Baptism

On Sunday we had Wyatt Blue baptized. His Godparents, Uncle Kevin (AKA funny Anonymous commenter) and Aunt Felicia and his Grandparents (my parents) MaMa and Pa came down from Pennsylvania to Florida to attend the service. There were many incidents during the mass and service that caused church giggles. A few were due to the differences in how our church services are in my Florida parish compared to Pennsylvania parishes my parents and siblings attend.

One difference is in the way the Lord’s Prayer is done. In PA the congregations stands and recites the prayer. In Florida, the congregation stands and holds hands and recites the prayer. Felicia who was seated in the middle of the pew ended up holding hands with some strange man sitting next to her on her right. On her left was Kevin who broke the chain and did not hold hands with Felicia. Everybody in the church is holding hands except for Kevin, Me, Lauren, MaMa and Pa. My mom got a kick out of this and was snickering. After the communion, Kevin and I did not go back to the pew but instead to the back of the church. As I approached Kevin in the back he said to me, “I wanted to give Felicia some more time with her new boyfriend.” Making reference to guy she was holding hands with in church.

During the baptism ceremony, after the priest was done pouring holy water over the babies being baptized, he would hoist the baby over his head and present the infant to the entire congregation. I have never seen this done before except by Rafiki when he held up Simba in the Lion King. I really liked this part of the service but I could not help humming the Circle of Life. When it came time for Wyatt to be presented, I noticed that the priest was not holding any of the babyies' heads when he lifted the children. Since Wyatt is only a month old, I whispered to Lauren to make sure she supported his head because he is still so young and could get hurt. When the priest lifted Wyatt, Lauren put her hand up and held Wyatt’s head. It looked pretty funny. Almost like Lauren was trying to give Wyatt "rabbit ears" for the photos.

In an effort to keep Maxfield occupied during the services we gave him candy and some coins for him to count and play with. After the service while we were taking pictures Maxfield proceeded to throw his coins into the Holy Water Fountain just like he would do at the mall. The fountain in my church is pretty nice and is just that, a fountain with running Holy Water. The water comes up from a basin in the floor and fills a bowl at the top and then cascades down one side of the stone base. Sure enough, as we were taking pictures Maxfield put his mouth against the fountain and started drinking Holy water.

All in all it was fun day and we enjoyed spending time with the family.

When I told LawnWhisperer about Max drinking the holy water he said to me, “Do know what that means? If he drank holy water that means he is going to piss holy water. You should save his diapers and bless yourself with them.”



Max getting Holy.

MaMa holding Wyatt on the phone with LawnWhisperer

Anonymous Godparent's with Wyatt Blue

Lauren and Wyatt