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Thom18
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Your comment is seriously lacking in charity. Referring to others as “blind sheep” because they are explaining a practice and encouraging that these concerns be taken to a priest is churlish.
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poche
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From the hospital.
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babochka
Guest
So, speaking of the US then, this tradition existed among some people from the early 1940s ( when hospital births replaced home birth as the norm) to sometime in the 1960s. In other countries, hospital births became the norm even later. For example, in Belfast in 1947, only 52% of babies were delivered in the hospital. This was in the city, of course. Women in rural areas did not have access to hospital deliveries.
Also, women typically spent at least two weeks in the hospital after childbirth, and very often spent an entire month. So perhaps the increase in hospital births and the trend to stop at the church on the way home from the hospital actually contributed to the delay in baptism that we now see.
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Phemie
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At least by stopping off at church before going home the mom got to be at the Baptism. I know lots of women with many children born up to the 60s who never saw any of their children baptized because they never left the house until 40 days after the birth and their babies were baptized long before that.
There was a tradition, perhaps only in French/Francophone communities, of assigning a woman to hold the child during the ceremonies because the mother was rarely, if ever, present. That was also important since often the godparents were quite young. In my case my godmother was 12 and my godfather was 10. Their mother was “la porteuse” at my Baptism. She held me while my godparents had their hands on me during the Baptism.
There was a tradition, perhaps only in French/Francophone communities, of assigning a woman to hold the child during the ceremonies because the mother was rarely, if ever, present. That was also important since often the godparents were quite young. In my case my godmother was 12 and my godfather was 10. Their mother was “la porteuse” at my Baptism. She held me while my godparents had their hands on me during the Baptism.
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MiserereMeiDei
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Why did the woman stay home for 40 days?
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TheLittleLady
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Recovery from childbirth, time for breastfeeding to get established, time for little one to build up some immunities.
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MiserereMeiDei
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Which all sounds good. I just don’t get why she stays home and the baby can go to church without her. My wife was kicked out the hospital the next day. My son stayed for a week for observation, but that was because the little monster got stuck coming out.
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Jen7
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Maybe just for the baptism? I don’t think it was done during Mass back then. Less exposure to germs for baby. When my third was born The Godfather (who went to TLM locally) offered to take the baby straight from the hospital to his church for me, where the priest would meet him and baptize the baby. I declined because I wasn’t ready to pass my baby off to someone else that quick!! We had her baptized shortly later at our NO parish during a Mass. But my point is just that the TLM priest would have done it quietly & quickly outside Mass. I worry a lot about germs around my newborns but a quick private baptism would surely be fine.
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AlbertDerGrosse
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I would’ve figured this had more to do with the pre-conciliar tradition of the Churching of Women than practicality. @Phemie is this what you meant?
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AlbertDerGrosse
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Refusing a baby baptism due to some made up parish rule that seriously undercuts the Catholic understanding of the sacrament is what’s lacking in charity. Turning away a mother who is rightfully concerned for her baby’s state of grace is lacking in charity. My comment may have been blunt, maybe even imprudent, but that doesn’t mean it’s lacking in true caritas, which despite the disfigured modern definition so many in the Church labor under does not mean “being nice.”
They aren’t explaining a legitimate Catholic practice. They are making excuses for a stupid practice that absolutely should not be happening. I’m not against bringing one’s concerns to a priest. Indeed, I suggested as much in my own post, but the days of making excuses for stupid executive decisions by pastors is long gone. I have no respect for advice that involves nothing more than blindly following whatever a pastor says.
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Phemie
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Not necessarily, I’d never even heard about Churching in any of the parishes I’d belonged to until I came to this one in the late 1990s. Here it had been a tradition but it wasn’t something done where I grew up. In fact in Canada it seems to have been regionalized. A priest who came here in the early 60s had not heard of it and that’s how the practice died down here. No, moms simply stayed home and recovered from childbirth. I always got the impression there was something vaguely embarrassing about giving birth, it meant you’d had sex.MiserereMeiDei:
I would’ve figured this had more to do with the pre-conciliar tradition of the Churching of Women than practicality. @Phemie is this what you meant?
For example when I had our first in 1979, my mother was appalled when I headed to Mass my second Sunday out of the hospital and when I went out to the baby shower my friends were having for me a few days later. She would shake her head at young women who were “out running around” shortly after their babies were born.
My brother and I were 3 1/2 and 5 respectively when we attended our baby brother’s Baptism in 1958. Mom wasn’t present. His was the first Baptism we saw, the next was our goddaughter’s, 11 years later. Baptisms weren’t celebrated at Mass then. Not surprising in our parish since the Baptistry was in the sacristy.
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Loud-living-dogma
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InThePew
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As others have said, there’s nothing official prohibiting (infant) baptisms during Lent, it’s just something that some parishes do for reasons best known only to them (if anything I suspect there are about as many reasons as there are parishes). Tbh I actually find it a bit frustrating but, as a priest, I’d be hesitant about baptising another priests’ parishioner in order to circumvent rules which the priest himself has laid down for his parish. Granted there’s nothing to stop me but, particularly with a neighbouring or close by parish I’d probably want to make sure the other guy was all good with it first (whether that causes awkward moments for the parents is another matter but most probably aren’t all that bothered). Infants are also supposed to be baptised into the faith of their parish community so that tends to get a bit lost when they’re being baptised away from their home parish.
Previously baptisms had to be celebrated as soon as possible so a lot of baptisms took place a week after the baby was born even though the mother was still in hospital and unable to be present. Now it’s unusual to baptise a children less than three months old mainly because of decreased infant mortality rates but also because of preparation programs, arranging dates, etc.
Previously baptisms had to be celebrated as soon as possible so a lot of baptisms took place a week after the baby was born even though the mother was still in hospital and unable to be present. Now it’s unusual to baptise a children less than three months old mainly because of decreased infant mortality rates but also because of preparation programs, arranging dates, etc.
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