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eat, pray, light, bless: celebrate a baptism anniversary

6 Comments

Our sweet Joseph just celebrated his first baptism anniversary. One trip around the sun, one whole year a Christian.

It’s a big milestone in our family. I’ve written about Thomas’ and Sam’s baptism anniversaries, too.

But I always find that these days sneak under the radar, despite circling the dates on the calendar and trying to plan a something-special to celebrate their big days.

So here’s my simple solution: four easy ways to celebrate a baptism anniversary with children. Grab one or grab ’em all.

(In descending order of time/preparation/oops-I-completely-forgot-ness. Because baptism’s got no room for shame.)

1. Eat a special meal or delicious dessert.

baptism anniversaryFEAST. The Christian answer to every celebration. Make the child the center of the day. Make a fuss. Let him pick the dinner he wants (even if everyone’s stuck eating chicken fingers) or surprise him with cake and ice cream for dessert.

Pull out the photo album after dinner, and re-tell the story of his baptism: why you chose the godparents, what friends and relatives came to celebrate with you, what happened when the sleeping baby encountered that surprising splash of water and everyone smiled.

(Maybe even the story of how he himself “christened” the gathering space of the church when his parents tried to redress him after baptism by immersion. Not that this happened to anyone I know.)

If there were ever a reason to pull out the fancy dishes and nice candles and a real tablecloth, the anniversary of being claimed as God’s own and cleansed from original sin and welcomed into the worldwide church has got to be a pretty decent one.

Worth washing china by hand after bedtime.

2. Pray a blessing for a baptism anniversary.

I discovered this prayer on Sam’s 1st baptism anniversary, and each year we (try to remember to) pray it with each of our kids on their special day. It’s lovely to watch how the whole moment changes when you focus on one child during prayer and lay your hands on them to bless them.

Remember this, Name.
You have been washed
In the saving waters of baptism
And anointed with holy oil.
Place on your head and in your heart
The sign of the cross of salvation.

Trace the sign of the cross on the child’s head and heart.

Loving God,
You created all the people of the world,
And you know each of us by name.
We thank you for N.,
Who celebrates the anniversary of her baptism.
Bless her with your love and friendship
That she may grow in wisdom, knowledge, and grace.
May she love her family always
And be ever faithful to her friends.
Grant this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Place your hands on the child’s head or shoulders.

May God, in whose presence our ancestors walked, bless you.
Amen.
May God, who has been your shepherd from birth until now, keep you.
Amen.
May God, who saves you from all harm, give you peace.
Amen.

3. Light a baptismal candle.

If you received a candle at your child’s baptism, dig it out from the back of the drawer. Or simply set a white candle at the dinner table to remember Christ’s light. Talk about the symbols of the sacrament – the candle, the water, the oil, the white garment – to bring their baptism day to life before their eyes.

Lighting a candle sets a sacred mood and reminds the whole family that home can be as holy as church.

(And even mac and cheese looks fancy by candlelight.)

4. Trace a tiny cross on your child’s forehead.

If all else fails (which it hasn’t because: baptism!) – or if the end of the day arrives and you suddenly remember that you forgot – fear not.

The simplest blessings can be the best.

Every night I trace a cross on each child’s forehead. I tell him that he is blessed by Jesus, that God loves him and knows him and calls him by name. (I wrote more about our ritual of tracing tiny crosses here.)

Baptism reminds us that we are blessed and beloved simply because we are created by God and called by name. So even if you celebrate a baptism anniversary simply by blessing your child before bed, it is more than enough.

It is…(wait for it)…an everyday sacrament.

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Comments

  1. Abbey @ Surviving Our Blessings says

    23 July 2015 at 6:17 am

    I love that prayer…definitely planning to borrow it for our next baptism celebration. Thanks for sharing how you do this in your family!

    Reply
  2. heather says

    29 July 2015 at 7:25 pm

    These are such sweet and lovely ideas! My littlest was baptized on Pentecost and the rest of us were Easter Vigil a few years before, so we are lucky I think with easy to remember baptismal anniversaries 😀 Hope your little one had a wonderful day!

    Reply
  3. Jennifer says

    8 March 2017 at 7:48 am

    Thank you for posting this Laura. As many other experience, my daughter’s anniversary is Today, thank God for calendar reminders. My husband and I love all four suggestions. I plan on incorporating #4 every night at our prayer time as well.

