FOOD FOR THOUGHT                                                               BABIES AND BAPTISMS
	Fr Francis Marsden
For 17 Jan 1987,

“Thi cum on better when thi’v’bin christened’! said the young mother, babe in arms. This old saying set me thinking about the effects of baptism. After all, why shouldn’t this spiritual regeneration have some physical effects ‘too? ‘Why shouldn’t the eradication of original sin go hand in hand with improved health and growth?

A few years ago in the Cathedral, a mother had just had her baby baptized. The child had a skin rash. Mum was dabbing Holy Water on the spots. She had a lot more faith in the healing power of Holy Water than I had. Faith or superstition?
Those of us who usually articulate our faith in spoken prayers and words should remember that the faith of others, though they cannot explain it, may be no less deep. Such people trust in God through actions and signs, holy water, medals and blessed objects.
I received one Christmas card from an old college friend, a devout Anglican. His third child, he wrote, had been born a month early by Caesarean section. The doctors diagnosed her severely deaf. She would be handicapped for life. “She was kitted out with hearing aids before she was 6 months. No explanation has been found, but she began to respond to sound at. 8-9 months and now seems to be completely normal. She really is a treasured gift from God.”
Is the real explanation baptism and family prayer? I’m sure her father thinks so. After all we have a lovely prayer in the Rite of Baptism: “The Lord Jesus made the deaf hear and the dumb speak, May He soon touch your ears to receive His word, and your mouth to proclaim His faith, to the praise and glory of God the Father.”
Another friend, a Cambridge chemistry graduate like me, was critically ill with meningitis as a baby. The doctors offered little chance of survival without serious brain damage. In danger of death, he received emergency baptism, confirmation and anointing. Against all odds, he recovered completely. Now he stands about 6’4” tall and is a priest in another diocese.
We can never prove all the blessings brought by God’s grace. Seldom can we distinguish exactly what is supernatural and what is natural healing. However, God works through prayer and the Sacraments.
Baptism cancels out original sin and all personal sins. Without baptism, we are a fallen race, a disinherited people, bearing the weight of Adam’s curse, “vessels of wrath.” As the Church Fathers say, our hearts easily become “shrines of the demons”
However, baptism makes us a “new creation.” We are justified, set right with God. It infuses sanctifying grace into our innermost being to make us holy. We become children of God. From our Father we can claim the graces and virtues we need to fulfill the obligations taken on in baptism.
The Council of Trent declared that since the promulgation of the Gospel, there is no justification without baptism or the desire for baptism. God has ordained baptism as an indispensable means of salvation. “Unless a man is born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.”(Jn 3:5)
Jesus commissioned his apostles to baptize. Matt. 28:19 reads “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations; baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you.”

In St Mark’s account we find “Go out to the, whole world, proclaim the Good News to all creation, he who believes and is baptized will be saved; he who does not believe will be condemned.” (16:16)

Therefore, the Church teaches that no one can enter the Kingdom of Heaven to enjoy the full Beatific Vision of God for eternity, unless he is baptized. However, where does this leave good non-Christians?
Theologians tackled this problem. They spoke of baptism by blood (when a catechumen being instructed in the faith, is martyred for Christ), and baptism by desire. This latter includes those who want to be baptized but die first, and those who implicitly know and love God and respond to His grace, but through no fault of their own do not know Christ or His Church. They sincerely desire to do God’s will.
However, once the Gospel is preached to such “anonymous Christians” and understood as the Truth, they are morally obliged to seek baptism by water and enter the Church fully.
Children are baptized on the strength of the parents’ faith, supported by the Church. The parents take on the serious responsibility before God, of educating their children in the Gospel and bringing them to know Jesus. At the Last Judgment it will be seen how they have fulfilled what they promised at their children’s baptisms.

Parents who say,  “I’m not getting him/her baptised. Let him make his own mind up when he grows up” are depriving their child of God’s love and protection. Their own Christianity is very shallow indeed. We all make our own minds up when we grow up anyway. It should be an informed choice: we should understand the Christian faith properly and have received the gift of God’s love.
Moreover being baptised and becoming members of the Church gives us protection against the powers of evil. The Rite of Baptism includes’ a prayer of exorcism: “We pray for these children who will have to face the world with its temptations, and fight the devil in all his cunning. Your Son died and rose again to save us. By His victory over sin and death, bring these children out of the power of darkness. Strengthen them with the grace of Christ and watch over them 	at every step in life’s journey.”
No wonder that, adult or child, “Thi cum on better when thi’v’bin christened” and live out that Christ-ening.