July 31st...
Talya Faith Kwee, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
May God, who has received you by baptism into his Church, pour upon you the riches of his grace, that within the company of Christ's pilgrim people you may daily be renewed by his anointing Spirit, and come to the inheritance of the saints in glory.
We have brought Talya Faith to baptism knowing that Jesus died and rose again for her and trusting in the promise that God hears and answers prayer. We have prayed that in Jesus Christ she will know the forgiveness of her sins and the new life of the Spirit.
As she grows up, she will need the help and encouragement of the Christian community, so that she may learn to know God in public worship and private prayer, follow Jesus Christ in the life of faith, serve her neighbor after the example of Christ, and in due course come to confirmation.
As part of the Church of Christ, we all have a duty to support her by prayer, example, and teaching. As their parents and godparents, you have the prime responsibility for guiding her and helping her in her early years. This is a demanding task for which you will need the help and grace of God... (taken from the liturgy of Holy Baptism)
Around her first birthday, we started noticing that Talya stared longingly and curiously at the cup and the bread every time we celebrated the Eucharist in church. She seems to have had a deep spiritual sense of our need to partake in this mystery, steadily growing towards a confessional faith. After many conversations about the meaning of the water of baptism, and participation in communion, Talya made the decision to be baptized this summer. She told me at the end of the day of her baptism, "I am so glad that I was baptized when I was still only 3 years old." Me: "Why is that, Talya?" Talya: "Because I will get to have communion for more of my life."
The reason we named her Talya Faith was because our deepest prayer for her since before she was born was that she would receive faith as a gift from God, like dew on a flower. The name Talya is Hebrew and means "Dew from Heaven." Dew is significant in the Jewish faith, and is prayed for as a blessing and referred to symbolically in the Biblical Old Testament (Deuteronomy 32:3). The Greek version of her name (Thalia) means "to blossom." So, knowing that faith itself is a mystery and not something that we can control, we pray that this blessing of faith would continue to touch her like dew and blossom as she grows.
We thank Uncle Andrew and Auntie Rachel for accepting the role to be Talya's godparents.
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