Parenting for God: On Being a Sponsor in the Faith

Congratulations! You are about to begin an exciting adventure. Someone has appreciated your faith enough to ask you to share that faith with them or with their child. I am sure you feel honored. The Catholic Church values godparents (sponsors) so much that we want to be very conscientious in preparing you for your role of sponsoring someone for Baptism or for Confirmation.

Here is what our Canon Law directs in Canons 872-874:

The one to be baptized is to be given a sponsor who will ... help the baptized to lead a Christian life in harmony with baptism, and to fulfill faithfully the obligations connected with it. To be admitted to the role of sponsor, a person must ... have completed the sixteenth year and must be a Catholic who has been confirmed and has already received the sacrament of the Most Holy Eucharist and leads a life in harmony with the faith and the role to be undertaken.

As you can see, it is a quite honorable role and it is far from being a merely honorary role. You will be a living pattern of what a Christian is and how a Catholic lives. It will be your joyful duty to demonstrate how we call upon God in prayer (along with the parents of course, if this is a child). From you, this person will discover a sense of Church: they will learn of repentance, justice to the poor, the victory of the cross, passion for the Eucharist, Sacraments, and the many other ways God's love gives us new life. In other words, you will be their Church.

You represent the rest of the Church, the communion of Saints, to which the newly baptized will belong, and among which the newly Confirmed will be strengthened by the Spirit. They (and their parents) will know they are not alone in their quest to know God and do God's will. What are your hopes and dreams for your godchild? What do you most want to give to them? What graces have you been given that you can share?

What are God's answers to those questions?

What role did your own godparents play in your discovery of God and in your religious formation? Do you want to be the same way to your godchild? What does it mean to "lead a life in harmony with the role" of godparent?

Even the most distant godparent (sponsor) can send a re-birthday card on the anniversary of the Baptism or Confirmation. How many other ways can you "be there" for them? How might you be needed throughout their life to be a mentor? a guide? a companion? a listener? an example? a teacher? a confessor? a friend? a defender? a prophet? a priest? a consoler? merciful? challenging? Please call upon your priests if we can be of any help is discerning how to best fulfill this vocation.

You can't do it without prayer and the Eucharist. Your best tools are the cross, the Creed, and the Scriptures. If you continue to share all these treasures among the Church, you can't go wrong. Congratulations.

Some technical items (more Canon laws) when choosing a Godparent:

Only one godparent is necessary.
If there are two, there must be one of each sex.
There cannot be more than two.
A baptized person from a non-Catholic ecclesial communion may not be admitted except as a witness to baptism and together with a Catholic sponsor.
A person's parents cannot be that person's godparents.
It is desirable that the one who undertook the role of sponsor at baptism be the sponsor for confirmation.
Recomendation (in writing) by the sponsor's pastor is needed when the sponsor is from a different parish than the one where the sacrament is being administered.
It is possible to be a godparent by proxy. (Proxies need the same letter from their pastors as the godparents need.)