Recently, I was contacted by a family. In that family, at least two of the people are children.

One is a 15-year-old young man, and the other is a baby. And so as the adult became Catholic, the baby got baptized. And the 15-year-old, though, is going through O-C-I-C, which is like OCIIA, but instead of adults, it's children. The 15-year-old was saying, hey, I want to get baptized. why can't I just get baptized now?

Why do I have to go through all these classes?

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz,

and this is Essential Presents. The 15-year-old was saying, hey, I want to get baptized. Why can't I just get baptized now?

Why do I have to go through all these classes? Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and this is Ascentia Presents. If you're asking for the sacrament, why can't they just do it now? Number one, why could the baby get baptized? We believe in infant baptism. The church has always believed in infant baptism, always from the very, very beginning. We know that baptism saves us, right?

In the letter of Peter, he says baptism saves you now, that we know in John's gospel, John chapter 3. Jesus says, unless you're born again of water and the spirit, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. So we know that baptism is necessary. Baptism saves us. Baptism is required. Someone will say, well, yeah, but you need faith in order to be

baptized. That makes sense? You need faith in order to be saved. Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree. A baby can't

have faith. You're right. But we see that there is a precedent for someone else's faith

speaking on behalf of another person. For example, Mark chapter 2, you have the four friends and the one paralyzed friend, right? They go to the house and there's too many people around the door, so they go up on the roof and they lowered their friend down and Jesus saw their faith and said to the man, your sins are forgiven. So we know that someone's faith can speak for another. Your sins are forgiven because of their faith. Another example is the centurion, right? The centurion

goes before Jesus and says, Lord, please, my servant is ill at home. Just say the word and he'll be healed.

That centurion's faith. And Jesus is amazed at his faith. So that centurion's faith was effective.

It was efficacious, right? So we know that there is a scriptural precedent for a person's faith speaking on behalf of another

who may not be able to speak for themselves and that's the key.

The reason why we believe in infant baptism is because, A, we know it's necessary, right?

John 3, one of the first or second letter of Peter, maybe second Peter, where he says,

baptism saves you now.

But also because we know that it's the faith of the parents

that speaks on behalf of their child. Since the child can't speak on their own behalf, they

can't actually make a declaration of faith, just like those four friends or just like that

centurion, those mom and dads, their faith can speak on behalf of the child. Now, the

expectation is this. The expectation is once the child can choose Jesus for themselves, they're going

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