So yesterday, the staff was busy scrubbing the courtyard behind our house, and cleaning up the fish pond/fountain so the water is now clear and all the water plants were removed.
Here is Lolo sitting at the edge of the fountain, with the meeting room in the background.
It is so clean I worry the fish might die from new fishtank syndrome.
So why did Kuya decide suddenly to clean up the place?
Because the Baptist church that meets in the business meeting room was planning to use the pond for a baptism and of course Baptists immerse you when you are baptize.
Indeed, when Kuya designed the fountain he made it so you could enter the shallow end and go down stairs to where it is three feet deep. This was designed for Lolo to cool off, but we have used it for baptisms in the past.
I am the Catholic in our family, and we accept several versions of baptism: dipping, pouring and sprinkling.
The maid asked if the baptism would be valid, and I said sure, if the pastor said the words correctly, that even non Catholics or non Christians could baptize in an emergency. Indeed, our medical school taught us how to do it if a newborn wasn't breathing, because there were so many Catholic patients in our hospital.
I've only baptized patients a few times, because usually I was busy trying to keep the kid alive, but usually there would be a Catholic nurse to do it.
Once, in Africa, we had a premie in our nursery. Now, in Africa, 3 pound kids rarely live and sure enough, at day three the baby started having apenea: she would stop breathing but if we stimulated her or gave her a breath, she would restart breathing.
Alas, after about a half hour, we were bagging her but she just wouldn't breathe, and suddenly you could see that life had left her: she turned pale and limp. At this point, I figured we should try a miracle since regular medical intervention didn't work and said: Petonilla (the head nurse who was helping me) baptize her. And so she was baptized Mary.
Two seconds later she started moving and took a breath, and kept breathing, and had no further problems. Indeed, she even went home.
Alas, when our local priest found out what I had done, he told me off, for not only weren't the parents Christian or pro Christian, her father was the local witchdoctor.
Oh well.
Father thought I was a rigid pre Vatican II Catholic and told me that after Vatican II those old ideas of unbaptized children going to Limbo (an explanation but not a dogma) was no longer being taught. And he asked why I had done it, since he knew I was not overtly pious.
And I felt like Spock when I explained I did everything scientifically possible, and when that didn't work, I felt it was time to do something illogical that might work.
and it did work: a miracle? or just the shock of the cold water?
Doesn't matter. The kid lived.
In pre Vatican II days, often the priest would not baptize a kid if the parents had an irregular marriage or if the mom wasn't married. But nowadays, in the USA, few withhold the sacrament, because the culture is essentially Christian so the innocent child can be part of the church.
But in Africa, it might not be so: in tribal days, she might be forced into a marriage with a non believer who would not let her practice the faith. So in these situations baptism was withheld until puberty for boys or after marriage for girls.
That was 40 years ago so presumably things have changed, but the idea is that if you aren't going to raise the kid Catholic, it is better they remain unbaptized until they are old enough to decide for themself.
The numerous Catholic couples in second marriages or in some countries where people in polygamous marriages who want to convert is a problem that the local bishops face.
Breaking up the family can be a disaster to all including the kids. So before Vatican II the answer was to just go to church anyway but don't receive the sacraments.
That is the backstory why Pope Francis released his instructions that priest can bless couple in irregular unions so because they seeking God's help in these situations.
Sigh. Alas, the gay friendly clergy in the West started pushing this as a stealth way to legalize not just gay marriage but to look the other way and deny the reality of sin: and that means pretending there is nothing wrong with any sex outside of marriage, including the very problematic subgroup of homosexuals with a promiscuous lifestyle.
and this got not only the strict Trad Catholics up in arms, but caused a lot of ordinary Catholics who aren't especially homophobic to become cynical because too many of those clergy supporting blessing gay couples were known to be gay, or worse, know to hint they support the entire gender agenda that we see being promoted in the USA. (Hey, I lived in Altoona,and know how winking at sin works, but that's another story).
In Africa, the bishops quickly saw the Pope's letter wasn't about mercy for couples in an irregular marriage, but was just a stealth way to push the church to approve all homosexual sex;. This made the African bishops very angry, since the sexual abuse of children and sex tourism is alas becoming more common as society starts evolving from village life where people protect kids, to the modern life where the street kids, both boys and girls, are vulnerable to sexual predators of sex tourism. link2
Sigh.
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