Episode 112: Why Baptize My Baby?

[Music] welcome to godsplaining contemplative preachers contemporary age each week join the dominican friars as they consider all things catholic hello friends and welcome back to god's planing my name is father patrick mary briscoe and i'm joined today by father joseph anthony kress now you might think if you're looking at us on youtube that you joined the wrong podcast because we have decent setups uh but rest assured dear viewer if you're seeing this listeners you haven't noticed a difference but rest assured dear viewer you are in fact watching god's planning uh father joseph anthony how are you um very very bearded right now it's been a while since i've like trimmed up my beard but like yeah it's great um as i was kind of mentioning before we uh started recording i got a little bit of a retreat hangover going on right now um most people would call these things like retreat highs we just took our students on our fall retreat so we're recording this immediately after that we just took our students on the fall retreat it was amazing we did a theology of the body retreat kind of digging into our humanity understanding how we are you know creating the image of likeness of god incarnate and with all that stuff looks like amazing when you go on a retreat at the end you get that retreat high you're like carrying me into new lands and it's beautiful i think when you give a retreat or you lead a retreat it's more like a retreat hangover like you're just exhausted and it's your gas to be honest that's where i am right now but jesus is doing big things among our students and beautiful so i'm excited i think that's how moms and dads feel at the end of vacation right like they've just they've just given everything and now they need a vacation after the vacation because they've tried to do so much i've gone from place to place right but you know you the spiritual father on this retreat weekend uh you know just having haven't given it all no i love it um my uh yeah i have no reason to be tired [Laughter] i'm doing my job but uh but yeah there you go um so i'm just gonna have to pass over that um i will say this so as as a lot of our listeners are friends of the podcast now um i've recently moved to washington dc um taking another assignment from my provincial i'm now the editor-in-chief of alatea um and along with that uh particular deputation with that particular ministry um i was reassigned to our house of studies to our seminary um one thing that's just been incredible is that the chance to just really live the liturgy in such a rich way at the house of studies there are so many things that are just so beautiful about the way the brothers um chant the divine office here and i mean for me it's just been like drinking out of the uh drinking out of the fire hydrant right it's just it's just incredible wellspring so i'm really grateful for that um and it's been a real a real joy in my life of late so that's kind of all the personal news i have it's super rich it's like the filet mignon of our problem yeah that's right full flavor you know it is wonderful well but let's jump into our topic today father joseph anthony we wanted to talk a little bit about baptism i mean one of the things that i heard a lot as a parish priest um up in new england uh and i don't know if it's just a cultural phenomenon there in the northeast in the united states but i suspect not i i suspect this is increasingly present throughout the united states throughout western europe um is this argument that that we shouldn't be baptizing our babies right parents will say things like well you know i want my child to be able to choose um the the practice of their religion so this question of whether or not parents are going to baptize their children is is coming up more and more increasingly um increasingly more and more with more and more intensity so you know that that is kind of how i see uh us kicking off this episode with with this with this um desire to answer this question why should it why should a parent baptize their child i mean that question you're not wrong i mean we hear it all the time i think in any parish across the united states just because of it's probably a little more intense and frequent in new england but it is super common elsewhere to people like well you know i don't want to force anything on them it's just kind of maybe there's sociological differences with parenting and uh the family and all these things but i think at the end of the day it's this kind of push to emphasize uh choice and the only way to make a legitimate choice is if you have all the options in front of you now i have all my options i can make an informed decision in choice and that's a whole nother episode probably um not probably definitely but it's this approach to religion as um matter of taste right do what feels good like whatever works best for you i mean it's a phrase that i hear all the time in campus ministry in the university culture is oh that's good for you i'm happy for that for you right and parents don't want to you know because they themselves kind of have that mentality and that approach to all of life then why wouldn't they approach the faith in that way i don't want to impose impositions are a horrible thing for any anybody's human freedom so what i'm going to do is just i want to wait for them to decide what's good for them and then let that happen so there's a lot of culture influence and i think the the devolution of our cultures with respect to religion and the spiritual life influences us a lot but it is something that we're seeing on a regular basis um yeah anything on that yeah hearing you hear you talk um like this makes me think of the line in uh screw tape letters right c.s lewis famous book where the where the older more experienced demon is training at the younger demon right giving him advice on how to tempt the patient as they refer to the human