Sacraments and language have much in common. They express a complex reality in a very condensed fashion while initiating a new dynamic into their surrounding environment. We have a past, a present and a future resulting from a confluence of other pasts, presents, and futures. When we speak, our words do not hang there in the air, without effect. The sacrament of baptism is much the same as our words.
Baptism is a combination of words, people, music, and pouring water.
It links Christians of the past, present, and future. Yet it results in specific changes among everyone present. In the language of the medieval texts, it causes what it signifies. Pain sacramentalizes significant change in self, society, and world. The change is evident when we know the cause of the pain.