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**I would like to understand how the Catholic Mass is both a sacrifice and sacrament.**

                             The Sacraments

The Sacrament of Baptism

Please fill out a form from the 'Application Forms' page. We ask that it is filled out and handed in to the Office at least one week before the Sacrament is celebrated so we are able fill out the Certificate and give this to you at the Baptism. 

When a person wants to be baptised in a town or city they do not currently live in, they need to contact the Parish Priest of their own home Parish and ask for permission to have this baptism elsewhere (Can. 857.2). Some think it strange that they should have to ask for permission when they have never spoken to the Priest before but do not stop to think that it may be even stranger to want baptism from a Church they have nothing to do with and will continue to have nothing to do with after the baptism.

The initial part of the Sacrament is called the 'Welcoming Ceremony.' It is the people of God (the Parishioners) who welcome the person into the Church because the People of God are his Church. The Catholic Church recognises everybody that has been Baptised to be the Church. This is why we strongly recommend that each Baptism take place during the Sunday Mass when the people of God are then able to welcome the newly Baptised person into their community, into the body of Christ. We are all united by the gift of His Spirit given to us at Baptism, allowing God to see himself in each of us and recognise us as His children. This is how we are given the 'Spirit of adoption.'

When people ask for a Private Baptism they are asking to remain apart from the people of God, the parishioners. The Sacrament of Baptism joins people to the body of Christ who are the parishioners of the Parish. To ask for a Private Baptism suggests that gathering together each Sunday as the Body of Christ is not wanted. Receiving the Spirit of God ensures that we should feel welcomed into what really must be recognised as our home, the Church. How can people want Baptism and not want to be part of God’s People? They can when they do not know what they want nor know what Baptism truly is and not understand what it cost Jesus, so that we could be Baptised in his Name after He was Baptised in Blood.

Baptism is thought of as a ‘Gateway Sacrament,’ because once you have received this sacrament you are then able to receive all the other Sacraments. Some people though do not understand that once you have received this sacrament you should be considering, not just the other Sacraments of Initiation, but all the sacraments because, made in His Image, we are a Sacred People ("a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people..." Pt. 2: 9) who need to be kept Holy. 

People will often ask that we Baptise their child but by virtue of living unmarried with their partner they are saying that they do not want the Sacrament of Matrimony (meaning, mother making). Others ask for Baptism but do not regularly attend Sunday Mass and never receive the Sacrament Reconciliation, which is closely related to Baptism. This suggests that they want one Sacrament (Baptism) but not another (Eucharist). This is disheartening and plainly confusing, given that the Eucharist is "the Source and Summit of the Christian Life". It seems to say that after we have received Baptism we are not going to accept any personal responsibility for ownership. When we have received the very Spirit of God we are then to exercise this gift, given to us through the expense of Jesus’ Passion. This was so that we would come to understand the Love of the Father and with that come to be one with the Father (Jn. 17: 20-26).

The role of the Godparents, “with the parents [is] to present the child for baptism, and to help it to live a Christian life befitting the baptised and faithfully to fulfil the duties inherent in baptism” (Canon 872). The Father and the Mother of the child to be baptised cannot be a Godparent (Canon 874).