Infant Baptism...we're the only catholics in family!

[Chemcpherson]

Hi,new to the forum not sure where to post. Baptized catholic by dad, raised protestant with mom, now im back home! Anywho my children(toddlers) are scheduled to be baptized. None of my inlaws are cCatholic. Neither is my maternal family. Though I think they are happy to come, they havent been anti- catholic…yet. However Id like to design a program/service card to help them through the mass. My question is this appropriate? If so can anyone give me a quick outline of both mass and baptism. If you can only offer one, thats fine. Any notes I can include for explanation? Such as explaining genuflecting.

None of my protestant family/in laws have stepped foot inside a catholic church before. My main goal is to field away the idolatry like questions that come once protestants are exposed to our candles,statues, kneeling,crucifixes, crossing etc

 

[Ophelia23]

Hi,new to the forum not sure where to post. Baptized catholic by dad, raised protestant with mom, now im back home! Anywho my children(toddlers) are scheduled to be baptized. None of my inlaws are cCatholic. Neither is my maternal family. Though I think they are happy to come, they havent been anti- catholic…yet. However Id like to design a program/service card to help them through the mass. My question is this appropriate? If so can anyone give me a quick outline of both mass and baptism. If you can only offer one, thats fine. Any notes I can include for explanation? Such as explaining genuflecting.

None of my protestant family/in laws have stepped foot inside a catholic church before. My main goal is to field away the idolatry like questions that come once protestants are exposed to our candles,statues, kneeling,crucifixes, crossing etc

I would actually check with your parish office first. We were in a similar situation–my husband’s entire side of the family is not Catholic. But our parish had a guide that was available to people who were attending the baptismal Mass.

And by the way, welcome home!

 

[Kelfa28]

We didn’t do one. We just invited people to Mass with us for our daughter’s baptism. While just about everyone in our family was baptized Catholic…not one of them have practiced the faith in over 20 years…some have never set foot in a Church since the baptism…

Despite all of this people still came and were quite respectful of our Church and rose during the appropriate times and knelt during the appropriate times. No one went up to receive communion either. That was the only friendly reminder we told people. Please don’t go and receive communion if you don’t believe in it or aren’t in a state of grace (aka…confession). They all respected this. We had a small amount of family and friends show so it was easy to let them know ahead of time.

However, if you are having more people show…I don’t see why this wouldn’t be such a big deal. Especially when it comes to communion.

 

[EasterJoy]

If you browse the pamphlets covering these questions that are available in the CA library, you’ll find some excellent resources: concise and aimed at the concerns of your target audience.

If your relatives are concerned about infant baptism, BTW, you can point out that a) the baptismal promises are repeated by the faithful every year and b) the Sacrament of Confirmation is the way the adult Catholic “confirms” his or her baptism and completes the process of full initiation into the Church.

But again: look at the CA library. Lots of good stuff in there written just for such a purpose.

PS A great book on the Mass, written by a priest involved in the recent translation, is “What Happens at Mass” by Fr. Jeremy Driscoll. That would be more for you to be able to explain what is going on, but it is an excellent book.

 

[SonCatcher]

Given the delicate nature of your situation, it may be advisable to have the baptisms outside of Mass. That way you don’t have to explain umpteen times that they should not receive the Eucharist.

Personally, I love baptisms at Mass, but can see how just having a plain baptismal ceremony may be more charitable to the non-Catholics who outnumber you in this case.

 

[NSFrame]

We did ours outside of Mass so the priest was able to customize the service to the fact that many non-Catholics were present (my family is all Catholic but I live far away from family and most of my friends are not).

At both places I attend Mass, there is a missal given out to each person as he enters. The missal has all of the Mass-following info you could need (although it could be confusing to a newcomer). I’m assuming because you’re asking this that your parish doesn’t have these?

 

[Boltz44]

We read in the book of where all the new converts believed and were baptized Acts chap 4 :4 says *Howbeit many of them which heard the word believed; and the number of the men was about five thousand. Acts *chap 8 :12 we read But when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Notice no children! why? Because we must believe first, no one can believe for us. Jesus said *For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. *believing is an act of the will and infants cant do that. What does that mean? Our loving God is not going to let an infant perish before they can exercise the will to believe, and baptism is according to St. Peter is The like figure whereunto [even] baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ: Infants do not possess a conscience of spiritual things as we do, therefore infant baptism is unnecessary Biblically speaking. Now in the old Testament Hanna DEDICATED her son Samuel to God, in other words she intrusted him into Gods hands for safe keeping, similar but not quite the same. Here is something to consider, do I trust God enough to dedicate my child to him for safe keeping as Hanna did or have him baptized before he can believe?

 

[SonCatcher]

We read in the book of where all the new converts believed and were baptized Acts chap 4 :4 says *Howbeit many of them which heard the word believed; and the number of the men was about five thousand. Acts *chap 8 :12 we read But when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Notice no children! why? Because we must believe first, no one can believe for us. Jesus said *For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. *believing is an act of the will and infants cant do that. What does that mean? Our loving God is not going to let an infant perish before they can exercise the will to believe, and baptism is according to St. Peter is The like figure whereunto [even] baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ: Infants do not possess a conscience of spiritual things as we do, therefore infant baptism is unnecessary Biblically speaking. Now in the old Testament Hanna DEDICATED her son Samuel to God, in other words she intrusted him into Gods hands for safe keeping, similar but not quite the same. Here is something to consider, do I trust God enough to dedicate my child to him for safe keeping as Hanna did or have him baptized before he can believe?

Regarding Acts 4:4, that number does not even include women. This is similar to the multiplication of loaves where women and children were explicitly excluded from the count. This is because of the prohibition against taking a census. Even though the Apostles were no longer bound to it, old habits are difficult to break.

Regarding Acts 8:12, the text does not state that children were not baptized.

Regarding the dedication of Samuel, that had nothing to do with his belonging to the Jewish religion. On the contrary, circumcision had everything to do with his being Jewish. When did that happen? The 8th day (i.e. as an infant unable to sit up, much less speak).

Several places in Acts record the baptisms of entire households. None of these excludes the children living in those households even though it can be readily assumed that at least some of those households would include children.

Regarding belief provided by another, consider the raising of Lazarus. Lazarus could not believe anything. He was dead. Martha had to believe for Lazarus to be raised.