I have two granddaughters. Both had been baptized shortly after birth. The Confirmation (a sacrament of the Church) of the elder one was last month and the First Communion of the younger girl last Sunday. It was while attending these functions that the question came to my mind – when does a person really become a Christian?
At the outset I must explain that I am a Syro-Malabar (the second largest Rite in the Catholic Church) Christian from Kerala and this writing could be influenced by the practices and teachings of that denomination. There are, however, similarities among the major organized Churches in the matter of accepting members into the fold.
In several non-Christian communities, birth decides the religion of a child. It is assumed that the baby belongs to the religion of its parents. In Christianity, only when a child receives baptism it is accepted into the community as a Christian. In the modern Church this function is held when the baby is a month old or so. Of course, at that point of time the infant is unable to realize the significance of the function.
But the godparents who would be present and undertake the responsibility of being the child’s spiritual guardians answer, on behalf of the baby, the questions the priest asks at the baptism. These include queries like ‘Do you renounce Satan?’ The answer by the godparents is of course, ‘Yes’ irrespective of whether they understand the theological aspects or not. Once the baptism ceremony is over, the infant is brought up as a Christian.
The next major step in the spiritual ladder of a Christian is receiving the Eucharist or the Holy Communion. This is a sacrament where consecrated bread is consumed in commemoration of the Last Supper. This has to done with purity of body and mind. The Church teaches that confession absolves one of the sins committed and thereby cleanses the mind.
Normally a child is given the Holy Communion for the first time when he about seven to ten years old. The Church considers that to be the age of reason or moral responsibility. Whether the child understands its implications or not he has to confess to a priest before receiving Communion. And once the Eucharist is received, the boy or girl concerned is bound to obey all the rules of the Church.
But it would appear that even after receiving the Eucharist the person is still not a full-fledged Christian. There is one more Sacrament, ‘Confirmation’, before one becomes ‘a true soldier of Christ’. At this ceremony, according to the teaching of the Church, the Holy Spirit bestows on the recipient several gifts that would help him to lead a true Christian life. This Sacrament is given when a person is around 15 years of age by either the Bishop or a senior priest authorized by him. Surprisingly, Confirmation does not seem to be taken very seriously these days.
In the original
In the Malabar Church Baptism, Eucharist and Confirmation were held when the recipient was well past puberty, say, at the age of 16 or 17. Usually the person’s wedding too followed shortly thereafter. Here the obvious difference was that in this system one accepted Christianity as an adult. It was with the Portuguese intrusion that infant baptism was introduced in the
Child baptism was permitted by the Universal Church only from the 6c CE. What is interesting here is that when the Church policy changed in other parts of the world, the
Nevertheless, it had a sound theological basis. Unlike the Churches elsewhere, from the early days the
Here the question arises why did then
It is possible that later on local gentiles were also taken into the fold. This could explain the claims that the Apostle converted some Brahmin families. It is doubtful whether 2000 years back there was a sizable Brahmin presence in Kerala. But there could have been an elite set of local people sufficiently educated and knowledgeable to engage
The label ‘Nazrani’ also indicates the antiquity of the
The Western missionaries who reached Kerala with the Portuguese and subsequently too, unfortunately, did not understand the ethos of the