What is God parent day?
Patent Day is the annual celebration on the third Sunday of July for the special people who undertake the sacred task of caring for a child’s mental health and well-being.
Happy Patent Day! In the United States, Patent Day is celebrated on the first Sunday in June. I was very happy when I heard that this holiday existed.
My godparents were surrogate parents for me. My main godmother, Aunt Sybil, was my mother’s oldest sister. She was my “second mother” and teacher.
She taught me about spirituality and my Caribbean heritage. I owe her my appreciation for diaspora gardening and cooking, especially Chinese food from Trinidad, Guyana. She has been my mentor, spiritual, personal, professional and financial advisor throughout my life.
I mentioned the “primary” godmother
because I actually had other godparents! These included a Protestant uncle and a Buddhist-Catholic maternal aunt (pictured above)! Some of my multicultural relatives also called godparents “godparents.”
But sponsors may have mixed feelings.
On the one hand, there is the movie “The Godfather”, where the “family” is a group of dysfunctional people with vengeful actions. Many modern families today do not name godparents for their children. Some godparents shower their godchildren with money and gifts on every imaginable birthday and holiday! Some godparents are available at any time to care for their godchild.
Become a godparent:
Sponsorship is about religious responsibility and supporting parents. An important point here is that in some cultures you have the right and duty to defend yourself against your parents if they are not good parents!
Most often, godparents are asked to attend baptisms and christenings of a child and sometimes an adult. There are religious rituals and duties to being a godfather and godchild! Many choose godparents for their children to honor a friendship.
Some people make this decision for financial reasons. It is up to you to decide if you want to accept this honorable role. Regardless of the reason, sponsorship is about being a positive role model for a child. The decision to choose a sponsor for your child is also up to you. If so, how do you decide who is a good sponsor for your child?
Being a goddaughter:
I have always taken my role as a goddaughter seriously. I believe in the basic rules: Be there! Show off in any way you can! I have called and visited my godmother many times throughout my life. Until her transition, I became as much as possible her daughter and right hand.
I had also adopted godmothers from the parents of neighbors and friends, especially during my teenage and young adult years! It is important that foster children understand that it is a relationship. They have to remember their godparents birthdays, Christmas and more.
As a genealogist, I found important family stories in religious documents such as baptisms, baptisms, and biblical records. (The document above is my brother Sidney’s baptismal record in the Episcopal Church. He was also baptized in a Catholic church, as noted in the blog post below.)
These religious ceremony documents
also provide some necessary legal value! Here’s a related excerpt from my previous blog post: “Many mothers delay naming their children,” said a New York City official who requested anonymity. As a genealogist trying to verify a client’s identity, my first thought was to go to church—in this case, the Roman Catholic Church.”
The Church of England will celebrate the role of godparents everywhere on Sunday 11 July 2021.
Your local church or the church where your child was baptized may hold a special service on this day. Contact your church to find out.
If there is a service on Sundays, this can be a wonderful opportunity to spend time with the godfather or godchild.
If there is no church nearby, here are some ideas for celebrating the special relationship between godparents at home:
• Design cards for the sponsors together with your child. It can be a simple thank you card, or you can add a prayer (even something as simple as “Dear God, bless my godmother today”), or add a special reminder for your child about the time with each godparent. You can insert a photo or your child can draw their memory.
• Ask your child’s godparents to help them
Why should you celebrate Patent Day?
On Patent Day, we honor the godparents of our past, thank the godparents who support our children today, and look forward to strengthening godparent relationships in the future. The sponsor role has a long and rich tradition, practiced in many religions and countries around the world.
Sponsors provide support through faith-based milestones and promote character, values and decision-making skills that contribute to a sense of community and good citizenship.
Sponsorship relationships expand support networks for families and create mutual commitment and shared responsibility for child and youth growth and development. That’s why we celebrate sponsors and their sustainable contributions to children and families every year.
How is patent day celebrated?
Godparents Day is celebrated by godchildren, families, worshiping communities and all whose lives have been touched by a godparent’s spiritual guidance, care and support. Godparents Day is celebrated in four ways: through religious services in the sanctuary or online, through charitable donations, volunteer work and gatherings between godparents, godchildren, their families and worshiping communities.
The global covid-19 pandemic will affect worship services, gatherings and volunteer activities this patent day. Check with the place of worship you plan to visit on Patent Day, as well as corporate sites and volunteer organizations planning a similar Patent Day effort, for their updated policies and procedures to improve pandemic safety.
Origin and history
The baptismal font in Magdeburg Cathedral
Already in the 2nd century AD. infant baptism began to be used by Catholic Christians for the spiritual purification and social initiation of infants.
Usually these godparents were the biological parents of a child, as emphasized by St. Augustine 408, who suggested that in exceptional cases the sponsors could be other people.[6] The Corpus Juris Civilis indicates that within a century parents were replaced in this role almost entirely by people who were not the child’s biological parents.
This was clarified in 813 when the Synod of Mainz forbade biological parents to act as godparents to their own children.
In the 5th century, male godparents were called
“spiritual fathers”, and in the late 6th century they were called “kompaters” and “commates”, suggesting that these were seen as spiritual co-parents. .[9] Around the same time, laws intended to prevent consanguineous marriages were extended to include marriages between godparents and children.
A decree of Justinian in 530 prohibited marriage between a godfather and his goddaughter, and these barriers continued to increase until the 11th century, prohibiting marriage between biological and spiritual parents or those directly related to them.
When confirmation arose as a separate rite from baptism in the seventh century, a second group of sponsors also arose with similar prohibitions.
The exact extent of these spiritual relationships as an impediment to marriage in Catholicism was unclear until the Council of Trent, which limited this to relationships between the godparents, the child, and the parents.
During the Reformation
Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin maintained infant baptism (and associated godparents) in their respective Protestant denominations, despite opposition from more radical reformers such as the Anabaptists. Their respective views on the role of godparents differed from that of mainstream Catholicism. Luther rejected the prohibition of marriage between godparents and children, Zwingli emphasized the role of parents and pastors, and Calvin preferred the role of biological parents as godparents.
Among the French Calvinists and Genevans, having a godfather became the norm; other Calvinists, especially in Scotland and the English colonies in America, abolished them altogether.
The customary obligation of godparents for Catholics (at least in Scotland) was mentioned in Nicol Burnes Of the Prating in Latine (1581) in relation to Latin public prayers in the church:
…if you pray in a language other than your own, it is also appropriate that you at least understand the meaning of the words.
For what reason are parents or godparents bound in the Catholic Church to teach them (i.e. see to it that they have taught them) the forms of prayer and faith which they had at baptism, and to instruct them sufficiently? Do you understand the same thing? click for more
