Why Baptizing Your Baby Is the Most Important Thing You Can Do

a what's the profound thing that happens to a person at baptism and B but if this child is just a child if this child is just a couple months old a couple weeks old however old this child is why would you baptize a baby and that's a good question I love it hi my name is father Mike Schmitz and this is essential presents so last weekend I had the opportunity uh to do a baptism I don't often get to do baptisms right because I could do a lot of marriage preps and then a lot of weddings and then they're like see you later and they take off and I don't get to see them again well this is a couple Kyle and Nicole they're amazing um they have three kids now they have four so I got to baptize little Owen who has an older brother two older sisters it was amazing not only because of the baptism itself but what was really made well I was struck by was this is their fourth child they had almost as many people at this baptism as they did at their wedding I mean that's maybe a little bit of an exaggeration but it wasn't just so here's mom and dad maybe some grandparents it was people drove from out of town to be part of this baptism and and I thought this is incredible because it's as it's almost as if these parents understand what the profound thing that's about to happen to their child at baptism because it's kind of a big deal first um we recognize that here little Owen when he got baptized one of the things that happened was Edwin was made into a child of God we'll have another video about that at some point but Owen was made into a child of God what I'm trying to say is baptism did something a lot of times there are some some non-catholic Christians who see baptism as merely symbolic it's it's not it's not efficacious it's the word it just is an expression of an already pre-existing Faith um the interesting thing about that is that that was never expressed in the Bible in fact the Bible talks about it like this you know actually well how about this in John chapter 3 Jesus is talking to Nicodemus and he says unless you're born again of water in the spirit you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven so this is pretty powerful you know from the very beginning the church saw those words of Jesus talking to Nicodemus baptism or unless you're born again of water in the spirit they saw that as baptism now thousand well a couple hundred years bunch of hundred years a long time later people had the thought of like no no maybe that means something different maybe that's uh Jesus is saying unless you're born of water that means like natural birth you have to be born first and of the spirit like that's some kind of spiritual kind of a thing um then you can't enter Heaven but for centuries Millennia now Christians have always understood that to be baptism the necessity of baptism in fact um in the Acts of the Apostles it says be baptized then for the Forgiveness of your sins the baptism is is talked about as if it actually does something right it's efficacious it's not merely an expression of belief it's not merely symbolic it is actually powerful it does something in fact Saint Peter when he's writing in the New Testament he says baptism saves you now so baptism saves you the Bible when it talks about baptism it talks about it doing something and what it does is it saves us it forgives our sins it brings incorporates us into the family of God it brings us into the body of Christ it makes us God's sons and daughters again as I said another video on that so it does something it's efficacious and it's also necessary talk about that maybe another time as well because what if someone doesn't get to have the chance to be baptized what then glad you asked that question another video okay so it does something scripture points to the fact that it does something it's not merely an expression of an already pre-existing faith but I can hear you ask but don't you need faith in order to have that baptism be salvific in order to have that baptism like do something I think you actually probably need a degree of faith and you'd be correct you actually do baptism is not a it's not Magic it's it's a miracle it's an act of God's grace it's an act it's a gift of the Lord and it requires faith in fact salvation requires faith and baptism I think there's two other things I think the Eucharist because John 6 Jesus says unless you eat the Flesh of the son of man and drink is blood you don't have life within you and also Jesus makes it very clear that he says that not everyone who says to me Lord Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven but only those who do the will of my Father in heaven so it seems like there's four things baptism Eucharist Faith obviously and doing the father's will these are for pretty much conditions uh for salvation but going back to baptism we need faith and baptism okay but if there's a baby getting baptized how can that baby have faith great question camper maybe it's not the baby's faith that's operative in this situation if you go back to Mark's gospel chapter two there's this story I know you know this story it's the story of this paralyzed man the paralytic he's on a mat and he has four friends who are carrying him to Jesus but there's so many people who want to come to Jesus to be healed that they can't get him in the house so what do the four friends do they climb up on the roof they do a little uh remodeling make a little Skylight there a little chip and Joanna Gaines kind of situation and they lure the man down on the mat in front of Jesus the next line in Mark's gospel and in Matthew's gospel is when Jesus saw their faith meaning the faith of the friends he says to the man your sins are forgiven so it's not the man's Faith itself himself it's not him it's not his faith that speaks for him it's actually the faith of the four friends that speaks for the man and if that can happen with this man who's paralyzed in his four friends that also is operative that also can happen in baptism because here's parents who profess the faith in fact the right of baptism is the parents and godparents profess the faith and this is the faith in which we want this child to be baptized and so yes it's not it's not magic it's an action of faith and this work of God's grace it is completely a gift in fact I would say this we would all agree Catholics and non-catholic Christians we would agree that salvation is a gift right it's a pure gift we do nothing to deserve it we do nothing to earn it baptism infant baptism in fact makes even more sense that way doesn't it because I mean you could say I'm baptized as an adult because I express my faith I chose my faith I started you know following after the Lord and and now I'm baptized well in that sense I mean you wouldn't automatically believe you were earning salvation but the temptation to believe that might be a little stronger when you get baptized when I got baptized as an infant on March 1st 1975 when I got baptized on that day there was nothing nothing that merited God's salvation there was nothing married in God's grace it was pure and complete gift I just got to receive this gift of forgiveness this gift of being brought into the church this gift of being made into a adopted son of God it was complete Grace it was the faith of my parents that spoke for me on that day Faith in my godparents that spoke to me on that day with the expectation and the hope that one day I would Embrace that Faith personally and that's the hope for you too if you were baptized as an infant the hope is the Hope was and the hope is that one day it'd be your faith that spoke on on your behalf one day it'll be your faith that would say I claim and accept The Graces the gift the Salvation offered to me in baptism if you haven't yet you haven't yet claimed that faith I invite you today to claim that faith for yourself anyways we're always here at attention presents my name is father Mike God bless [Music]

Channel: Ascension Presents

Views: 165,735

Keywords: ascension, ascension press, ascension presents, fr. Mike, father mike, catholic advice, catholic inspiration, catholic motivation, fr. mike schmitz, fr. Mike schmidt, father mike schmitz, michael schmitz, fr. Mike advice, fr. Mike videos, infant baptism debate, infant baptism, infant baptism catholic, infant baptism explained, infant baptism catholic answers, baptism for salvation, catholic baptism, catholic baptism explained, debate on infant baptism, baptism saves

Id: ZKinV91DCYc

Length: 7min 35sec (455 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 25 2023