8 DAYS, A WEEK

I know it's been 8 days since my last post, and I apologize. It's been a busy week.

Tuesday Linda and I held a baptism seminar for 5 couples who are looking to have their children baptised in the near future. There were also some godparents and family present, bringing the total to 15, one of the largest groups we've had in awhile.

We usually begin our seminars by asking the parents/godparents just why they want the child(ren) baptised, what it is they expect to get out of the sacrament. The responsed are generally varied, but almost always we get, "I was raised Catholic, and I want my children to be raised Catholic, too" or "I want my child to have a good, moral foundation as they grow" or "I want my child to be freed from Original Sin" or variations on those responses.

Tuesday the first TWO couples' response was, "If it was up to me I wouldn't have my child baptised. I'm just doing this to get my parents off my back. THEY want the child baptised."
Wow, was I taken back by that, as it was most unexpected. When I polled the group, out of 15 people only one person said she attended church "occasionally" and another went at Christmas. The rest just didn't go.

Where do you go from here? Canon law clearly states that a child shouldn't be baptised unless there is reasonable expectation that he/she will be brought up in the faith. Here we had a table full of people who didn't present, even remotely, any expectation to that effect.

The whole episode was disconcerting, even discouraging.

Friday H1/DIL1 arrived from Houston. As promised we made pizza for the whole family. It was a lot of fun and good times were had, I think, by all.

Saturday was "the world's greatest yard sale" in Algiers Point. KenEllie and her mom and dad got off to an early start. Linda and I met with our marriage prep couple for the last time before the wedding, then Linda joined up with DLG, DIL1 and KenEllie and mom/dad to check out the yard sales.

Saturday night we all went over to MD/DLG's for a crawfish boil. Since I had to preach this weekend, and H2/H2GF had to work, the crawfish boil began around 7-ish. It was awesome. MD did a super job of "burlin' the mudbugs". A little excitement was added to the event when the first pot of crawfish was accidently knocked over just as they were being taken out to be dumped on the table. Fortunately MD had a new shovel and the crawfish and veggies were quickly scooped up, cleaned up and finally consumed.

We rounded out the weekend by having a meatloaf, mashed potato and corn on the cob dinner for H1/DIL1 (mostly for DIL1... the pizza and crawfish had been at H1's request). Then it was time to say goodby once again, and wish them a safe journey home.

That's it for the week. Take care. God Bless!!