Belonging

Everyone desires to belong.

To belong somewhere, to someplace, to someone even.

It's a human need to belong.

Like community.

Like home, household, family.

Belonging.

Catholics believe that baptism marks one with the sense of belonging to the Creator, to family, parents, neighborhood, community, and church.

Imagine that.

Water and the Holy Spirit with the sign of the cross + makes one a member of the Body of Christ.

Parents stand in for infants who are baptized.

They always have.

Parents, the primary formators for their children's faith, speak for their children until they turn the legal age.

Yet, a parent's role is to help a child walk, walk away, and come home again, and connect.

Growth is like that, isn't it?

Baptism is a sacrament of belonging, membership in the body of Christ, in a community called Church.

Dues?

Commitment to Jesus Christ.

Those dues are the price of being a disciple, a follower.

Otherwise, the ritual pouring of water with the Holy Spirit may be a empty gesture
without the ardor and enthusiasm required of believers.

Pour it on.

What a wonderful sacrament.

My own Godmother, Leona, from my dad's side of the family, and, Godfather, Uncle Lawrence, from mom's side of the family, took their role as Godparents seriously.

They did.

The helped mentor long with my mother and father.

A beautiful journey in the faith.

How could I be without baptism?

How?