“St. Mark the Evangelist,” the canter rings out while children and their
parents file to the back of the large, suburban parish.
“Pray
for us,” the congregation echoes back, as we prepare to welcome a new
member. A dark-haired, sleeping
baby girl is about to be awoken with the waters of baptism. I recognize her parents as fellow
parishioners, though I have never met them.
After
the baptism has taken place, the priest carries the newly baptized, now dressed
in white, to the front of the church; as he walks, he says this is the first of
four times she will come down this aisle in white: the first at baptism, again
at first communion, later for marriage, and, at the end, for her funeral.
This aisle, he says. Not an
aisle, at a church, but this aisle, at this church—the aisle I was about to walk down for the first time,
as a bride, after reluctantly becoming a parishioner where my parents had
joined after I left for college.
Sofia's baptism |
Read the rest here.
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