Tonight we had a great session of welcoming 3 families who will be presenting their new children for baptism in the next few weeks. I really enjoy these sessions mostly because I get to learn the names of the families who are becoming more active in our faith community, as well as the chance to play with some of the cutest babies on the face of the planet!
Recently, at our Priests' Convocation I was telling some of the other priests about our process of preparation for infant baptism, of how we've divided up the 4 major parts of the ritual. Interestingly, the older priests (older than me) were fascinated and very interested in the whole idea, especially with the potential for building community. Then, there was a very newly-ordained young priest, who was absolutely amazed, who said "You're not supposed to break up the ritual!" I kindly said, "Where, in any of the church laws for infant baptisms is it explicitly forbidden?" The newly-ordained priest was unable to answer that particular question. But he started sputtering, at my apparent disregard for church law and practices, until I shut him up with some other ancient wisdom for dealing with church law: "If it is not explicitly forbidden, it may be allowed." The older priests all backed me up on this, and the newly ordained still looked at me as if I'm the champion of heresy. Oh well, some things never change!
Anyway, I prefer to play with babies and their proud parents.
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