Eighteen people, young adults, were baptized at the Easter Vigil in which I participated. Each will have a different and personal story. Probably few are the result of a sudden conversion, or have sought a particular religious experience. Life will have been their journey.
At few moments as at the Easter Vigil is the newness of the Christian faith so well perceived, through the expressiveness of each rite. But the incorporation into the Church of some people, through the reception of the sacraments of Christian initiation (baptism, confirmation and Eucharist), gives that night a particular fullness.
Those eighteen young men and women (Jorge, David, Elias, Ruth...), and those who take their place each year in so many places, are a sample of the vitality of the faith and an example of the utmost eloquence for the environment in which they live. The decision that each one has made, after his own personal journey and after a long preparation, has been a conscious one; and he has been formed in desire and intelligence through catechesis and accompaniment. His joy, very perceptible after the Vigil, had an energy that "no fuller" could make whiter. I think that everyone should be for his environment a true "motive of credibility".
Catechesis and the incorporation of adults has always been an illusion of the Church, from the earliest days. In our country, due to the "sociological" predominance of Catholicism, perhaps it has had less numerical importance for some time. Now it has become the new horizon. An illusion for the Church and for each one of us, because grace usually opens up It passes through every family member, every friend or companion who orients or supports those who perhaps only "intuit" God. Many times the help is unconscious, and others consists in prayer, in time that is dedicated, in encouragement to sustain the first steps or in transmitting the light of the doctrine.
Congratulations to all those baptized on Easter night.