being that they're trying to remember from god yeah um so the uh uh the the line that i'm thinking of is when um when the older demon is encouraging the younger one uh about about using only the historical method of examination right so he says well you know if you're looking at religion i'm asking religious questions they should they should look on they should consider only the historical information they should consider details about authorship and dating and context and the patient must at all costs be prevented from asking his or herself whether or not it is true yeah whether or not they're reading is true and i think that's i mean that's a question that i that i want to raise first as we consider this question of baptism particularly the baptism of children right why why baptize my kids um because so one one of the things that i that i think is a big problem that we're facing is parents who are not ready to say in their own hearts yeah i think it's true i think christianity is right i think the catholic church is the fullness of truth and has something to say about about um the the destiny of human life and so i think people are being prevented from asking this question of whether or not it's true by by wanting you know uh to inform themselves which is not a bad thing right be informed um study study other religions uh all those things are good things but but one must look at the question of catholicism and confront this question whether or not they think it's true and then act accordingly um but but i think the immediately the temptation you know this doesn't really resolve anything but it just goes back to what you're saying is that there's a kind of paralysis of analysis the desire to continue to look and uh and you know make sure oh that i've studied enough that i really understand what what what is what is being asked of me or or do i really think that this is true do i really want my child to live this way that you know what i'm bringing up here doesn't really solve um what you're pointing out but i think it's just one more symptom of of the disease we're facing or the challenge yeah i mean there's also that kind of like because the parents themselves struggle with the faith which is not a problem like i i think part too many people think that they have to be perfect and buy in and just become these like automatrons and robots of like yes everything is good every like catholic faith or nothing and it's like well it's true i mean it is the truth but it's okay to struggle with the faith and they're like i can't give something to my child if i'm struggling with it myself if i have doubts or i have questions i can't get it until i fix myself i can't give it to this child like because he never asked for it why would i give him something that i'm not fully bought in with and like we have to kind of take away that element of we can struggle with our faith we can have questions we can have doubts like how many times did people in the gospels approach jesus with doubts with questions but they approached him with deep faith right that's that's not a barrier to faith having questions about like especially for jesus who is the way the truth and the life and then we can imitate and we can hand that on to somebody even while still struggling ourselves i think there's his parents that like i have to fix myself i have to be convicted of myself before i can give it to this you know child who has no choice right and that's once again that their dignity only is reliant upon their ability to choose that's a whole other issue but like yeah that's right i think that's it yep that's another huge part of this question yeah you're you're nailing it there so um yeah i think that's the first thing i mean we can start thinking the other thing that i wanted to mention quickly is i see a problem with understanding the human person um beauty of our humanity as body and soul that like we are not separate we're not this like soul that's entrapped within our body we don't own our body we are our body right uh but we're also completely uh spiritual like this is the beauty of humanity uh body and soul made in the image and likeness of god you see parents taking care of their children's physical needs they'll feed their children they will make sure that their appointments for their three-month checkup their six-month checkup all of these things with their doctors make sure their health is okay they take all the necessary um you know inoculations and all this stuff like there's this huge emphasis to do these things where the physical well-being of their child that the child has no choice in is not cognizant of but others have said that it is important to feed them smashed up matt uh you know sweet potatoes because sweet potatoes are better than anything else right and yet they refuse to give their child the spiritual nourishment that they need and the spiritual medicine and salvation that they need even if the child isn't cognizant of it like there's there's an inability to prioritize the physical needs where the spiritual is just going to be left dormant to fend for itself like you wouldn't take an infant and drop them into like i don't know the food court at the mall and say well there's nourishment all around he gets to choose like when he's able to choose and figure out then he's going to find you know the subway that is to eat fresh you don't do that stuff i mean those would be very negligent parents and they have the responsibility to care in make the decisions that are the best they research and they have their doctors the pediatricians the specialists and say okay this is what my child needs well so too for the spiritual well-being because that's that's also the human human person body and soul and it just blows my mind that it's like well we're just going to wait off until it's like no the grace the nourishment the faith beginning in that child from an early age is deeply important