Sunshine is getting baptized on Sunday. We’ve invited family and friends, found her a christening gown, planned a party afterward. Yesterday her dad noticed I had my Catechism in the stack of books that I’m reading, and asked why. I said I was reviewing; I wanted to be sure I knew what we are requesting for Sunshine when we take her to church on Sunday.
Our priest exempted us from the usual baptismal preparation course because I went through RCIA last year and Sunshine’s dad spent a year and a half of discernment in seminary. The priest figured we knew our stuff; I wanted to make sure he is right.
Holy Baptism is the basis of the whole Christian life, the gateway to life in the Spirit… and the door which gives access to the other sacraments. Through Baptism we are freed from sin and reborn as sons of God; we become members of Christ, are incorporated into the Church and made sharers in her mission: “Baptism is the sacrament of regeneration through water in the word.” ~ CCC 1213
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Baptismal Memories
I remember my own baptism. I was about six at the time, as my parents had bounced between a couple adult baptism churches before settling at a Lutheran church. Shortly after they joined, they told my brothers and I that we were going to get baptized. I’m not sure I completely understood what was happening; I’d probably seen babies baptized before, but I wasn’t going to question my parents.
I remember standing at the front of the church, and the feeling of the water running off my head. I remember a sense that this day was important, was somehow a big step in my faith journey. My godparents gave me a silver necklace with a little dove, and a Precious Moments Bible.
Further Faith Study
In university, I took two courses on Martin Luther and what he taught. Conversations with a Catholic friend of mine had caused me to question what I believed – or rather, to ask whether I believed what the church that I was attending believed. I was curious in particular about why some churches baptized infants and others adults. Did it matter?
I wrote one of my best papers on what Luther had to say about the topic, arguing that he showed the significance of God’s work through baptism for salvation in faith. While Luther disagreed with the Catholic Church on many issues, I think he held onto what the Church taught about baptism.
Baptism is God’s most beautiful and magnificent gift… We call it gift, grace, anointing, enlightenment, garment of immortality, bath of rebirth, seal, and most precious gift. It is called gift because it is conferred on those who bring nothing of their own; grace since it is given even to the guilty; Baptism because sin is buried in the water; anointing for it is priestly and royal as are those who are anointed; enlightenment because it radiates light; clothing since it veils our shame; bath because it washes; and seal as it is our guard and the sign of God’s Lordship. ~ CCC 1216
Sunshine’s Baptism
What happens on Sunday will not be the work of myself or the priest – it is the work of God. Through water, He will wash Sunshine’s sins away and make her His child, thereby saving her. And yet that gift of salvation is only hers if she will receive it in faith. That is the scary part: the promises that her dad and I will make to teach her all that her baptism means.
Of all the things that we have to teach her as parents, faith is the hardest. It is making me rethink my own faith life and whether I will be able to model what I believe for my daughter. This is about more than just knowing the answers; I must also live them.
Further reading…
- What the Eucharist means to me
- Planning Your Child’s First Communion Celebration
- There’s a saint for that: finding daily inspiration and support in the communion of saints
7 Comments
Debate about infant baptism aside, I am happy that you and your husband are teaching Sunshine about faith. Your modeling of your own faith (and love and patience and holiness) will provide her with Godly examples. Although we all must make our own faith choice, it is easier to choose when a child has seen it with her own eyes. God bless you and your family.
Hecky – first, I think that every Christian church, and not just the Catholic, teaches original sin. It’s also biblical, so it’s not just some human conception.
I did not claim that my undergrad paper made a huge contribution to theology; I merely used it because it was my way of working through this issue a few years ago and finding some answers. Why reinvent the wheel – or rewrite something I’d written already.
Luther says faith is not important AT baptism, but that baptism alone cannot save a person. A person must have faith in their baptism. How can we know whether anyone – infant or adult – has faith??? Only God can. Luther actually argued that infants could have faith. And we can only take an adult’s word that they have faith, but maybe they are just going along with something that is expected of them – and maybe they don’t even totally understand faith. Often children have more faith than adults. So Luther says to baptize infants, since baptism is necessary for salvation, and to trust that faith will come.
Baptism is a one-time thing; you are only baptized once. However, you can then march along your merry way and live a life that contradicts your baptism, and your baptism won’t do you any good. Or you can accept that through your baptism God has made you His child, and accept that gift He gives you, and your baptism will save you. So yes, I’ll say Sunshine has been baptized, because as I said, it’s not what I did, or what the priest did, but what GOD did there.
I do have faith that she’ll have faith, but I’m not projecting my faith onto her. It’s a choice she will have to make. She might reject the Catholic faith, like you say. I pray that she won’t. That’s why I said faith is the hardest thing to teach. That’s why I’m thankful for grace (as DarrylM says) – grace for myself as her parent and grace for her through her baptism.
Original sin is probably the worst conceptual atrocity ever committed by the Catholic Church. It’s a blatant contradiction: contemporary individuals bearing responsibility for mythical acts we did not perform and could not possibly have had any control over. It’s a scare tactic designed to tame the masses.
