WHY DO CATHOLICS BAPTISE THEIR BABIES?

We watched the latest "Avatar: The Way of Water" movie. The almost three and half hour movie was worth every minute, and without giving away spoiler alerts, there are a few points I would like to draw on.

Sunrise at the South Coast, 29 November 2022 (05:23)

"The Na'vi say that every person is born twice. The second is when you earn your place among the people, forever."

After giving birth, the Na'vi people present their child to Eywa, their great mother or goddess. She connects all living things, and upon death, all return to her.

The journey of becoming a Christian requires a few elements: (i) we proclaim the Word, (ii) we accept the Gospel, (iii) we profess the faith, (iv) we are baptised with the Holy Spirit and (v) we are admitted to Eucharistic communion.

How can an infant proclaim the Word and accept the Gospels or teachings of the faith? An infant's intellect cannot reason and understand these things. However, God borrows us children, and through the first two decades of their life, we are given the opportunity as parents to teach our children the faith and Christian virtues until they can understand the entire teachings.

We are similar to the Na'vi people but on a higher level. We recognise our children come from God, the creator of heaven and earth. In baptism, we present our child before God so He will imprint His love on the child forever. Baptising our babies is allowing them the opportunity to be born again. How exactly? At baptism, we receive a permanent mark on our soul that cleanses us of original sin and makes us one with the people of God. If God were to take back the infant after baptism, that child's soul would be free from the sin we inherit as all humans. The infant would die in a state of grace as if cleansed by the sacrament of confession.

Some will say it's the child's responsibility to choose baptism at an age where they can fully understand and accept the teachings. It could make sense. However, we have the sacrament of confirmation, where we fully receive the Holy Spirit once we are better equipped to understand what we accept.

If the Na'vi people chose to not present their offspring to their god, they would be restricting her from helping the child in illness, danger or death to find eternal rest with her. The same applies to us. Suppose we choose to not baptise our infant. In that case, we risk leaving their soul in some limbo state, wounded by inherited sin and susceptible to the dangers of the evil one.

"The way of water has no beginning and no end. Our hearts beat in the womb of the world. Water connects all things, life to death, darkness to light. The sea gives and the sea takes." (Tsireya - Avatar)

Since the beginning of creation, water has been the source of life and fruitfulness. We cannot live without water. Water is used for drinking, washing and watering the plants of the earth.

St John the Baptist spoke to his followers of Jesus, "I have baptised you with water; but he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit." (Mark 1:8)

At the baptism of Our Lord and after that, the Holy Spirit touches the element of water in baptism and produces in it a life-giving effect. Therefore through the Holy Spirit, baptism becomes a bath that purifies, justifies and sanctifies (CCC, 1227).

"I see you."

The water reef people in Avatar bond with large whale-like creatures known as Tulkuns. Tulkuns are deeply spiritual, intelligent and emotional. They bond and form a spiritual connection by saying to each other in their own way, "I see you". However, long ago, these creatures were violent and would fight to defend their territory, after which they made a pact to never kill their own kind again.

After Adam and Eve sinned for the first time, the sign that something has been twisted in them was, "Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons." (Genesis 3:7)

In other words, Adam and Eve no longer saw each other as a person created in God's image and likeliness with body and soul united. Instead, they saw each other at the surface level with their bodies.

Baptism not only cleans us from this twisted trace of original sin at our baptism but also, importantly, allows us to discover the freedom of a child of God.

"The Church and the parents would deny a child the priceless grace of becoming a child of God were they not to confer Baptism shortly after birth" (CCC, 1250)

Baptism does not make it all disappear. If it did, we would have no more evil in the world. Instead, it gives us the grace to begin again and later on, with the sacrament of confession, continue to be cleansed and start afresh every time we no longer see each other as God created us.

Finally, our baptism brings us closer to bonding with the spiritual, which means we, too, have an advanced creature by our side, like the water people of the Avatar. That is our guardian angel who never leaves our side, protecting our souls and us from the evil one.

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