Mother and Daughter Chat

I had a wonderful chat with my daughter this evening, just as I do every time I talk to her. It amazes me each time we can discuss important things and since I began this blog and since she is following it, I seem to be able to talk about the more important things in my life.

We spoke about many things, but the one thing that I want to share right now is that we discussed baptism. She has a 5 month old baby and I brought up the subject of baptism. She said that her and her husband were of the same mind. They are hesitant to go ahead because they felt that they were then expected to attend church every Sunday. My daughter said that she would feel either pressured to go or guilty that she didn't. Fair enough. I can see how this might happen. Before I listened to the Blueprints speaker, Dr. Thomas Beaudoin, I would have felt I would need to push her into it.

I have thought of this before as my son also has a family and their little girl, four months old now is also not baptized. I have always been taught that babies should be baptized to erase the original sin they were born with as a result of Adam and Eve's sin in the garden. You can see my dilemma.

I decided to think of it this way - would God accept a baby into heaven should he or she die before baptism? One of my theology professors a few years ago said something to the class that made total sense to me. God is a loving and forgiving creator, ergo when we die, he opens his arms to us and says, "Come my child and be with me. I have created you for this purpose. Come." Those of us that recognize God and say, "Yes, Lord!" - we will be welcomed with open arms and we will go with God. Those of us that are evil or do not believe, will probably turn away either in fear or shame. What will a baby do? What does a baby do when an adult that loves them opens their arms? The baby opens their arms too and says, in their own way, pick me up. There are so many teachings in the Bible that tell us that God loves children. He even wants us to be like children so that we will enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 19:13-14) So, if a baby is not baptized before they die, I am confident that they will end up in God's arms.

Also, there is the whole question - why do I want my baby baptized? Is it so that they can go to church? Or is it so that they can say some day, when asked, "What are you?", "Catholic" and have an affiliation with a community of believers. They will not end up alone. I like the idea of inviting babies of all ages into the community of believers, the sooner the better I say, but it has to feel right. The idea of having the family all around the child, no matter the age, celebrating the miracle of the gift of life and the gift of belonging to a belief in a loving and forgiving God is where I'm at. I want to be at that celebration!

What do I wish for my children? and their children? Hearts that are compassionate and empathic, that stand for life, that love and are loved, and that believe that their Creator is loving and forgiving. God bless us all.

How do we measure Faith?

Can we measure faith? Years ago, and probably still some do measure faith in the Catholic Church by how often one went to church, by whether or not a person had celebrated the sacraments, by how much they knew about Catholicism.

Two weeks ago, I spent 3 days in Kananaskis at the Blueprints Conference, an education administrator's conference. The speaker was Dr. Thomas Beaudoin, Catholic theologian, who is presently teaching at Fordham University in New York City. He challenged me to think of other ways a person's faith might be measured. He also challenged me to open my mind and my heart to other ways of practicing the Catholic faith than the traditional ways. He spoke of how people may not go to church every Sunday, and that these same people believed in Jesus and lived a faith-filled life, but may feel that they do not need to go to church to be fullfilled. He also stated that he loved going to mass and taking part in the Eucharist.

If I were to measure his faith according to what he was teaching, I would say that he had tremendous faith. He is living in an interfaith marriage, with a Jewish woman and he is raising his daughter as a Jew. He supports her in that he takes her to synagogue every week and is enrolling her in Hebrew school for the next school year. He wants her to be the best Jew she can be.

The only way I can describe Dr. Beaudoin is that he is Catholic enough and loves his wife and daughter with a love that allows them to live in this way.

There were several points he brought up that I will be talking about in future posts. Suffice it to say, that the three days I listened to Dr. Beaudoin had a great effect upon how I think.