‘These children are a link in a chain. You parents have a baby boy or girl to baptize, but in some years they will have a child to baptize, or a grandchild. Such is the chain of faith! What does this mean? I would like to tell you only this: you are those who transmit the faith, the transmitters; you have a duty to hand on the faith to these children. It is the most beautiful inheritance you will leave to them: the faith! Only this. Today, take this thought home with you. We must be transmitters of the faith. Think about this, always think about how to hand on the faith to your children... You have asked for faith. When the Church hands you the lit candle, she will tell you to safeguard the faith of these children. Do not forget that the greatest legacy that you can give to your children is faith. Take care that it is not lost, make it grow and leave it as a legacy’.
Pope Francis to parents of children about to be baptised on the Feast of the Lord’s Baptism, 2014, 2016.
'Every baptized person should consider that it is in the womb of the Church where he is transformed from a child of Adam to a child of God'.
St Vincent Ferrer
'See, Fire and Spirit in the womb that bore you! See, Fire and Spirit in the river where you were baptized! Fire and Spirit in our Baptism; in the Bread and the Cup, Fire and Holy Spirit!” Christ, the Light of the World, dwelt first in the womb of the Virgin—who was thus “baptized” by her Son—and then in the womb of the Jordan; he emerged from both as the Incarnate Word, the Savior of mankind. Those who are baptized thus become the children of Mary and partakers of the body, blood, soul, and divinity of her Son'.
St Ephraem
'Through Baptism the Christian is sacramentally assimilated to Jesus, who in his own baptism anticipates his death and resurrection. The Christian must enter into this mystery of humble self-abasement and repentance, go down into the water with Jesus in order to rise with him, be reborn of water and the Spirit so as to become the Father's beloved son in the Son and "walk in newness of life"'.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, 537.
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