Foretastes of Heaven on Earth
Today is an important day in our family. Not only is it Holy Thursday, the day of the institution of the Eucharist and the Priesthood, but for our family it is also the date of the Baptism of my first daughter in 2006, and the anniversary of my own first Holy Communion in 1989.
I am struck by how lovely it is that these days coincide this year. I was already grateful this morning for this gift from God. And then, as if to solidify in my heart the sense of being blessed, another small gift came unexpectedly my way in a visit from my husband's cousin. We had a brief but happy conversation about senior theses. He has just finished his and is very happy and proud. After we shared thesis experiences, he left, and I was moved to pull a copy of mine out this afternoon. Memories and thoughts came flooding back, so right and perfect for me this Holy Thursday.
The third chapter of my thesis (on the Christian Catacombs of Rome) is entitled Baptism and Eucharist: Pledges of Immortality. I wrote of these two Sacraments of Initiation as a foretaste of the life of Heaven. Baptism is seen by the early Christians, most notably St. Paul, as a kind of death, followed by a resurrection into the life of Christ, and therefore into the life of the Church. Thus, of course, Easter is the preference for the Baptism of catachumens as it is then that we celebrate the Passion and Resurrection of Christ into which we are baptized. And then after the death and rising of Baptism, the Eucharist is the celebration of the life and love of Christ, the "source and summit" of the new-found life of the Christian and a foretaste of the Heavenly banquet. I am grateful to be re-reading and meditating on this now.
To recall today in our family these two great sacraments -- our "antidotes against death" -- as we enter tonight into the Celebration of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus is a perfect coincidence and a wonderful reminder to me of the rich beauty of this Life that Christ has given to us.
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