Receive the light...eventually

On Sunday I became a 'Godfather'! This may seem fairly unlikely, but that seems to be how it works!
To explain, Sunday was my nephew's baptism, and I was honoured to have been asked to be a godparent. Since I'm already his Aunty this has the bonus of not conferring any extra present responsibilities, since those I have anyway!

His other godparent, was (nicely symmetrically) his other Aunty, and before the service we discussed the fact that there were two jobs for the godparents, one was to present a white garment, and the other a candle. I immediately of course volunteered for the candle role, on the grounds that I have prior experience with candles.

The baptism proceeded beautifully. There were three babies being baptised, so we lined up along the steps in St Edmunds, with our family at the font end (and nearest the Paschal candle). One by one, the babies were baptised, and they were all very good, with no crying. Then of course we got to the interesting bit (from a godparents point of view). First of all Fr John asked 'the godmothers to present the white garments'. I think he was then a little confused as he realised that I looked like a godmother too, and at this point it occurred to me that he actually had considered these roles to be gender related, which had never crossed my mind before.

Candles were then distributed to 'godfathers', and at this point things started to go down hill slightly. Fr John decided that since the paschal candle was way above his head he'd light a taper from it to light the baptismal candles with (so far, so good), however the taper resolutely refused to light. I resisted the urge to take over the taper, though I was right next to him. After several attempts he instead managed to put the paschal candle out! So some rushing around quickly produced some matches. I had thought he might have tried to light the paschal candle again, but instead he went for the simple option of lighting the baptismal candles directly. So finally I got to fulfill my godfatherly role and present Oliver with his candle.
The parents and godparents then all held the candle together, and I was delighted to see Oliver reach out and hold on too. He's a very special little boy.