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Baptismal Traditions (And Giveaway from CheruBalm!) says:
    27 October 2016 at 12:30 pm

    […] Observe the anniversary of the child’s baptism with these beautiful prayers. […]

    Reply
  2. Peanut Butter & Grace : Catholic family life, sweet & simple says:
    9 January 2019 at 9:35 pm

    […] prayer service for a baptism anniversary, and Laura Kelly Fanucci at Mothering Spirit has written a beautiful blessing for the anniversary of a baptism. Otherwise, simply use holy water to bless your child’s forehead with the sign of the cross, […]

    Reply
  3. Celebrate your kids' baptism anniversaries - Teaching Catholic Kids says:
    23 July 2019 at 2:05 pm

    […] prayer service for a baptism anniversary, and Laura Kelly Fanucci at Mothering Spirit has written a beautiful blessing for the anniversary of a baptism. Otherwise, simply use holy water to bless your child’s forehead with the sign of the cross, […]

    Reply

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About Laura

I’m Laura Kelly Fanucci. Mother, writer, wonderer. This space is where I explore mothering through writing. It’s where I celebrate how God shows up in the chaos of raising children. It’s where I love to build community with readers like you. Read More…

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Watch me try not to laugh while my kids are scream Watch me try not to laugh while my kids are screaming upstairs at my spouse while I muse on motherhood & creativity 😝

Check out @grottonetwork for thoughtful reflections on relationships, work, faith, and life’s big questions. And let yourself thank someone this week for the creative work of nurturing new life in you!
Pilgrimage update! I shared in my last newsletter Pilgrimage update! I shared in my last newsletter that we were able to add Chartres & Mont-St-Michel to our itinerary, plus an extra day in Paris. Three of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been, so I can’t wait to pray there with you on pilgrimage in October. Check out my bio for details.

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For years these words hung on the wall of my offic For years these words hung on the wall of my office. A reminder to behold the beauty in the ordinary.

I took them down after grief tore apart my world. Normal days, what a joke.

But years later I pulled the words out again. Turned out they were true, of course.

I had always caught my breath at the line about war, barely able to imagine longing for boring days from bloody battlefields.

Today I keep the wise words before my eyes again, as a way to keep praying for Ukraine.

For all the places where war or violence make for (ab)normal days.

May the common rock of any ordinary day we’re given remind us to remember all whose earth is upheaved right now.
The sun came out for the first time in days (weeks The sun came out for the first time in days (weeks? gloomy where you are, too?).

So I followed every ladybug in the bedroom to the window, closed my eyes and sunned my face. I could have curled up like a cat for hours. But the sun slipped back, retreating behind the grey wall as quickly as it came.

May today hold a gentle reminder to turn wherever you find the light, to let it warm and delight you. The spiritual practice of sunning ourselves (for a whole holy second!) is not trite or toxic: we are creatures who crave what is good and this is not wrong.

If you linger there for a moment, to remember God and grace and any good gift that has been poured out upon you, unasked or undeserved, you can return for a flash to the Source of your Being.

All the Psalms about the sun sing the same. We were made for the Great Light.
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Would it be joy? To hold happiness again, to have tears turned into dancing?

Would it be gain? To find what was lost? To have arms full again around the ones I love?

Would it be peace? To breathe into the space of calm? To soak up healing as balm?

This morning I rose and realized: the opposite of grief is Easter.

Joy, gain, peace, hope, love, healing—all of it rolled into one and heaps more besides.

You know that awful feeling in grief’s first weeks, after someone you love has died, when you rise and remember yourself back into reality, and the grief-pain of loss washes over you again? The terrible turning moments that torpedo the day.

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The flip side of every grief and loss.

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What joy & delight & hope & astonishment must have washed across their faces in their first few moments after waking, as they remembered themselves back into a world made new.

This is what every single one of us has yearned for, in the impossible imagination after loss. What if I could wake up and they would be back here again?

Exactly what all who loved him found when they woke up on Monday morning.

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To see others in pain while you are in pain— To To see others in pain
while you are in pain—
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while others are grieving for you—
To lift up the least
while you are the greatest—
To speak to the suffering of women
while your own body is suffering—
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He stops for them and for us. He tells us not to weep for him but to weep for this world, not to despair of the present but to steel ourselves for the future, not to lament unless we are willing to change.

What is he calling me to grieve? How is he calling me to change?

What might he see in us—our lives, our sorrows, our griefs, even our bodies—that we have not let ourselves lament?
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