"They will come if you build it."

In May of 1973 I joyfully officiated at George and Jan Gentile's wedding. On Trinity Sunday of 1980 I was Godfather as their second son, Jonathan, was baptized. I am proud of him. He is now 18 and soon will graduate from Jupiter High. Jonathan's baptism was done in the afternoon at St. Paul of the Cross Parish in Juno, Florida. Passionist Father Cajetan Bendernagel used a lovely bowl for the baptism. A few years later I presided as Jonathan's brother, Jody was baptized during the Sunday Eucharist. We used the same bowl. Now St. Paul's has expanded its entrance way so that the Assembly can gather to see, hear, and actively participate in the baptismal bath of infants, children and adults.

I hear it said: this is the age of the laity. Nonsense! I am convinced it will not be the age of clergy or laity unless we reclaim the meaning of baptism. To do so requires vivid and graphic reminders. I want to see every Catholic Church with a baptismal space big enough for all our people to gather, see, hear, and participate in the bathing of infants, children and adults. We need flowing, living waters at the entrance of our Churches to remind us of our baptismal call. We need fonts big enough and deep enough to immerse people in. We need to get really wet. Human birthing is messy. Why should spiritual birthing be so antiseptic?

Our bishops have gone on record: immersion is the preferred way to baptize everyone. Why aren't we?

I believe that we settle for a few drops will do it. We settle for minimalism in the use of our symbols, i.e., in how we reverently handle our bodies , in the bathing, oiling, and clothing of new born Christian bodies in radiant, lovely baptismal garments and robes.

Secondly, we run away from our bodies. We eschew bodily secretions. We act as if the body were unholy, were not God's precious creation. On a practical level we unwittingly deny the incarnation of the Word. (If so, it is a short step to not appreciating resurrection).

So much of faith is connected with our bodies. We kiss each other in peace. We bathe new born Christians. We oil confirmands. We place Eucharistic bread in our hands and we dine on the Eucharistic cup. We lay hands on the heads of our sick. We reverently prepare our dead for burial. We join hands in marriage and we consider sexual exchange to be a grace-giving act of love between spouses.

But somehow we fear embodiment. We are shocked by naked infants and we just don't want to get down into the waters with our adult catechumens. When we are not lavish with our symbols and spaces, we reduce baptism to sprinkling. We miss the symbolic richness of engaging our converts in the womb of Mother Church. We timidly enter into the tomb of drowning/death and regeneration/life. We half-heartedly swim in the mysterious depths where sea-monsters are destroyed and disempowered. We wimpify faith.

It is time to change. If we build ample baptismal spaces and immersion fonts, converts will come because they will know that we take the Christian call and their human persons seriously.