(not one of mine)
A Egyptian Coptic friend of ours invited us to attend the baptism of his son Bishoy. We were delighted.
He told us he would pick us up in his car and drive with us to where the bus would pick us up.
A bus? It turns out he had arranged a bus for all his family and friends and we all rode up together to the monastery.
The monastery in question is is St. Bishoy’s monastery about 1.5 hours outside of Cairo.
We had expected to go to a local church for the baptism, but ma’lesh.
We rode up to the monastery and we disgorged from the bus. This was on Friday. In Egypt, many Coptic churches have their services on Friday. Since Friday is the Muslim Sabbath, many businesses are closed (at least in the morning) and it is just easier to have the services the same day that the rest of the country is “down” for Sabbath.
The monastery is set a little way out of the near by town. It is walled in and has one main large church and at least one other side chapel that, apparently, used for baptisms.
We sat in on the big main service, which seemed to be one continuous service. Every time we peaked our heads in, it was still going on. We were there for about 4 or 5 hours.
The baptism was fairly short. They stripped the baby, dunked him, fished him out and dressed him in some snazzy duds.
Afterwards one of the English speaking priests chatted with us and we got a short tour of the place. We had a nice picnic lunch.
The interesting part, to me anyway is this:
As we were sitting around after eating I was talking to Samah, father of Bishoy, about the day. I said
This is kind of far from Cairo to go to a baptism. I realize that your son is named Bishoy and this is the monastery of St. Bishoy, do most families go to the church or monastery of their child’s namesake for the baptism?
He replied:
Well, no. For 2 years we try and no baby come. So I make a prayer to Saint Bishoy, that if he gives us a baby, I will name him Bishoy and have the baptism here with all my family. So….
and he shrugged. He was beaming, like he is in that photo. Proud, happy, tired, relieved and grateful to his God and Saint Bishoy. It was completely unaffected.
Sometimes, I envy faith like that.