Firstly, I wish you the very best of luck
@Treks with your pre-baptismal testimony and the actual baptism ceremony itself! And thank you for sharing the news of this special moment with us on the forum!!
It is a hugely consequential experience in any one's life and in your case, as I understand it, the culmination of many years on the spiritual '
trek', so to speak. I hope you have a blessed day
As for testimonies and being baptised myself, I cannot speak too well from personal experience -
given that I was baptised by a priest as a baby, at the behest of my parents! (cradle Catholic here) - but I have watched many adult baptismal ceremonies down the years at Eastertime.
Will it be a full-body immersion or a 'sprinkle on the head'?
I always feel that the first sounds much more exhilarating and would really make one intuit that they are being: "
born again from above" (
John 3:3). In my church the celebrant, immersing the candidate’s whole body or head three times, baptises the candidate in the name of the Trinity.
N., I baptise you in the name of the Father, (He immerses the candidate the first time)
and of the Son, (He immerses the candidate the second time)
and of the Holy Spirit (He immerses the candidate the third time)
After being baptised, candidates are clothed in a so-called 'baptism garment': which may be white or of a colour that conforms to local custom. The celebrant says the following formulary, and at the words ‘Receive this baptismal garment’ the godparents or sponsors place the garment on the newly baptised:
N. and N., you have become a new creation and have clothed yourselves in Christ. Receive this baptismal garment and bring it unstained to the judgment seat of our Lord Jesus Christ, so that you may have everlasting life.
Newly baptised: Amen.
We do not use improvised testimonies - I would presume that your church is likely following more of a 'living in the spirit' approach to the ceremony, whereas mine is strongly liturgic and traditional - but rather adhere to a formalized set of recitals, akin to a couple taking wedding vows (which is a sacrament in my church just like baptism).
The established practice in Catholicism is for catechumens - those who have been through the RCIA process of initiation, study of the essentials of the faith and formal conversion, akin to your church's Alpha course - to be baptised, confirmed and receive first holy communion (eucharist) during the Mass for the Easter Vigil (April 3rd 2021, I believe this year), as part of a special liturgical
Rite of Reception.
Each catechumen is accompanied by a 'sponsor' (godparent) as they come forward to receive the water of baptism. This was a person assigned to the convert during RCIA to bear witness to their ultimate baptism, help in their catechesis and aid their spiritual formation. (
Its like a 'spiritual sibling in the faith' kind of relationship in the adult context.)
If there are candidates to be baptised, the Priest, with hands extended, says the following prayer:
Almighty ever-living God, be present by the mysteries of your great love, and send forth the spirit of adoption to create the new peoples brought to birth for you in the font of Baptism, so that what is to be carried out by our humble service may be brought to fulfilment by your mighty power. Through Christ our Lord. ± Amen.
O God, who by invisible power accomplish a wondrous effect through sacramental signs, and who in many ways have prepared water, your creation, to show forth the grace of Baptism;
O God, whose Spirit in the first moments of the world’s creation hovered over the waters, so that the very substance of water would even then take to itself the power to sanctify;
O God, who by the outpouring of the flood foreshadowed regeneration, so that from the mystery of one and the same element of water would come an end to vice and a beginning of virtue;
O God, who caused the children of Abraham to pass dry-shod through the Red Sea, so that the chosen people, set free from slavery to Pharaoh, would prefigure the people of the baptised;
O God, whose Son, baptised by John in the waters of the Jordan, was anointed with the Holy Spirit, and, as he hung upon the Cross, gave forth water from his side along with blood, and after his Resurrection, commanded his disciples: ‘Go forth, teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,’ look now, we pray, upon the face of your Church and graciously unseal for her the fountain of Baptism.
May this water receive by the Holy Spirit the grace of your Only Begotten Son, so that human nature, created in your image, and washed clean through the sacrament of Baptism from all the squalor of the life of old, may be found worthy to rise to the life of newborn children through water and the Holy Spirit
Afterwards, the catechumens make their first profession of faith by joining the rest of the congregation in a public recital that renews the baptismal promises made either at birth by one's parents or in adulthood at one's own baptism.
The Profession of Faith follows a 'question-and-answer' format:
Celebrant: Do you renounce sin, so as to live in the freedom of the children of God?
Candidates: I do.
Celebrant: Do you renounce the lure of evil, so that sin may have no mastery over you?
Candidates: I do.
Celebrant: Do you renounce Satan, the author and prince of sin?
Candidates: I do.
Celebrant: Do you renounce Satan, and all his works, and all his empty show?
Candidates: I do.
Then the celebrant, informed again of each candidate’s name by the godparents/sponsors, questions each candidate individually:
Celebrant: N., Do you believe in God, the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth?
Candidate: I do.
Celebrant: Do you believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit born of the Virgin Mary, suffered death and was buried, rose again from the dead and is seated at the right hand of the Father?
Candidate: I do.
Celebrant: Do you believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting?
Candidate: I do.
After the water baptism itself, the celebrant takes the Easter candle in his hands or touches it, saying:
Godparents, please come forward to give to the newly baptised the light of Christ.
A godparent or sponsor of each of the newly baptised goes to the celebrant, lights a candle from the Easter candle, then presents it to the newly baptised. Then the celebrant says to the newly baptised:
You have been enlightened by Christ. Walk always as children of the light and keep the flame of faith alive in your hearts. When the Lord comes, may you go out to meet him with all the saints in the heavenly kingdom. Newly baptised says in response:
Amen.
In theological terms
(I'll spare you the technicalities, fear not ), the baptised are justified by faith and incorporated into Christ - the Church. As such, baptism is also the the sacramental bond of unity and foundation of communion between all Christians, no matter the denomination; because Christ has one body and we are all members thereof, through the regenerative waters of baptism. As the Nicene creed (325 CE) affirmed very clearly: "
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins".
Whilst we are not 'physically' circumcised - as are Jews - it is part of our belief that we are "spiritually circumcised" in heart and soul (i.e. you may remember Moses saying in Deuteronomy: "
Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked" (
Deuteronomy 10:6)), through baptism as St. Paul states: "
In him also you were circumcised with a spiritual circumcision, by putting off the body of the flesh in the circumcision of Christ; when you were buried with him in baptism" (
Colossians 2:11-12).
In baptism, we die to our 'old self' and put on the 'new self'. As the Jewish Talmudist scholar Daniel Boyarin wrote in relation to baptismal doctrine amongst the early Christians, in his study of St. Paul (
A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity):
In the process of baptism, in the spirit the marks of ethnos, gender, and class are all erased in the ascension to a univocity and universality of human essence which is beyond and outside of the body...[Paul] allegorically interpreted circumcision as the outer sign performed in the flesh of an inner circumcision of the spirit
This reality, our newness and equality of life in Christ beyond all temporal 'distinctions', is expressed in St. Paul's letters by a pre-pauline baptismal creed of the early church which he cites:
"
There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus" (
Galatians 3:28) and
"
In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!" (
Colossians 3:11).
Those words would have been recited over newly baptised people by the Apostles: all binary categories that divide human beings whether race, sex or social status are superseded by the one grace of the baptismal sacrament, in which Christ "
is all and in all" no matter who we are.
As noted earlier, 'Baptism' is understood by Christians to constitute a "
new birth" by which a person becomes a member of Christ's spiritual body as a new creation. But salvation is not a one-time event. It is a life-long process of growth in our baptismal calling towards fullness in Christ. It is a continual commitment to live according to our new birth in Him that has justified and liberated us: a new life that we must keep living every day, an ancient beauty ever new.