Cynics Unlimited

On August 26 2007 my three-month-old daughter Gabriella Michelle was baptized into the Lutheran Church. It was quite an event: my brother, who served as one of the godparents, noted that Gabriella screamed extra loudly when the priest asked whether she would renounce Satan – to which I responded that she was such a little devil herself that she couldn’t possibly renounce one of her own. More seriously, though, the ceremony started me thinking about the subject of infant baptism.

Infant baptism is a contentious issue in the Christian community as a whole. Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and traditional Protestants (Anglicans, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists and so on) practise it. An acquaintance of mine from a fundamentalist background who was raised in a predominantly Catholic country - France - was teased by her classmates that she would not go to heaven because she had not been baptized (the current Pope seems to have retracted this position). Other denominations, like most fundamentalists – Baptists, Pentecostals, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, etcetera - and Mennonites, only baptize adults and in certain cases children above the “age of reason” (around seven). Some of them hold dedication ceremonies for newborns in which the child is “dedicated” to the Lord. They frequently require converts who were christened as babies to be re-baptized. However, even some members of the former group of churches have questioned the validity of infant baptism. For example, a Lutheran former colleague told me he did not consider it Scriptural.

According to Lutherans, other traditional Protestants, Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, baptism welcomes a baby into the family of God and into the earthly community of the church. It also creates faiths in the infant’s heart. On the other hand, denominations that restrict baptism to adults or older children state that baptism requires a profession of faith by the individual him- or herself. As a baby is incapable of making such a profession, infant baptism is thus invalid. A “believer’s baptism” is the only valid one. They furthermore claim that christening infants gives them a “false sense of security” because it leads them to believe that baptism alone will open the door to heaven for them.

Meanwhile both sides of the divide cite the Scriptures in support of their respective positions. Opponents of infant christening point out that Jesus himself was baptized as an adult. Infant baptism is not mentioned anywhere in the Bible, they add, so that means there is no Scriptural basis for the practice. They provide examples of people like the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8: 26-39) who were baptized after they understood that Jesus was the Messiah, a concept a baby or young child can obviously not be expected to grasp.

At the other end of the spectrum, infant-christening churches look to Jesus’ exhortation to his Apostles to “teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Matthew 28:19). “All” means exactly what it says, according to this logic, and Jesus did not place any restrictions on the age of people to be baptized. In addition, when Christianity was first spreading, very often entire households, like that of the saleswoman and convert Lydia (Acts 16:15), were baptized. Given that contraception at the time was very inefficient and, anyway, large families were prized (Psalm 127, for instance, reads “children are an heritage of the Lord… Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them”), in all probability those households included babies. A quote from St. Peter further alludes to the place of infant baptism in the early church. In Acts 2: 38, 29 he tells his followers, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ… For the promise is unto you, and to your children;” again, no mention of the ages of the children in question.

Admittedly, certain arguments in favour of infant baptism do not strike me as particularly convincing. For instance, some people claim that baptism was instituted as a replacement for circumcision, which was performed on newborn boys. The major problem with this explanation is that it would not apply (thankfully) to girls. Moreover, Jesus himself and presumably all the male members of the early Jewish Christian community had been circumcised as babies, but they did not forego baptism. Others use Jesus’ words “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God” as a justification for infant baptism. This passage, though, does not refer to Jesus baptizing children but laying his hands on them. Scripture aside, I understand the reasoning why churches that do not christen infants and even some parents in denominations that do feel that the children should decide for themselves whether or not they want to be baptized. Nonetheless, my reading of the Bible leads me to the conclusion that infant baptism is at best advocated and at worst merely permitted by Scripture, not forbidden or deemed inappropriate.

It should be fairly obvious from the first sentence of this essay that I personally believe in infant baptism. However, in my opinion it is important to examine the opposing viewpoint as well. I have chosen to raise my daughter in the Lutheran Church to give her a foundation on which to live her life. I hope she continues in the faith as an adult (I have even set aside her christening gown so that she can use it for her own future children), although I know there are no guarantees she will do so. But baptism seems like a good place to start.

