Acts 10:44-48
“While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who were listening to the message. All the circumcised believers who came with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also. For they were hearing them speaking in tongues and exalting God. Then Peter answered, “Surely no one can refuse the water for these to be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we did, can he?” And he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.”
When I was a child, I was lonely sometimes. I was adopted at the age of two, which was certainly a blessing. Still, I was an only child. Not having brothers or sisters meant that I had to cope with learning to be content on my own. As I grew, I made friends, but from time to time, situations came in which I was unable to summon my friends for company. I learned, after some momentary disappointment, to keep my own company contentedly. I always had the sneaking feeling that this was a good and positive trait, and I also sometimes had the feeling that I wasn’t completely alone, even if I didn’t have a ready playmate.
One day during Sunday school at Joppa Community Church, (my childhood church), Billie Lou, my teacher, was showing us a picture of the disciples at Pentecost. It was a drawing that encapsulated our Lord’s Ascenscion with the descent of the Holy Spirit in one image. The disciples watched as Jesus floated into the clouds, and then, (maybe in the same picture, I don’t remember any more details), the disciples were shown in prayer with tongues of fire coming out the top of their heads like the flame burning from a wick on the top of a candle. Billie Lou said that fire was the Holy Spirit.
I remember walking down the center aisle back to my parents in the pew after Sunday school as church was ready to begin, thinking I already knew the “Holy Spirit,” that he’d been my friend already, and that He was the reason why I never got too lonely as an “only.”
I couldn’t have been more than five or six years old when I learned I’d already met the person who I believed to be the Holy Spirit. I wasn’t baptized until I was nine. So the scripture from Acts 10: 44-48 became very meaningful to me. I didn’t even know this scripture was in the Bible until much later when one of my more Bible-literate friends pointed it out.
I don’t know if my experience has the exact character of what happened in Acts. I don’t know if eternal salvation would have been denied me if I’d died as a child before being baptized. I don’t know if the Holy Spirit was simply wooing me, or if He actually got a hold of my heart with saving grace somehow. . . I’ve never spoken in tongues or had any other charismatic gift, as far as I can tell.
All I know is, although I appreciate the importance of my own baptism in a thoroughly Catholic way, I don’t want to argue with people about the timing or the circumstances of Baptism. It’s enough for me to know that I have submitted to Christ in his desire that I be baptized. And I’m Catholic enough to believe that everyone should be obedient, like Peter, in following Jesus's instruction to baptize and be baptized, even in cases where a person says they already "have" the Spirit. Peter didn’t deny the people in Acts "had" the Spirit, but he also was obedient to our Lord by baptizing them.
It’s also a testimony to me of the faithfulness of God that he sent his Spirit to keep me company during the lonely times of my childhood.
God is just good, all the time.
