Water Babies

"Throwing out the baby with the bathwater" is a commonly-used expression to refer to something of value being lost in the process of disposing of something unwanted.

The reason we have such an expression is that it's a common human behavior. We like to start fresh, eliminating everything we can that feels like an obstacle to our future freedom to succeed. We also like to differentiate ourselves from what we're leaving behind.

During my 25+ years in the Roman Catholic Church, I've discovered many such "babies" that were not part of my Protestant upbringing. In some cases, these were things that Luther, Calvin and others had explicit issues with, such as transubstantiation. In other cases, they were cultural differentiators, as the newly emerged Protestant denominations tried to differentiate themselves from Catholicism. And in other cases they just got forgotten in the rush to establish a new, fresh, simpler form of the "Faith of our Fathers."

For that matter, some of these differentiators only emerged (or fell off) in certain denominations, but not others.

As a result, if you were to take stock of all the various differences between Protestant Christiantiy and Catholicism, you'd find that some were consistently different from the Catholic experience across the board, while others would form a sort of interesting negative space, leaving a hollow outline of Catholic practices if you were to draw a line around all the interdenominational differences.

Perhaps most interestingly, I've begun to find that, now that most Protestant Christians are secure enough in their distinct Christian identities that they don't feel a need to explicitly differentiate themselves from Catholic practices that weren't the nub of their original parting of ways, there's an increasing openness to benefiting from these historical treasures which the Catholic Church continues to maintain.

One of these is infant baptism. Of course, adult baptism is a standard Christrian practice across Christianity for new converts to the faith. However, when Christian parents have babies, there is a desire to bring them up in the faith and include them as much as possible. In the Cathollic Church, this begins with infant baptism, and then proceeds through first communion to confirmation as the child comes of age and is able to fully assent to their continued involvement with the faith.

Some Protestant denominations have an explicit requirement that those being baptised be of the age of reason at least, and preferably somewhat more mature. But others are increasingly allowing parents to have their infants baptised, not just christened.

Interestingly, it seems that non-denominational churches, and particularly those with adherents with some Catholic family background, often lead the way in allowing for such "Catholic" (or perhaps more appropriately "catholic") practices.

Then there's the whole question of the amount and use of water. The Catholic Church allows for but does not require immersion; infant baptism, in my experience, is pretty consistently done above a small font, with the water poured on the infant's scalp. Other denominations may also allow baptism by "sprinkling" while others expect full immersion.

One of the big disappointments in my life is that my baptism, as a teenager in the Presbyterian Church, was accomplished with a very small amount of water on my forehead. I would love to have been dunked, but you don't need to be baptised twice - the Catholic Church accepted my Presbyterian baptism as valid when I joined - so I missed out on that sensory immersion experience.

Fortunately, I have had the waters of baptism sprinkled on me many times since joining the Catholic Church - a special experience every time.

That's because of the concept of Holy Water. When a priest blesses water, either for use in baptism or for some other sacred occasion or use, he then generally will dip a branch or other object in the water and use it to sprinkle many of those present with it (and they respond by crossing themselves). Holy Water is also available at the entrance of Catholic churches for people to dip their fingers into and then bless themselves with it by crossing themselves with the moistened fingers.

Given that Christians are to be "born of the water and the spirit" (John 3:5) this water is both a reminder and a renewing experience that touches me on a physical and visceral level, and not just the intellectual level where sermons, homilies and studying often predominate.

There are many other practices in the Catholic Church which I have also come to claim as my own, not merely as a new convert discovering them for the first time, but as an established Christian who is uncovering parts of my birth right that I had been unaware of before joining the original Christian denomination.

I'll talk about these more in future blog entries/chapters.

(Copyright (c) 2011, Reg Harbeck, all rights reserved)