This weekend is the celebration of the remembrance of Jesus’ baptism. It also officially ends the Christmas season in the church’s liturgical calendar. As we began life, our parents or guardians, choose the Sacrament of Baptism to bring us into the Christian faith and to cleanse us from original sin. Baptism gave us a new spiritual birth by which we are able to journey through life as it were being kept afloat on His grace through the unsettling waters of life. In the early church, Christians used symbols to express beliefs and to teach. We call these symbols icons. The study of those symbols is called iconography. Most of us are used to the fish, a dove, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet (alpha/omega) and many other type symbols. The Early Christians had an icon for Baptism as well. It was the Dolphin. YES, a Dolphin! In Greek mythology, the dolphin was referred to as the ‘ARROW OF THE SEA.’ Carved images of the dolphin can be found as early as the first and second centuries on baptismal fonts, church walls, burial sarcophagi, and in baptisteries (small chapels for baptism). It was believed that when mariners were lost in storms at sea, dolphins would jumpy up in front of their ships and point them in a safe direction like an arrow steering them to safety. Baptism then, was associated by the early Christians as the sacrament of life that grounds, leads, and points us through the rough and uncertain waters of life. When we cooperate with our Baptismal grace, we can be led to safer waters. This implies that we must surrender to His grace/will and not our own personal choices. It will mean uncertainties and doubts will be forever in our future. However, when we allow God to point the way, things will eventually become salient and more clear. The goal is to trust and to believe that as Jesus too was Baptized, we share in that same supernatural relationship with the father (grace) as does He. I would like to share a quote I found that I often share with the couples I am preparing for the sacrament of Marriage. It goes like this . . . “Sometimes when things are falling apart but we keep out direction to Jesus and trust, we can often look back and realize, things were actually coming together.” Fr. Roach