It seems that as soon as we swallow the last mouthful of turkey for Thanksgiving at the end of November, we rush to prepare for Christmas or, if we are Jewish, Hanukkah. Between these two events, though, is a holiday about which most North Americans know little but which is widely celebrated in other countries: St. Lucy’s Day.

St. Lucy’s Day falls on December 13. This is the alleged date of death of the original St. Lucy, a Christian martyr who lived in Syracuse , Sicily in Roman times. According to legend, as a young woman she took a vow of virginity to Christ, which did not please her pagan suitor. After trying unsuccessfully to make her marry him, he stabbed her to death in frustration. Another legend has it that once upon receiving a comment from a man about her beautiful eyes, she gouged them out in order to discourage other potential beaus. Her eyes were miraculously restored to her, however. Lucy therefore became the patron saint of the blind. She is often pictured holding a plate with her eyes in it. Her association with vision, or lack of it, may stem from her name, which comes from the Latin word “lux” or “luc-” for light (as in the terms “translucent” and “lucid”).

St. Lucy gave her name to a song (the Neapolitan “Santa Lucia”), a school for the visually impaired in Philadelphia , and even a nation, Saint Lucia , a Caribbean island allegedly first sighted by Europeans on December 13, 1502. But her best-known legacy is the holiday observed on the date of her death. In Sicily - Lucy’s birthplace - this day is celebrated by the preparation of a cooked wheat dish called cuccia, sometimes eaten with fried cheese or eggs. There and in other parts of Italy , torchlight processions – again we see her name associated with light – take place on December 13. Switzerland also holds St. Lucy celebrations whereby a girl dressed as the saint goes around the neighbourhood handing out gifts. On the other hand, in Hungary the holiday has a somewhat Halloweenish quality, with children going door to door asking for treats or playing pranks. In next-door Slovakia , people dress in white and paint their faces in flour, going from house to house offering to sweep their neighbours’ floors.

While St. Lucy’s Day is observed throughout Europe, it reaches its zenith in Scandinavia, especially Sweden . Known as Luciadagen (Lucy’s Day) there, it is celebrated as a festival of lights, at a time of year when light is particularly scarce at such northern latitudes. According to Swedish tradition, one girl in the family, generally the eldest daughter, dresses up as a “Lucy” in a white gown, red sash and metal crown with lighted candles. She rises early on the morning of December 13 to bring her family special treats called “Lussekatter” (literally, Lucy’s cats), saffron buns in the shape of cats. Some scholars believe that Luciadagen absorbed earlier celebrations in honour of the Norse goddess Freya, who is frequently portrayed sitting in a cart drawn by cats – hence the Lussekatter on this day.

St. Lucy’s Day in Sweden goes beyond the home, however. In some towns a girl dressed as the saint is chosen to bring Lussekatter not only to her family but to everyone in that particular village. In larger cities young Lucies do the same for hospital patients, nursing home residents and other people not fortunate enough to enjoy the event outside. Stockholm even hosts a beauty pageant of sorts in which a “Lucy” is elected by a jury (my father, who is Sicilian, once remarked that the blondes who participate in this contest probably look very unlike the original St. Lucy).

The holiday is also celebrated in many parts of Latin America , thanks to the Spanish Catholic influence. In Puerto Rico it is observed as the Day for the Blind. Most North Americans, on the other hand, do not know much if anything about St. Lucy’s Day. Nonetheless, some Swedish-American communities do take note of it. A recent article in fact told of an Ikea branch in Los Gatos , California that held a festival of lights on December 13 for local Swedish residents and their families. The holiday receives notice as well in New York ’s Little Italy as the feast of Santa Lucia.

Being of partial Scandinavian descent myself, this year I have decided to pay tribute to St. Lucy’s Day by making some Lussekatter. But whether you are Scandinavian or not, you might look at this recipe for Lussekatter at www.kensmen.com/catholic/ and prepare some for yourself and your family. So enjoy the Lussekatter and St. Lucy’s Day – but remember the woman who started it all!