About baptized infants

[zhoudu]

I have come up with a question: Is it better for an infant who received a Catholic baptism that the infant dies (for example, because of a disease), than that the infant grows up, since if the infant dies, he or she will almost definitely go to heaven, while if the infant grows up, he or she may sin and may end up in hell? If not, why?

Besides, I also want to know: Are Catholic parents are still eager to save their baptized infants from death if their infants are in danger of death? And, are Catholic parents still very sad if their baptized infants die? If yes, why?

 

[Xanthippe_Voorhees]

I think you are confusing the purely spiritual with the physical.

God wants union with us all. God wants us to fulfill our purpose and use our gifts to the best of our abilities. He puts us on this earth for a reason. Not using modern medicine would be irresponsible.

Sometimes, despite a parent’s best hopes and dreams, this reason is very short lived.

It does not change the grief of losing a child. That is very real. Knowing the little one is in heaven is helpful, but does not compare to the desire to see them grow, flourish and BE images of God’s likeness here on Earth.

 

[midori]

Everybody has their purpose to accomplish in life. Sometimes, you can fail at accomplishing that purpose. Sometimes, you can accomplish your reason for existence very, very quickly. But the important thing is to do God’s work as best you can in the time you have.

So rather than wishing, “I wish my baby would die so he can go to heaven!”, it’s more profitable, perhaps, to wish, “Dear God, please give him the graces he needs to serve you in the way you want him to.” And then to help him cultivate those graces. That’s still no guarantee that the lesson will take— but I’ve come to realize, with my kids, that a giant chunk of my heaven comes from serving them, helping them, cultivating them, and so on. And God taught me a whole lot of lessons about my relationship with God as I struggle and fight with my kids to help them grow into decent human beings. And the lessons are different with each stage of their development.

People don’t live in a vacuum. We live in a community. Jesus could have been born and let Herod kill him, and poof, he would have been a nice, fast, efficient sacrifice. But what did he do? He lived quietly for 30 years, and then spent three years preaching publicly about the Kingdom of God Is Like… etc. Because Heaven is a community as well.

Who was it who said that much of the purpose of a family is to help each other get to Heaven? We work together and help each other. Sometimes God takes one of us earlier than we’d prefer. But to actively wish for anyone to die early is to wish to deprive not only that person, but the people they would have interacted with in their lives, of a lot of love, a lot of good, and a lot of merit.

 

[alice24]

There is a similar discussion in the early days of the chruch because they had in some regions problems with newly converted people who committed suicide or bringing them in extremely dangerous situations (to “attract” a martyrium) in the wish to not sin again and go to heaven.

Long story short: escape is not an option .