Today at work some coworkers were joking around about Catholic baptism. One lady made some innocent jokes regarding baptism by pouring or sprinkling which is done at many Catholic churches throughout the world. From her background, she is used to baptized by submersion. I took this opportunity to clarify the background regarding the different ways that are acceptable to baptize using excerpts from the Didache. The Didache is an ancient Christian document dating from the first century that describes many of the practices of the early Church.
Before I did this she mentioned that she was baptized in a pond and jokingly I told her that it was not valid since it was not done in running(living) water such as in a river. (I told her I was kidding (which I was)but I did say it to make a point.)
Then I proceeded to show her portions of the Didache that describe the various ways to perform water baptism and why they are legitimate. Here is the passage.
After the foregoing instructions, baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living [running] water. If you have no living water, then baptize in other water, and if you are not able in cold, then in warm. If you have neither, pour water three times on the head, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
What is amazing is she questioned where I got this information and then proclaimed in amazement something to the effect—”This is where you Catholics got this from”.
The point of this is that I took this opportunity to explain the practice of the Church and showed how this practice has been done since the beginning of the Church. She probably won’t become Catholic but I did educate her on why we do this practice as Catholics. We didn’t get a chance to explain infant baptism….maybe next time!
This was a friendly conversation as most of my coworkers like to occasionally rib me about my Catholicism but are good natured about it and they do know that I am fairly well versed in defending it. This to me was casual apologetics. Nothing deep and short and simple.
