At our parish, in addition to the full immersion font, we have preset baptismal dates. We have our godparents - Dave's brother Barry and my Aunt Linda. But the upcoming dates are less than ideal. They are:
- two dates in the dead of winter. Since the bulk of our families are from out of town (both godparents live a 4+ hour drive away and don't relish the highway drive required to get here), asking them to come to our snowy city at that time of year is just cruel.
- March 6th - the 40th birthday of her future godfather and the day before her future godmother's 60th. Also not fair.
- Nothing during Lent, obviously.
- May 8th - aka Mother's Day.
- June 19th - aka Father's Day.
It's brutal, though - she'll be nearly 10 months old! Father Boyd has already started to ask: "When will I get to baptize this one?" and it'll still be another 6+ months.
No one can say that they don't have sufficient notice, though!
This is why I think the preset dates are a Bad Idea. I hate that parishes make parents wait to get their kids baptized because they have already picked one date each month that inevitably turns out to be inconvenient for someone!
ReplyDeleteAt least the weather will be nice, though, and you'll have plenty of time to plan a fun party!
Ditto what Lauren said. My sister's parish does the same thing, so there were 20 other kids being baptized when my niece was baptized, which meant 20 other families jockeying for room around the baptismal font and 20 other families all trying to take pictures of their kid and getting in everyone else's way, including the priest's. Not to mention that one little cutie (he was!) started screaming just after the ceremony started which set off at least 6 other babies at various times. Good times.
ReplyDeleteBoth my nephew and niece weren't baptized, for various reasons, until they were a year old, which lead us to refer to the ceremony as the "birthtism" :)