Today’s Mass was a special one as it is the Feast of the Baptism of Christ celebrating Jesus’ own baptism by John the Baptist.
As Father Charles warmed to his homily, he had some rather interesting takes on the rite of baptism. He had noted this yesterday but reiterated it for the audience that baptism is the only rite in the entire Catholic liturgy that starts out with a series of questions! The general form is rejection of sin followed by a profession of faith and ending with “what do you ask of the church?”.
He noted that in his years of ministry he’s probably baptized about 600 babies and he has yet to encounter anyone who answered anything other than “I do” and to the last question “baptism”. Father Charles did joke that the one question that he has never asked is if the parents actually meant what they answered to those questions! (One thing you can say about Father Charles is that he has a wonderful wit and I’ve yet to hear one of his sermons where he doesn’t evoke a few laughs…who says sermons have to be dull and boring!?!)
But that point really gets you to thinking about just what you were doing when you put your child up for baptism. You’re not merely answering yada, yada, yada to the questions…you’re promising in front of your friends, family, and God that you’re going to do what you say you’re going to do and raise that child in the Catholic tradition.
But that decision wasn’t taken right there on the spot or even in the months leading up to the baptismal rite. Nope, that one was actually taken in the long stretch between Wilmington and Benson on I-40 on the way back from a holiday at Ocean Isle well before you were conceived (about a year or so if memory serves properly)! Daddy was definitely the complicating factor on this one…the best description of his religious experiences was either eclectic or perhaps more appropriately that he was an ecclesiasticial mutt! For someone who is usually so anal-retentive about order and organisation, this was one curious exception to that rule.
In thirty-plus years, I had encountered pretty much all of the major faiths and/or denominations in one form or another and had read everything from the Bible to the Koran and the Bhagavad Gita and back again. There was certainly a lot of good things about all of them and coupled with a sense of right and wrong was more than enough at the time to find what peace I felt I was going to find in that time. That didn’t mean the journey had ended but rather that it had taken a different focus and a more abstract search of what is.
It’s well and good to have a broad view of spiritual tradition but that doesn’t do a whole lot for a little person who is taking their own halting steps into their own view of the universe and their place within that universe! The little one needs consistency and order until they are able to find their own voice and add it to the chorus. That will come soon enough, little one…trust me on that! If eight months can seem as a blink of an eye, you’ll be at the point where you’re asking your own questions and seeking your own answers well before we’re prepared to deal with that inquisition! But I certainly look forward to that day… 🙂
So it was without hesitation that I agreed to raise whatever children may come in the Catholic tradition to provide that sense of stability and order so that the quest for spiritual knowledge would be well- grounded as mine was so many years ago. Not really realising it at the time, there was already a small Catholic community ready to help make that journey successful. That’s really key!
What I hadn’t appreciated until yesterday (and reinforced in today’s homily) was just what that sort of community and the larger parish community can mean to that journey. One person off by their lonesome as I often was is ineffectual…but our small community was part of a larger community. As they say in government, a billion here and a billion there and soon you’re talking about real money. We often concentrate on the details of getting to community and that tends to obscure what the community really means to us knowing that we’re not all alone in that night at the hour of the wolf! And for the first time in quite a long while, I feel that I’ve found a place where I feel more at home spiritually than I have ever felt before and it really helps having a couple of wonderful priests like Father Charles and Father Mel who truly understand people who have seen other traditions and yet can still make them feel quite welcome and cherished.
Think about the questions asked at the baptism…and the wider implication of community. That’s a pretty powerful promise that we are making…a promise that is one of the most meaningful we will ever make. Those sorts of promises cannot be broken…it cannot be allowed to happen no matter how easy it may seem. Father Charles, we really did mean what we promised and what we asked of the church!
What we didn’t expect was Father Charles pointing us out in the congregation. Apparently, baptisms on this weekend are a rare enough event in the parish that I’m guessing he had some bragging rights with his colleagues in the Raleigh diocese. Who knows, St. Eugene’s may well have had the only one in Raleigh as far as we know… 🙂
Then it was time for Father Charles to do his procession throughout the congregation and give us all a baptism of sorts. I will say one thing for Father Charles…his aim is deadly accurate right into Daddy’s ear! But that’s OK… 🙂
The day would turn out to be a bit bittersweet, however. Last Thursday, I had a health and welfare mission to Fayetteville to come to the side of Lee’s mother who was felled by a massive anterior coronary (ironically after getting a clean bill of health from her doctor the day before… for a lady of 82, you’d be hard-pressed to think she was older than 60!). Listening to the story from beginning to end and listening to the doctor and others, I had little doubt that we were looking at the end game and that she was already gone from us. Aunt Judy ended up passing away this evening peacefully and into the grace of God. She was a life-long practicing Catholic and in a strange way, it seemed rather appropriate that she would pass on the weekend of the baptism of a little one she had met just a few months before.