Baptism Class
Last night, Andrew and I had to go to a class to prepare for Lucia’s upcoming baptism. We were annoyed with this from the get-go. The class was scheduled from 7:30-9:00pm—way past Lucia’s, or any baby’s, bedtime. I’d called the coordinator, a humorless woman who I knew immediately was childless, to try to beg one of us off, but she emphasized that it was vital that both of us be there. She suggested we just get a baby-sitter. When I explained that no, our baby is only four months old and, furthermore, we don’t have any family here, she said, “Well, doesn’t she have a little carrier or something?” As though she were a little cat.
When I saw this woman in person, my intuition was proven right. She gave a thin smile to Lucia. “Cute. Almost makes me want one of my own,” she said. She was close to seventy years old.
Anyway, we and about twenty other people then sat through a mini-religion class taught by the deacon’s wife. Bits of religion classes past floated up from the depths of my memory, but I’d forgotten most of what she was asking and telling us—what happened during Pentecost, what is grace, what are the seven sacraments, what’s original sin, Eve’s sin is why women have pain in childbirth, etc etc. She shared several stories of how the Anointing of the Sick miraculously cured people she knew of their ailments, including her own osteoarthritis, and encouraged us to receive this sacrament frequently.
Andrew was hanging in there through all of this. Then we watched a video about baptism, circa 1980. Oh, my goodness. I don’t know whether the participants in this video (and I feel almost 100% positive that it was a VHS tape, though I can’t prove it) were failed actors or overzealous parishioners, but they overacted their way through a baptism ceremony so atrociously that I, at one point, had to fiddle with Lucia’s diaper bag to keep from dissolving into a laughing fit. When the priest in the video asked the plastic-frame-bespectacled father why he was here today, the father answered with what I can only describe as a demonic grin, “I want that Elizabeth have what we ourselves have been blessed to have had, faith in God!!” Attending the baptism of his daughter was clearly the highlight of his existence thus far. Also, English seemed to be not only not his first language but also not his second, third, or fourth.
There was a veritable crowd of people attending baby Elizabeth’s baptism in the video, and they gazed upon the goings-on with, I’m afraid, vacant, cult-like stares and possessed smiles.
The video ended after twenty minutes; and, not much later, we were home. But Andrew has been scarred, and scared, by the whole encounter, really his first encounter with, as he says, Big-C Catholicism. (The marriage class was small beans compared to this.) Today at lunch, with a haunted, doubtful look on his face, he tried to articulate why the class freaked him out. He wasn’t really able to, other than to express his reservations of whether we want to introduce this influence into Lucia’s life. And I can see where he’s coming from—the prim, sexless religion teacher speaking of miracles; the retro video with the rapt, cult-like baptism crowd; the talk of Pentecostal flames and tongues (I’m not even sure why this came up); the equating of missing church on Sunday with excessive pride.
I get it. It’s off-putting to someone who hadn’t been exposed to it on a daily basis for twelve years. I, on the other hand, once carried a “wooden nail” in my pocket during Lent to remind myself that we ALL crucified Jesus. This class, attended by regular people obviously doing it for the same reason we were—to get the papers signed and have a baptism, already—was small potatoes. Baptizing Lucia is not going to suddenly propel her into that weird, churchy environment. I reminded Andrew that the fervent Catholic video (“I await eagerly and anxiously to help in any way in which I can, if I am blessed to do so!!” declared a godparent) is just one part of all this, one drab, out-of-touch element that I hadn’t crossed paths with for going on twenty years now. The rituals—the traditions—the grand, gorgeous cathedrals in Spain—that’s all part of it too.
I don’t think I’ve convinced him. Perhaps I won’t. Maybe you’re either from a family that buries St. Joseph in the yard of a house they hope to sell, or you’re not. Maybe there can be acceptance of a lapsed-Catholic wife desiring to have her baby baptized—but I wonder if, in the end, there can be no true understanding.
When I saw this woman in person, my intuition was proven right. She gave a thin smile to Lucia. “Cute. Almost makes me want one of my own,” she said. She was close to seventy years old.
Anyway, we and about twenty other people then sat through a mini-religion class taught by the deacon’s wife. Bits of religion classes past floated up from the depths of my memory, but I’d forgotten most of what she was asking and telling us—what happened during Pentecost, what is grace, what are the seven sacraments, what’s original sin, Eve’s sin is why women have pain in childbirth, etc etc. She shared several stories of how the Anointing of the Sick miraculously cured people she knew of their ailments, including her own osteoarthritis, and encouraged us to receive this sacrament frequently.
Andrew was hanging in there through all of this. Then we watched a video about baptism, circa 1980. Oh, my goodness. I don’t know whether the participants in this video (and I feel almost 100% positive that it was a VHS tape, though I can’t prove it) were failed actors or overzealous parishioners, but they overacted their way through a baptism ceremony so atrociously that I, at one point, had to fiddle with Lucia’s diaper bag to keep from dissolving into a laughing fit. When the priest in the video asked the plastic-frame-bespectacled father why he was here today, the father answered with what I can only describe as a demonic grin, “I want that Elizabeth have what we ourselves have been blessed to have had, faith in God!!” Attending the baptism of his daughter was clearly the highlight of his existence thus far. Also, English seemed to be not only not his first language but also not his second, third, or fourth.
There was a veritable crowd of people attending baby Elizabeth’s baptism in the video, and they gazed upon the goings-on with, I’m afraid, vacant, cult-like stares and possessed smiles.
The video ended after twenty minutes; and, not much later, we were home. But Andrew has been scarred, and scared, by the whole encounter, really his first encounter with, as he says, Big-C Catholicism. (The marriage class was small beans compared to this.) Today at lunch, with a haunted, doubtful look on his face, he tried to articulate why the class freaked him out. He wasn’t really able to, other than to express his reservations of whether we want to introduce this influence into Lucia’s life. And I can see where he’s coming from—the prim, sexless religion teacher speaking of miracles; the retro video with the rapt, cult-like baptism crowd; the talk of Pentecostal flames and tongues (I’m not even sure why this came up); the equating of missing church on Sunday with excessive pride.
I get it. It’s off-putting to someone who hadn’t been exposed to it on a daily basis for twelve years. I, on the other hand, once carried a “wooden nail” in my pocket during Lent to remind myself that we ALL crucified Jesus. This class, attended by regular people obviously doing it for the same reason we were—to get the papers signed and have a baptism, already—was small potatoes. Baptizing Lucia is not going to suddenly propel her into that weird, churchy environment. I reminded Andrew that the fervent Catholic video (“I await eagerly and anxiously to help in any way in which I can, if I am blessed to do so!!” declared a godparent) is just one part of all this, one drab, out-of-touch element that I hadn’t crossed paths with for going on twenty years now. The rituals—the traditions—the grand, gorgeous cathedrals in Spain—that’s all part of it too.
I don’t think I’ve convinced him. Perhaps I won’t. Maybe you’re either from a family that buries St. Joseph in the yard of a house they hope to sell, or you’re not. Maybe there can be acceptance of a lapsed-Catholic wife desiring to have her baby baptized—but I wonder if, in the end, there can be no true understanding.
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