The works of the baptise ceremony for an infant:
- The priest asks the parents for the infant’s name. This is simply when a person is called by there name it make the more individual as a person and more unique before our holy father. Tradition tells us that in the catholic religion sometime the infant is named after a saint of the church, which would lead onto the catholic belief in the ‘communion of saints’.
- Parents and godparents are asked several questions during the ceremony to determine how deep their own faith in God. One of the godparents must be 100% a Roman Catholic they both also take an oath that they must help the parents and to bring the child up in the Catholic faith. The priest then welcomes the infant to the Catholic faith. Then the following words are said.
“(Name), the Christian community welcomes you with great joy. In its name I claim you for Christ our saviour by the sign of this cross. I now trace the cross on your forehead and invite your parents and godparents to do the same.”
- ‘The liturgy of the word follows. If the baptism takes place on a Sunday, or an important feast day, the readings are taken from the Lectionary. Passages will be from the Old Testament, the Epistles and the Gospels.’
The baby is then anointed with oil of catechumens to symbolise the healing of God and ward off evil. This is also the time where the god parents make their final confession.
The priest reinforces this by laying his hands on the child whilst giving Gods blessing. The water is blessed and then the child is baptised with the following words:
“In the name of the father, and of the son and of the Holy Sprit.” This is in baptism is recognised that:
“God is our Father (Abba),
Jesus is our Brother,
The Holy Sprit lives within us.”
The priest gives the parents the Paschal candle; a new white shawl is placed round the child and the priest blesses the family.
The adult baptism is done in a similar way to the infant baptism. All the same signs and symbols are used for this special ceremony although it’s not as long and as complicated. Baptism was in the early church was intentionally for adults. Though out the ages parents and certain people wanted their babies baptised to share the Blessings of God, soon this became common. Roughly in the 17th century a group of people decided to leave the Church of England, the reason for this was that that they thought only adults, with their own faith in Jesus should be baptised. Firstly their name for doing these were “Anabaptists” which meant ‘those who were baptised again’. An adult baptism is purely up to the adult, it is his/hers personal choice whether they want to join the Catholic faith or don’t. In the end there became a new church, ‘The Baptist church’ and even today is one of the largest churches in the world.
‘ When Peter preached to the crowds at Pentecost he said, “Each one must turn away from his sins and be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ, so that your sins will be forgiven; and you will receive gods gift, the Holy sprit” ACTS 2.38’
Occasionally adults who want to be baptised, strive to be baptised in a either a sea, lake or even a river. Various adults even try to get baptised in the river Jordan itself. Frequently though adults get baptised in a special pool in their church.
The adult wears white, then they take the steps down towards the pool, this symbolises that they are leaving their old life behind.
The priest rocks the person back into the water so there are totally immersed. This symbolises death to sin.
AO2: Explain the meaning and significance of baptism for Christians today.
There are many people who would argue that baptism is not an essential part of salvation. They feel that baptism is a step one takes after salvation has already been attained. To these people baptism is a public manner of expressing a belief in God.
Many people refer to baptism as “water salvation.” They argue that how can baptism save us if it is the blood of Christ that actually washes away our sins. In response to these claims, one could present the question, “What saved Noah?” Hebrews 11:4 tells us that faith saved Noah. One could also argue that Noah was saved by the ark, and he was according to Genesis 6. Another argument is that it was the water saved Noah, and it did according to I Peter 3:20-21. In reality, however, it was God who saved Noah. His faith, the ark, and the water were just means that God used to save him.-quote.
Baptism is not a work, but rather it is a condition which we must meet. An image of this would be a gift one receives for a birthday. Has the person earned the gift? No, it was given because the person met the condition needed to receive a gift (they had a birthday). In the same way, the gift of salvation is not given until all the conditions have been met.
Jesus, even though He was without sin, was still baptized by John the Baptist (Matthew 3:13-17). John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance (Matthew 3:11). Having never sinned, Jesus had nothing to repent of. Some wonder why Jesus was baptized. Matthew 3:15 say that it was “to fulfil all righteousness.” Jesus was baptized because it was God’s will for him to do so.
Baptism is important for Christians because of what it does. A quote was In Romans 6 it read that it destroys the old man and creates the new man inside. And this is why people do it. Acts 22:16 says that baptism washes away sin. According to Peter 3:21 baptism save us. The New Testament mentions baptism over 100 times, so it cannot be an irrelevant matter. Christians are bold and spirited in there attempts to convince others of what the Bible says, but all that we say or do should be done so in love.
AO3: “Baptising babies is pointless”
(Do u agree?)
Yes I do agree with this statement. The reason for this being that its suppose to be the individuals decision to decide if the want to be baptised into a religion or not. When we are babies we really have no rights in the world as we can not really communicate very well so therefore our parents/guardians make important decisions for us putting our best interests at heart, but unfortunately its not their decision is not always what is best for us and can cause trouble amongst our selves, I feel baptism is one of those things. Baptism is very important in most religions it’s the clearing of sin it makes a new person out of us and is a very important thing to do in our life’s. I think that we as adults should make our own decisions about such choices and should be respected for it.
But in a Christian society baptism is a new life a new start, this is suppose to be a blessing for the child to start in life as he or she means to go on it’s a new start to life