yeah i think the last thing i'll say because you know we're sort of spending the first part of this episode uh just working out what what parents are thinking the objections we've heard right you know father joseph anthony serving in charlottesville at the university of parish for st thomas aquinas from my time in saint paul's v you know we've had all these conversations with people and and you know we're just sort of working them out here i i think the last thing that i'll say about this question um is actually kind of a positive one um it's that i think the hesita the hesitation on baptism um tells it it hints to us um you know in a positive way because it it could just be laziness right i could be wrong about this um but the the the best way to look at this scenario i think is to is to see that people still understand that baptism does something that's irrevocable oh yeah um and so if parents are if parents are unwilling to baptize their children uh you know like the what's the best spin i can put on this it's that they understand that by baptizing their children they are in fact undertaking the commitment to raise them in the church um to hand on to them catholic life um to endow them with a vision of christian living to take them to sunday mass each week to teach them about the sacraments to lead them out of pray okay so like in the best case scenario the best interpretation the most positive interpretation of this um phenomenon we're facing this question is that parents understand that there's something real here that you can't be unbaptized that to baptize a child is to do something permanent and to change and in so doing to change the horizon of their lives um that's maybe not a bad thing but it is a complicated thing right because you say like yeah well baptism is permanent you know that's true yeah so if we're looking to make the yeah it makes a demand on the parents too because they're like oh does that mean i have to adjust do i have to start going to math now too because i've i've said it on this kid behalf maybe i should do that so like you're it is multifaceted and it is kind of a big thing but you there is i think you're spot on there's this kind of recognition that baptism is a big thing so i think there's there's a lot to be said and maybe there are other things that father joseph anthony and i are not seeing or things we haven't uh heard from our priestly experience but i think it's important to to consider these and many other questions parents are asking well um why why baptize my why baptize my child to understand you know especially if there's someone in your life that you're talking to about this question to understand where they're coming from to think critically about the situation um and and to and to take their concerns seriously i think that's so key you know so that's what we're trying to do here and then uh but we've done enough of that so we're gonna take a short break and when we come back we'll give you our reasons we'll talk about why we think you should baptize your kid um so give us just a moment and we'll be right back with you you are listening to godsplaining visit us at godsplaining.org to listen to our episodes shop our store and donate to our podcast all gifts go to improving the podcast and bringing the gospel to more listeners thanks for your support well friends welcome back you've been listening to god's planning uh in the first part of the episode father joseph anthony and i of course have kind of been working out this question of why parents hesitate uh to baptize their children where they're coming from trying to see uh the question that they're asking the way that they're asking the question the concerns that are behind this question but father joseph anthony let's say someone comes to you and they ask very directly why should i baptize my child where do you start in your answer what kinds of things do you offer to to flush out why the church baptizes infants i'd like because you love your kid right like you you love this child and there's something so beautiful and like there's something about the the innocence of a child that really melts your heart like you can take a newborn baby and like put them in the arms of like the you know harley-davidson motorcycle guy big beard and then he just melts and there's something beautiful about that so like yeah you love your child and you're going to get one and give the best and do the best for them and so this is the beginning of that um in is introducing them into you know the life of jesus christ who is giving us the the promise of eternal beatitude and so that can begin early on we look at a child and we know that we all carry the in the you could even say i don't know the hereditary share of adam in our original sin and so to give that child the opportunity to be forgiven of that original sin at earliest moments as possible and have them reborn regenerated in jesus christ to enter into his death and resurrection at an infant stage and early stage is you do that because you love your child first off and i think that to see this act of allowing that child to be claimed by christ enveloped in the grace of an identity of christ as the eternal son and to remit and take away that uh stain of original sin from the earliest moments if the parent is able to do that why wouldn't they do that because this is the mark of love to do such a thing so i think that's where i start off is actually admitting that baptizing your child is a great act of love and a parental love for that child yeah that's right this is the best gift you want to give your child every good gift like think of all the time you spend researching what are those things called the little kangaroos you know the roux guys those little baby machines that kind of rock them you know you're like everyone wants a mama maybe not everyone wants mamaroo like maybe they're a little late i don't know i don't know about the stuff