Baptism Preparation – Lesson 1

Catholics traditionally pick a saint’s name for Baptism. You choose this “patron saint” as a model you hope your child will imitate and as a heavenly advocate for them. Canonized saints are the church’s greats, but the heavenly population includes many less famous who have touched your own life with their goodness.

So significant a gift cannot be lightly given. You discussed your baby’s name for many months. And that struggle expressed your hopes and dreams for your child. You probably rejected many names in your search for just the right name, one which means for you strength or beauty, wisdom, tenderness, or certain success in life. Your choice tells what you want your child to be.

Ultimately, of course, no one decides what another person will be. Each individual makes personal choices. But in the beginning, someone else must claim responsibility and authority and care for a budding life. You are that someone for this child, so you have the right to choose a name. Friends and family may suggest, but only you can choose.

Giving identity and claiming responsibility are profoundly human deeds. But most of all, the gift of a name signifies the holiest human experience: entering into a relationship.

When you speak your baby’s name, you approach this small person intimately. Within a few months of birth, your baby’s head will turn to the sound of the name you have chosen, the first word to acquire meaning. With a lopsided grin, your child will share the secret: Each of you knows your baby is someone very special.

A few months later your child will speak your name. In any tongue, the equivalents of mommy and daddy are usually the first words a child masters. Mommy and Daddy, not Peg and Mark or Maria and Tony. This tiny person will lay aside your old name for a new one-a single word that will always evoke your smile, your voice, your touch. All through life, your child will call you by the name that says what a special part you play in his or her life.

“Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands…”

– Isaiah 49:15-16

And you are changed. You carry a new identity, whether this is your first child or one of many. You will be Alice’s father, Paul’s mother for the rest of your life, bound in a relationship sometimes rewarding, sometimes frustrating, but always different from your relationship with anyone else.

From the beginning of history humans have sensed a greater being, someone who called the world into existence. The Jews called him Yahweh, “I Am Who Am.” He is known as God and as Lord.

In time, a child was born and given the name Jesus, “God saves.”

When that child spoke God’s name for us, he spoke in terms of relationship. “Father,” he called him, “Abba,”a Jewish child’s “daddy.”

Baptism, too, is a birth, a long journey through darkness toward the light where the strong and gentle arms of Jesus’s Father wait in welcome.

Reading: Your Child’s Baptism by Carol Luebering and “The Preliminary Rites” from The Rite of Baptism.

Presider: (addressing each set of parents in turn) N. and N., what name do you give your child?

Parent(s): N.

Presider: What do you ask of God’s Church for N.?

Parent(s): (We seek life in Christ for our child or we seek for our child to know Jesus or Baptism or Faith or Eternal Life)

Presider: In asking for Baptism for your child, you are undertaking the responsibility of raising him/her in the faith, so that, keeping God’s commandments, he/she may love the Lord and his/her neighbor as Christ has taught us. Do you understand this responsibility?

Parent(s): We do.

Presider: (addressing the godparents) Are you ready to help the parents of this child in their duty?

Godparents: We are.

Presider: N., the Church of God receives you with great joy. In her name, I sign you with the Sign of the Cross of Christ our Savior; then, after me, your parents (and godparents) will do the same.