What is baptism and the christening ceremony about in Irish Catholic church?

n1st

What the ceremony about in the Irish Catholic church?
and what is the christening gown all about? is it just an Irish thing?

http://www.religionfacts.com/christianity/practices/baptism

hinault

n1st wrote: »

What the ceremony about in the Irish Catholic church?
and what is the christening gown all about? is it just an Irish thing?

http://www.religionfacts.com/christianity/practices/baptism

Christening gown is normally put on the baby for baptism. The gown is white in colour.

In our family the christening gown dates back three generations.
I don't know if this purely an Irish custom for Catholic families.

brian_t

hinault wrote: »

In our family the christening gown dates back three generations.
I don't know if this purely an Irish custom for Catholic families.

It's not purely an Irish custom.

Huntergonzo

Baptism should be reserved for adults only, it should be consensual, I think it's wrong to sign children up as 'catholic' when they have absolutely no say in the matter.

Manach

As Hinault commented, it is a custom that embraces and extents the Church's sacrament on such so as to welcome the child into the wider immediate family and the Christian community in general.

Peregrinus

n1st wrote: »

What the ceremony about in the Irish Catholic church?
and what is the christening gown all about? is it just an Irish thing?

No, it's not just an Irish thing. Wearing a white garment for baptism is a very ancient Christian custom, going back to at least the fourth century. The notion of a special white garment worn only for baptism is also very old. The notion is common to both Eastern and Western Christianity, which means that it predates the Great Schism. The notion of a baptismal robe being handed on the family, and used by generation after generation, is probably also pretty old, but I don't have any hard information about that. It's certainly not uniquely Irish.

I note huntergonzo's point, and of course there are Christian traditions which are of that view, and which practice "believers' baptism", meaning they won't baptise you until you are of sufficient maturity to make the commitments involved. But the OP asks about the Catholic tradition, in which baptism effects admission into the community. In that perspective, children are as much a part of the community as adults, and deferring becoming a Christian until adulthood makes no more sense than deferring becoming, say, Irish until adulthood.

n1st

Thanks all, especially for the picture