the strollers that are like swedish made yeah i don't know why sweden has the best strollers but they do peg perego you know the italian version uh so so like you spent you spend all this time as a young parent researching this stuff i sort of hear about my sisters talking about it you know as they look into what what they want for their kids for their families but but the desire is overwhelming as father joseph anthony is saying that when you love your child you want to give them the very best that you can give them and in the spiritual life the very best you could give them is baptism to initiate them into the life of grace to to begin that saving work of god um and that's extraordinary so i think that um i think that uh you know i would myself in my in these conversations i prefer to lean more heavily on the doctrine right to say like like it or not your child who is very cute you know all babies are cute like it or not your child is a potato sack of original sin little flower bag you know i guess not quite a potato sack that's too big little flower bag of original sand right and those that's just the fact that's the christian claim of reality is that as father joseph anthony was saying we have inherited a disease from adam and the disease is sin and the disease will cause us to die without the cure and that's just the straight facts uh that's a that's a really important claim i think and i think it's important to to say seriously because this is the answer this is the philosophical answer christianity gives as to why the world is so messed up yeah to say that there's sin and suffering because of this kind because of this perennial brokenness which dates all the way back to the turning of our first parents away from god and that it's the turning away from god the kind of sin that invades our lives that's that's what that's what causes the brokenness we experience in reality and the answer therefore is the life of grace the answer is christian living the answer begins in the saving grace is imparted by holy baptism and i think that i think that that's a really key place to start because if a lot of christians are asking well is it true do i believe this is true it's important to raise that question to parents say well do you think this is true like what's your answer my answer for why the world is broken is because of all of the brokenness that i see and i think that god has responded to this brokenness and saved us and given us a remedy for it and that you should give that to your child um okay okay so father joseph anthony if you have to give an answer you say like uh okay but we're gonna move on now and we're gonna say look this is it in the scriptures um what would you point to i i mean the entirety of the life of jesus the entirety of the old testament i mean everything is pointing to this moment of redemption through the redemptive waters like you can look at you know all the pre-figurings of baptism in the old testament the you know the parting of the sea and and i mean the striking of the water from the rock and then crossing the jordan again with the parts and that's all another issue but um it's everything is pointing towards baptism as being the fulfillment of the old covenant and how how was right this is so important how were individuals initiated into the old covenant through circumcision and that was always done as an infant and so even the lord himself right i always look to sing the lord's life and say okay we're called to imitate his life and what does his life look like in so many ways well even as a child right as an infant he was presented in the temple to fulfill the demands of the old cosmic and so that he could fulfill and then redeem and renew them in unique ways and so this whole idea of infants being drawn into the work of god the redemption of the people of god uh as an instant is deeply known uh throughout the ancients in the old testament and even into the life of jesus himself he's not exempt from any of this either which shows his unity with that because actually out of anybody he is exempt from it because he doesn't have sin um but he enters into that process to show us the way that we are to imitate so this kind of redeeming of the infant has deep deep roots in scripture it would be i would be hard-pressed right there's a real wonderful point out there but i'd be hard-pressed to see how if the old covenant that is happening throughout the people of israel of circumcision entering into the old covenant included children in infants why would the new covenant that fulfills that not include that either like it would seem like that would be a lesser covenant then when we know that's not the case like the new covenant is the all-encompassing covenant now that brings it to its completion fulfills it and takes it into deeper reality so it would it would just seem weird for me that our entrance into the new covenant would um you know exclude infants then yeah that's right um and i i think that's really powerful to that i could only add that jesus um gives a direct witness to this in his life in the new testament in his preaching right i can think of two instances that i would that i would add and because everything that you're saying is is dead on this is that and is in my view the the key theological principle so i can only add like because jesus said so just me that he's given you jesus joseph and he's giving you a very sophisticated theological vision of the covenant and i can just say like look the lord says do it right so we can look at the we can look at the situation where the children are trying to get to jesus and peter and the apostles are like no jesus is too busy to talk to kids and jesus says let the little children come to me right um instead of pushing them away the lord invites them to himself and i think that's important that's that that moment is significant and a principle is imparted to us there i think also we we