Grace Harriet's Baptism

Grace Harriet was baptized on November 30 at 11 a.m. in Our Lord Christ the King Catholic Church, the same church Will and I were married in, and by the same priest, Fr. Ed Smith. (It was so lovely having her baptized at home, surrounded by our large family!)

Almost everyone was there to celebrate! (Grace's godmother, my dear friend Heather, is currently studying art history in Scotland. My sister Marianne was her proxy.)

My brother John is her godfather.

"Grace Harriet Baldwin, the Christian community welcomes you with great joy. In its name I claim you for Christ our Savior by the sign of his cross. I now trace the cross on your forehead, and invite your parents and godparents to do the same."
(The Rite of Baptism)

"God calls each one by name. Everyone's name is sacred. The name is the icon of the person." (Catechism of the Catholic Church #2158)

"Receive the light of Christ! Parents and godparents, this light is entrusted to you to be kept burning brightly. This child of yours has been enlightened by Christ. She is to walk always as a child of the light. May she keep the flame of faith alive in her heart. When the Lord comes, may she go out to meet him with all the saints in the heavenly kingdom."
(The Rite of Baptism)

"See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is."
(1 John 3:1-2)

"When words are inadequate, people speak in gestures and signs: a hug, a touch, a gift.The language of ritual enables people to share events words cannot express. 

God's action is no more limited to sacramental actions than the whole of married love is lived out in the marriage bed. But the sacraments, like lovemaking, are moments of intensified encounter. 

In any such exchange, the more expressive the gestures and symbols, the more eloquent the communication. The More meaning you intend a gift to convey, the more carefully you choose or make it. 

Baptism speaks with water and light, oil and white garment, song, and sometimes even welcoming applause. The ride can speak as expressively as a tender embrace or as perfunctiorialy as a routine good-bye peck. Routine and tender moments both nourish love, but not the same way. One speaks of minimums, the other of possibilities. The options offered in the Rite of Baptism let you express the meanings you have discovered in the sacraments in a very personal way."  -- Carol Luebering, Handing on the Faith

Welcome, Grace Harriet!