person to have already been validly baptized and, for them, the ritual begins with the Confirmation rite (which follows immediately). 

This year, I attended the Easter Vigil service at Assumption Church in downtown Chicago.  There were four adults baptized and five more receiving the other two sacraments (see the photograph accompanying this post).  The joy of the experience was very evident on the faces of these new Catholics, as you can see.  It gives a devoted Catholic such as myself great satisfaction to witness this joy, especially when they answer “I do” to questions like “Do you believe in God, the Father Almighty creator of heaven and earth?” and “Do you reject Satan, all his works, and all his empty promises?”

I believe that some of my readers were baptized into the Catholic Church as infants and even later attended Catholic schools, but at some point "left" the Church for another faith tradition.  Something that you may not know is that once you are baptized you do not need to be re-baptized to come back to the Catholic Church.  All it takes is for you to make a good Confession and you are good to go!  What constitutes a "good" confession may be the subject of a future blog post, but I invite you to do that!  I think you will be glad you did!

My personal joy was raised to an even higher level this year because my grandniece became a Catholic at this service in her parish in Iowa.  As I sat in the pew in the Assumption Church, I was filled with excitement knowing that she was becoming Catholic at the same time in this other Catholic church.  A hearty welcome to her and all who began their journey to heaven now as members of the Church that Jesus founded, the Catholic Church!  Amen!