I’m glad you feel that your undergraduate paper has made such an important contribution to theology. But the second and fourth dash-points you pasted (are they quotes from somewhere?) do contradict one another. Luther rejects the claim that faith is necessary for baptism, but he also argues that faith is most necessary for it? That doesn’t make sense. Obviously he cannot hold both with respect to infant baptism because we cannot attribute faith to an infant.
Essentially you seem to say that baptism is an ongoing, lifelong process. Fair enough. We don’t become fully baptized until we embrace the faith. But until that happens, you can’t really go around saying that sunshine has been baptized in the honest, faith-having sense of the term. Until she wakes up one day in twelve or so years and declares her faith, all you can say that you have done is to have washed her forehead.
Perhaps you have faith that she will have faith. Maybe you think that vicarious faith is enough to declare her baptized. As long as you can “project” your faith onto her for the time being until she is old enough, she will be baptized. But this is stretching it pretty far, I think. What if she ends up rejecting the Catholic faith? I do think it is important that atheism be an option that is open to her. Or do you deny that faith is a choice?
I wondered what comments this post would garner. No, I’m not offended. I did mention that I had asked this question myself and wrote a whole paper on my answer. I’ll try to be brief here. 🙂
The Catechism says:
“Born with a fallen human nature and tained by original sin, children also have need of the new birth in Baptism to be freed from the power of darkness and brought into the realm of the freedom of the children of God… The practice of infant Baptism is an immemorial tradition of the Church. There is explicit testimony to this practice from the second century on, and it is quite possible that, from the beginning of the apostolic preaching, when whole ‘households’ received Baptism, infants may also have been baptised.”
So no, I don’t believe Sunshine has sinned, but I do believe in original sin. This is the sin she needs to be cleansed of.
From my paper:
-Since baptism is a work of God, God’s work in baptism is what matters most. This means that we should not worry about how baptism is done, or who is baptized, or who baptizes, but should instead focus on what God is doing through the action.
-Luther rejected the Anabaptists’ claim that the person had to have faith before they could be baptized. We as humans cannot know whether the baptized has faith; only God knows that. Therefore, faith cannot be a prerequisite for baptism.
-In infant baptism, “[w]e bring the child with the purpose and hope that he may believe, and we pray God to grant him faith. But we do not baptize him on that account, but solely on the command of God.”
-Luther argues that “faith is of all things most necessary” for baptism, because “faith means that one firmly believes” in everything that baptism promises. Faith applies the baptism and makes it real in the person’s life.
-Faith is not necessary at baptism; it is only necessary for baptism. … . Luther says “[w]hen faith comes, baptism is complete.”
-an infant may be baptized and come to faith as an adult; his baptism is still valid. All that is important is that “now he believes, as baptism requires. For faith does not exist for the sake of baptism, but baptism for the sake of faith.”
-God’s work and faith cannot be seen, and so the water represents them. This is what makes the baptism so holy and precious.
Basically, I believe that God commands us to baptize and promises salvation through baptism, so I’m obeying and trusting. 🙂
For once, I agree with Janet. What sins could a two-month-old infant possibly need to have “washed away”? You said yourself that you didn’t understand it when you were eight!
That said, there is a good deal of psychological evidence that suggests children acquire the ability to recognize moral transgressions by the time they are two years old. In other words, children are practically born with some sense of right and wrong. But that doesn’t mean they are capable of moral transgression, or of “sinful” behaviour.
First of all, enjoy. I know it will be a lovely, precious day for you. Personally, I don’t believe an infant baptism washes away sins. And I just can’t see any evidence of that in the Bible. Again and again, people (grown people) “believed and were baptized.” Jesus told his disciples to preach the gospel, making believers and baptizing them. I don’t think he would sending him to preach to babies, who are not cognitively capable of understanding and believing, but to older people who could choose to believe and be baptized. “For it is by faith you have been saved…” (Ephesians 2:8)
I’m not at all hostile on the subject. Just throwing in my 2 cents. This just seems like a manmade tradition to me, not something ordained by God. I also don’t think God would hold Sunshine accountable for her sins until he reaches an age of understanding.
Having said all that, I think it is all besides the point.I don’t think it is “wrong” to baptize Sunshine; just maybe not neccesary, and in my opinion will not accomplish what you think it will accomplish. But I don’t think God judges us on whether we get the baptism thing right or wrong, whether we’re sprinkled or dunked, as an adult or a babe. God looks at the heart. And your heart is in the right place- looking to follow HIm and to impart faith to your child. God bless you for that. I’m nervous about offending you…so please don’t be offended. Take this all as friendly conversation. Okay?
Congrats! That’s so cool.
“That is the scary part: the promises that my husband and I will make to teach her all that her baptism means. Of all the things that we have to teach her as parents, faith is the hardest. It is making me rethink my own faith life and whether I will be able to model what I believe for my daughter.”
Wonderful reflection, Bonnie! The neatest thing of all about this is that you aren’t alone in this endeavour. Grace is a wonderful and mysterious thing. 🙂