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Recently I was contacted by a family. In that family, at least two of the people are children. One is a 15 year old young man and the other is a baby. And so as the adult became Catholic, the baby got baptized. And the 15 year old though, is going through OCIC, which is like OCIA, but instead of adults, it's children. The 15 year old was saying, hey, I want to get baptized. Why can't I just get baptized now? Why do I have to go through all these classes? Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and this is Ascension Presents. If you're asking for the sacrament, why can't they just do it now? Number one, why could the baby get baptized? We believe in infant baptism. The church has always believed in infant baptism from the very, very beginning. We know that baptism saves us, right? The letter of Peter, he says, baptism saves you. Now that we know in John's Gospel, John chapter 3, Jesus says, Unless you're born again of water and the spirit, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. So we know that baptism is necessary. Baptism saves us. Baptism is required. Someone will say, well, yeah, but you need faith in order to be baptized. That makes sense. You need faith in order to be saved. Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree. A baby can't have faith. You're right. But we see that there is a precedent for someone else's faith speaking on behalf of another person. For example, Mark chapter two, you have the four friends and the one paralyzed friend, right? They go to the house and there's too many people around the door. So they go up on the roof and they lowered their friend down. Jesus saw their faith and said to the man, your sins are forgiven. So we know the that someone's faith can speak for another. Your sins are forgiven because of their faith. Another example is the centurion, right? The centurion goes before Jesus and says, lord, please, my servant is ill at home. Just say the word and he'll be healed. That centurion's faith. And Jesus is amazed at his faith. So that centurion's faith was effective. It was efficacious, right? So we know that there is a scriptural precedent for a person's faith speaking on behalf of another who may not be able to speak for themselves. And that's the key. The reason why we believe in infant baptism is because a, we know it's necessary, right? John 3, one of the first, first or second letter of Peter, maybe second Peter, where he says, baptism saves you now, but also because we know that it's the faith of the parents that speaks on behalf of their child, since the child can't speak on their own behalf, they, they can't actually make a declaration of faith just like those four friends or just like that centurion, those mom and dads, their faith can speak on behalf of the child. Now, the expectation is this, the expectation is once the child can choose Jesus for themselves, they're going to choose Jesus for themselves. But in this moment of infant baptism, it's completely legitimate because of that. For Pete's sake, it goes back to the Old Testament. You know, you probably know this already. What would bring a man into the Old Covenant? Circumcision. There's no declaration of faith. You're just, you're brought into, you're received into the covenant through, through this ritual of circumcision. Women were just automatically part of the covenant. Males will be brought in through the ritual of circumcision. They weren't consulted. It was essentially, you could say, the faith, the action of the community, bringing them into the old covenant. And that's fulfilled now in baptism, in the new covenant. So question, why can't the 15 year old just get baptized like the baby did? And the answer is, because the 15 year old gets to make their own personal and public declaration of faith. Whereas the parents of the baby made the personal public declaration of faith on behalf of the baby because they had come to that place of declaration. The 15 year old still needs to go through some formation. The 15 year old still needs to go through that process of encountering Jesus, learning who Jesus is, learning about the church, learning what he's saying yes to, so that when he does get baptized, he's making a free act of his own will. We have people come here all of the time and they come to Ocia and they say something like, well, why can't I just receive these sacraments? All right, now, like, I'm ready. I've studied the Bible, I've read the catechism. Why can't I just do this now? Now, someone could say, because we're an institution and because we have a procedure. But there's a deeper aspect to this. And the deeper aspect is we want to make sure that you are fully prepared to be able to enter this covenant, to enter this new relationship, to live this new life as adequately as you can be. Could the local pastor say, you know what, 15 year old, I see that you're ready, let's just do this now? Yeah, probably could. But is it possible that the local pastor could look and say, you know what? Let's just take our time. There's no need to rush in this moment. Let's make sure that you don't just say you're prepared, but you are sufficiently prepared to take this step. Now. Does it have to happen on the Easter Vigil? No, there's no hard and fast rule that it must take place in that. But is it fitting? Absolutely, it's fitting. What I would say in the meantime is in whatever it is between now, for the 15 year old or whoever is in that position, whatever happens between now and that date, say Easter Vigil, to realize that God is going to use all of that time. They'd say, but I'm ready now. Maybe. But know this. If you allow him, if you let him, God will use all of this time for you to become even more ready. We've had people in our OCIA classes who were ready, but for whatever reason, we couldn't do it at the moment they wanted. And there's something that happens in the waiting that grows the heart. I think there's something that can happen if we let it. Something that can happen in the waiting that we realize, okay, because of this, I am now more prepared than I would have been. And I can receive more of God's grace than I would have been able to. So my invitation is, this invitation is for all of us, whether we're waiting for baptism or just wanting to grow, is let God do what he needs to do in the waiting. Maybe we could take that step right now. But if we're prohibited from it, if we're. If we're slowed down, know that this waiting is not wasted. God's using it. In fact, God uses everything. Nothing given to God is ever wasted, not even waiting. Anyways, from all of us here to sense presents, My name is Father Mike. God bless. At some point. I'm so excited, aren't I?