should look at um jesus vision of the kingdom where he tells us over and over that that the kingdom belongs to such as these to the children like that's that same instance where the children come unto him or when jesus uh warns us unless you have the heart of a child you cannot enter the kingdom so there's something about being child-like and being dependent on the father and adopting the posture of a child that that is at the heart of christianity so that so if we say that this is true that there that there's a kind of uh child centric view of the kingdom that's being imparted by jesus you know i'm looking for the right words to express that then then we have to say well why wouldn't the lord bring children to himself you know if the view of the kingdom is exalted why wait to be an adult uh you know if the view of the kingdom means that you have to become like a child why wait to be an adult to begin to partake in that and and when i had in this way like this past sunday you know for looking at the 25th sunday of ordinary time year b if you want to just roll back to that gospel of mark the lord in the midst of his apostles takes a child to put them into this presence it's like anybody who receives this child receives me anybody who receives me receives the one who sent me so we see this love of the father coming down but into that and mark has this beautiful line he says christ takes the job puts it in the midst of the apostles and then embraces the child wraps his arms around him like it's not just using this as an image for teaching pedagogical purposes the lord embraces the children and it says so like and i think that other aspect that you were talking about is like why would we wait for this maturity like if the image and entrance into the kingdom of god is to be childlike it's it's beautiful because like our spiritual maturity is actually goes in the opposite direction of our physical maturity physical maturity as we get older we want to become more independent we want to do our own thing but spiritual maturity actually looks like a greater dependency a greater trust a greater innocence and so like you have the child who is at this peak of kind of physical immaturity but in a beautiful way is at the peak of spiritual maturity and is more actually more has a greater disposition in um you know reception to the spiritual gift at that early stage um that then can grow throughout the rest of his or her life yeah that's right um and uh to that i can only add that's what saint peter's getting at you know in the book of acts um where he's preaching very early on in the book of acts in the second chapter he's preaching right encouraging his hearers to be baptized to receive all the gifts that father joseph anthony's talking about receive the gift of the holy spirit receive all the spiritual graces of baptism and the the many wonderful things that happened went divine love continues it begins rather in those first moments to make its dwelling place in the soul i mean just incredible um there saint peter says this promise is to you and your children um and that there's a fulfillment of promise here that that is expansive that it belongs to you it belongs to your children it belongs to your children's children i mean that they're being incorporated in this uh immediately that all of these gifts are theirs as soon as soon as they're born i don't know you have any closing thoughts i think we sort of yeah yeah i think we i think we've covered the least at least what we wanted to say this time there's always more in other ways other avenues we can go but i think this is uh you know an important reflection and you know i personally i hope it reflects i hope it forces us individually but also our listeners to reflect on our own baptism like that that's the whole purpose of this is to reflect on the great gift that our parents gave us if we were baptized as infants um and to thank them for that and to also thank the lord for um for those of us who have been baptized as infants i myself include i throw myself out there as baptized as a little uh child knee-high to a grasshopper but to to thank the lord for that gift um and it's such an early stage preach well um to all of our listeners thank you for tuning in um if you're watching on youtube and seeing you know the glories of our new video presentation uh congratulations um if you like what you're hearing please share the podcast we really appreciate that you recommending the episodes is the fastest way that we grow please share them on social media text an episode to a friend um follow us on twitter facebook and instagram um i don't know what else absolutely yeah we don't have stuff coming up no i just paused like waiting for jacob to father jacob bertrand you know tell me about the announcements uh to tell me why didn't you write these down you know somewhere in the universe he's twitching he's like ah there's announcements to say i don't know what that's right visit our website check out all of our projects there um consider becoming one of our many great benefactors that support our project on patreon we thank those of you who already do who give to us um to continue to improve the quality of our program uh please know that we're praying for you and we ask your prayers for us god bless thanks for listening to god's planning a work of the dominican friars of the province of saint joseph follow us on facebook twitter and instagram leave a review on your podcast app and visit us at godsplaining.org [Music] you

Channel: Godsplaining Podcast

Views: 295

Rating: 4.7948718 out of 5

Keywords: catholic, dominican friars, theology, philosophy, religion, faith, order of preachers, godsplaining, seekers, Truth, preaching, questions, searching, prayer, meditation, baptism, baptize, babies, baby, catholic priest, OPEast, dominican

Id: 4KfXZ6txMCk

Length: 30min 56sec (1856 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 23 2021