Q. 626. Did not St. John the Baptist institute the Sacrament of Baptism? A. St. John the Baptist did not institute the Sacrament of Baptism, for Christ alone could institute a Sacrament.

This new life in Christ begins in the sacrament of baptism. However, God the Father, who knows how to teach, prepared us to understand baptism through foreshadowing and prophecy in the Old Testament.

Look down today from heaven upon little (name of infant). He (or she) has received from his (or her) parents the life of man, and now by the Holy Sacrament of Baptism, he (or she) has been given a ...