Our gift to the parish

K and I have started baptism class for Olivia. In the Roman Catholic church before you receive a sacrament you must first take a few "classes" where you reflect on what is about to happen. With baptism, since it is usually an infant, the parents take the class. The question they asked us to think about last week was "Why we want to baptize Olivia". They gave us a article to read about baptism to help us with our answer.

When K and I talked about whether our children would be raised Catholic or Presbyterian one of the comparisons we made was the type of schooling we received. I went to CS and K went to public. After weighing all the differences against each other we decided that we wanted our kids to go to Catholic school. We also talked about english or french [we'll save that for another posting].

The article brought our attention to 2 other reasons.

To cleanse her spirit. We believe that we are all born of original sin. That being said in order for her spirit to be free of sin we must have her baptized to wash away sin. Like a vacuum, in order to fill it we must first empty it. So in order to free her spirit of sin we must fill it with the Holy Spirit.

Last we are baptizing her so that she may become part of our parish community. She is our gift to the parish. Jesus tells us to have faith like a child. An infant trust that their parents will take care of them and have faith in them. So too must we trust in God and have faith in him. When the newly baptized child, in their parents arms, stands before the parish they remind us of how we are to have faith like a child. So we are baptizing her to give back to our parish. To help our fellow Christians have faith and be reminded of that faith.

We have one class this week and one more next week. Then we can pick our date and begin planning for her special day. Who knew that our gift from God would one day be a gift to His people. She has brought us so much joy and happiness, it will be nice to share that with our parish.