255. Starting when and to whom has the Church administered Baptism?

255. Starting when and to whom has the Church administered Baptism? 

(Comp 255) From the day of Pentecost, the Church has administered Baptism to anyone who believes in Jesus Christ.

“In brief”  

(CCC 1276) "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you" (Mt 28:19-20). 

To deepen and explain  

(CCC 1226) From the very day of Pentecost the Church has celebrated and administered holy Baptism. Indeed St. Peter declares to the crowd astounded by his preaching: "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38). The apostles and their collaborators offer Baptism to anyone who believed in Jesus: Jews, the God-fearing, pagans (Cf. Acts 2:41; 8:12-13; 10:48; 16:15). Always, Baptism is seen as connected with faith: "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household," St. Paul declared to his jailer in Philippi. And the narrative continues, the jailer "was baptized at once, with all his family" (Acts 16:31-33). (CCC 1228) Hence Baptism is a bath of water in which the "imperishable seed" of the Word of God produces its life-giving effect (1 Pet 1:23; cf. Eph 5:26). St. Augustine says of Baptism: "The word is brought to the material element, and it becomes a sacrament" (St. Augustine, In Jo. Ev. 80, 3: PL 35, 1840).  1226  1228

On reflection  

(CCC 1227) According to the Apostle Paul, the believer enters through Baptism into communion with Christ's death, is buried with him, and rises with him: Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life (Rom 6:3-4; cf. Col 2:12). The baptized have "put on Christ" (Gal 3:27). Through the Holy Spirit, Baptism is a bath that purifies, justifies, and sanctifies (Cf. 1 Cor 6:11; 12:13). (CCC 790) Believers who respond to God's word and become members of Christ's Body, become intimately united with him: "In that body the life of Christ is communicated to those who believe, and who, through the sacraments, are united in a hidden and real way to Christ in his Passion and glorification"(LG 7). This is especially true of Baptism, which unites us to Christ's death and Resurrection, and the Eucharist, by which "really sharing in the body of the Lord,… we are taken up into communion with him and with one another" (LG 7; cf. Rom 6:4-5; 1 Cor 12:13).  

(Next question: In what does the essential rite of Baptism consist?)