An offer you can't refuse.

I HAVE BEEN ASKED TO BE A GODFATHER THREE times--twice for nephews and once for the daughter of dear friends. In fact, I am the co-godfather of this delightful young lady, and at her baptism, some years ago, we godfathers held her suspended between us like a tiny chicken, each man holding a goddaughterly wing, and so angelically she was received into the church.

In addition to godfathering three children, I am blessed to be the father of three more, also two boys and a girl, and in this capacity I have, with my wife, asked friends and family to be the godparents of our children. Each time the choice was very carefully made, and just as carefully and respectfully accepted. Just a few months ago my wife and I asked two men and two women to be the godparents of our new twin sons, and while the custom is fresh in my mind, I am moved to ponder its odd power in a modem Catholic life.

Like many Catholic traditions, the roots of godparenting are mysterious. One theory is that the custom is traceable to the Roman Empire, in which Christianity began and from which the faith drew many of its habits. In that august society there was little vertical mobility, and so patrons or benefactors from the class above were sought after, especially for children. A good father would very much wish to have his child "related" to a powerful or prestigious patron. When the empire became officially Christian, the habit of patronage took on a theological cast, and so, goes the theory, began the practice of designating godparents at Baptism.

Another theory evolves from the fact that the practice of designating spiritual relatives predates Christianity itself. Among many ancient peoples (the Celts in Europe, the Salish in North America, for example), one or more members of the clan would be asked by the parents to pay special attention to the spiritual growth of a new child. In Europe, where the English language developed from Germanic roots, the habit of godparenting is evident in the language. The original meaning of the word gossip was "Godsibling," and a godparent was considered to have such a close spiritual relationship with a godchild that the church at one time forbade a godparent and godchild from marrying each other.

Nearly four years ago my wife and I chose godparents for our first child. Like choosing Lily's name, the choice of godparents was surprisingly hard because we took it very seriously. In the end we asked my brother and my wife's sister to "help train Lily in the practice of the faith, and bring her up to keep God's commandments as Christ taught us, and to love God and our neighbors," in the words of the celebrant. And so Lily's godparents stood beside us as we renounced Satan and his works and his empty promises, rejected sin and the glamour of evil, and affirmed belief in the Father and the Son and the Spirit, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Then, with us they held squirming Lily as water cascaded across her head.

In recent months we carefully selected godparents again, and stood with them as our sons were brought formally into the faith. And again I was struck by the import of the choice and how seriously the godparents took their duty, and again I was moved to consider my own role and actions as godfather. Ostensibly I am to be a moral anchor, to provide spiritual assistance to the instruction of the parents, but this is too pat, too cold and formal. I have decided that what I am really supposed to do is be there--if not physically, then emotionally. I try to visit, write letters, call, send small gifts, surprise these boys and this girl with attentions from a man not ordinarily in their orbit. Some of that attention is avowedly spiritual--I send one godson an annual moral rule (don't punch your sister, pray while walking--that sort of thing), but most of it is something else. It is in the something else that the true practice and power of godparenting lies. I try to give, pure and simple, because I think that attention is love, and love is divine. I am not the father of my godchildren; I am the assistant father, and my job is to love them quietly and well. So I give what I can as often as I can.

It was the writer Dorothy Parker who once ably summed up the job of a godparent in a poem called "Godmother." The godmother in that succinct poem gives her goddaughter "sadness, and the gift of pain, the new-moon madness, and the love of rain," among other subtle presents. I might quibble with that litany of gifts and aim to give other sorts, but I much admire the giving, and I think it the essence of this ancient and modern, lovely and powerful, Catholic habit.