Elena's Eyes: A Way of Understanding Baptism

It was a new, penetrating darkness. It was like stepping into an unexplored night, like visiting a familiar place but with the feeling of doing so for the first time. It was like coming home, but without ever having been there before. It was like looking into a mirror that doesn’t reflect, but instead immerses you.

It was, without a doubt, an immersive experience. It lasted only a few seconds, but so much happened. It was like seeing the world for the first time through the eyes of that little girl who was looking at me for the first time.

They were Elena’s gray eyes—I don’t know if they’ll still be gray as the years go by. But that shade of gray is already mine; it’s already etched in my memory, unforgettable.

If I had to describe them, I’d say they’re abyssal eyes. Not just because they’re big, but because they evoke an abyss. You peer into them and they draw you in: they hold a fascination steeped in mystery.

Surprise, admiration, curiosity, anticipation: an immense spectrum of grays, a whirlwind of sensations I’ve experienced before, but never quite like this.

Thought-Provoking Mysteries

I relearned a thousand things in just a few seconds, taken aback by the lash of grace ...which was looking into the eyes of my first niece for the first time. I say I relearned because, as the book of the psalms, “One abyss calls to another abyss”: those abyssal eyes made me think of so many mysteries that have already been contemplated, yet are so ineffable that we will never cease to return to them.

I thought about the abyss of beauty that is the Creator; I thought about what the Redeemer’s eyes must have looked like at that age—five months old; I thought that the Kingdom of Heaven probably belongs to those who are like children, because they are living proof that God makes all things new, and that two little girl’s eyes are enough to refresh a heart.

Daughter of God

A few hours later, I had no choice but to wake Elena up abruptly: by pouring water on her head. She had sat through her baptismal Mass very well, but the homily given by her uncle, the priest, probably helped put her to sleep early. When the moment came to baptize her in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Elena was fast asleep.

It was the only moment during the entire ceremony when she cried: the exact moment when God made her His own, when He made her a child of God. The poor woman had no choice but to cry, taken aback by such an abrupt awakening. And I, moved to see her sobbing, somewhat contrite for contributing to her tears, but above all grateful to God, was leaping for joy inside at the thought that her baptism was literally a new birth—tears and all—just as is customary when a child is born.

The Tears of Christ

And I now think that the water of Baptism not only evokes the water that flowed from Christ’s side—as the Church has interpreted it for centuries—but perhaps, just maybe, that water can also remind us of Jesus’ tears, which are mentioned several times in the Gospel.

Contemplating the paradox that she weeps while a miracle is taking place within her soul makes me think that, perhaps, Jesus weeps with joy every time a baptism takes place. And that it is those tears of Christ that wash the soul.

A divine blessing

That is why looking into Elena’s gray eyes—those abyssal eyes—was a blessing I will hardly ever forget. God made her new through the water, and He made me new through the infinite shades of gray in that mysterious well that was her gaze. 

It will be one of those memories that pop up unexpectedly and, without warning, make me smile.