Baptism of the Lord - B

My brothers and sisters,
As we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord, let us remember also our baptism. I believe that most of you were baptized when you were still a child. So you become catholic because you follow your parents. Now I can ask you: are you followers of your parents or are you followers of Jesus Christ? I was baptized when I was 19 years old. I chose my own name: Aloysius. So I can tell you proudly that I chose to follow Jesus and leaving my parents’ traditional religion. Then after a couple of years my sister first followed me, then my brother and his family, and finally also my father decided to be catholic, but I told them not to follow me, because I am not the savior, but follow Jesus. That’s why I had never asked my father to be catholic, because I don’t want him to follow me. About five years before my father passed away he was baptized, not by me and not because of me. At that time I was in Madagascar for four years. I even didn’t know when he decided to be catholic.
Now we see what happens when a parent come to ask a priest or a deacon to baptize a child. First of all, don’t think that as if we follow the tradition only. It is not because of our tradition. It is because of our faith. By asking the baptism for our children, we want to share our faith: that through this way, through this faith, we will come to salvation. We love our children and we do hope that they also can come to salvation promised by Jesus. So it is because of our faith in Jesus we baptize our children … and also it is because the faith of your parents in Jesus Christ that you were baptized.
In a child who is baptized, the faith is still like a seed that will grow well if we keep giving the seed good fertilizer during his or her life. The fertilizer that will give growth for the child’s faith is: good example, good affection, such as love, caring …etc. When the child comes to his or her age of independence, he or she will be able to say: yes to the way given by parents. They will find their personal faith. They will confirm their parents’ choice as their own choice. This should happen when they receive the sacrament of confirmation: to confirm the choice to follow Jesus. So they are not followers of their parents anymore.
In Indonesia, I heard from some other Churches about baptism, they don’t baptize children. In their opinion, if we baptize our child, we force our child to follow our religion. It will destroy their human right, the right to choose their own religion. So, according to them, let the children choose for themselves when they grow older. Do you agree with this? You, Americans, appreciate human freedom, do you?
I can answer this opinion like this: first, as parents of the children, they themselves are not sure with their faith. If we baptize our children, we want to give them the best that we have, because we love our children, don’t we? So we believe that our faith, our church, is the best way for their salvation too. Secondly, if we follow their idea, so we cannot give food to the child. If, like we do in my country, if we give the child rice from the beginning, so the child is not free anymore, he will look for rice all his life. But we cannot say: don’t give the children rice; let them grow until they can choose for themselves whether they want to eat rice or taco or bread.
Once again we give our children the best that we have. My parents were sure that by feeding with rice it would be good for me and they are right. I’m not disappointed, even tough now when I eat tacos as my lunch, four or five tacos, I feel that I have not yet eaten, I am still hungry! So do you believe that your faith and your catholic church are the best for your salvation and you want to share this to your children whom you love so much?
But we have to realize also that baptism is not automatically a guarantee to salvation. Baptism is a new born as children of God. When we are baptized we are washed clean and we received God’s spirit. We become God’s beloved like Jesus. We become brothers and sisters of Jesus. But this status should be proved all the long of our life: that we truly live as children of God. You know, as children of God, we are heir and heiress of heaven. But if our life is not in accord with God’s will, he will erase our name from the list of his heir. The same thing can happen in your life. You can skip one of your sons as your heir if his life is very bad and you see that he is not worthy to have a part of your heritage.
But of course God is different from us human being. God is full of mercy and love. In the second reading St. Paul says that we might be justified by God’s grace and become heirs in hope of eternal life. One thing we should not forget that like the prodigal son, we should/can always come back to the Father in repentance, every times our way get too far from Him. May we always be the beloved son and daughter of God. Amen.