Fr Peter's newsletter notes - January 2007

2nd Week of Ordinary Time - Sunday 14th January 2007

Baptism is more than belief. It is the gateway to the home that we have always sought.

One mark of a truly great man or woman is their ability to reach beyond their immediate constituency. Mother Teresa or Nelson Mandela would be perfect examples. Each found rightful admiration for their work outside the confines of either the Catholic Church or the state of South Africa because the values of dignity and freedom they espoused embrace all people of goodwill, whatever they believe or wherever they may live. I am sure each of us knows figures like them, whose scope is obviously not global but who is the circumstances of their lives have a similar effect. There was one such Dominican I was lucky to meet at Oxford, Fr Herbert McCabe who died over five years ago. His funeral in Blackfriars Hall, Oxford, was a modest affair that took place in July 2001 but it attracted the most diverse of peoples, and its effects are still being felt today. Fr McCabe had a wide circle of friends of every faith and none, and who came from every walk of life.

Two of his friends have now, through their experience of his funeral, embraced the Catholic faith. One I received into the Church in my last year as the Chaplain to the University while her husband was recently received on his death-bed five years later. What struck me about both of them was the strong sense each had of coming home. As her newly baptised husband said on his death bed, ‘What happened to you at Fr McCabe’s funeral happened to me but I was not ready and pushed the door to… but I was careful not to close it’. Later he told her, ‘This is the end of a long journey; too long a journey’… ‘This is right, this is what I have been waiting for’. It is a testament to Fr McCabe’s singular methods that two agnostic intellectuals would through him find their true home.

These two stories of conversion illuminate for me the essential difference between mere belief and Baptism. Obviously the sacrament of Baptism requires faith from whoever seeks to be baptised and, in the case of a baby, from the parent. However that can never be quite enough. There must also be the sense of wishing to come home and returning to our rightful place. This rightful place is God, not in the abstract but at communion, along with others and within the Church.

On return from holiday, I believe everyone experiences a strong sense of homecoming, which emphasises the place of home in our consciousness. It can sometimes be an overpowering emotion, and it is this emotion that Baptism requires for it to be fruitful in subsequent life. It is possible to believe that Jesus Christ is an inspired man, in close contact with God, and could even be called a ‘son of God’ without being baptised. The risen Jesus told the disciples to baptise the nations, because baptism draws the believer into the ‘biography’ of Jesus Christ, and it answers that deep seated human need to find home. Home for God is the life of the Trinity and baptism is the gateway. Hence that sense of homecoming finds its fulfilment not just in belief but in baptism, and the sharing of the life of the Trinity. Everyone starts at a different point, and the paths taken or methods used can seem quite ‘unorthodox’ at times for reasons which at the time we are only dimly aware. This couple, so affected by the Dominican funeral, had their way; we have ours. What unites us is the common destination.

3rd Week of Ordinary Time - Sunday 21st January 2007

Everyone must enter ‘into great silence’ in order to achieve union with Christ, the goal of religious life

Last week I went to see the remarkable film on the Great Chartreuse, near Grenoble, entitled ‘Into Great Silence’. This film follows the lives of monks, young and old, who have sought their vocation within the walls of the strictest monastic order in the Catholic Church. The film is long and, during the first two and half hours, there is no speaking; the only sounds are the chanting of prayers, the movement of monastic furniture for private prayer and the sounds of nature. Far from being dull, the time passes extremely quickly as the audience is gradually drawn into the rhythm of the day, and into the great silence. The monks are allowed to speak to each other, once a week, and far from discussing the banalities of contemporary life, are filmed discussing the relationship between ritual and sacramental meaning. Every gesture points to something beyond, and so the blessing with water before chapel and meals is no empty action but a public recognition of where we stand in relation to God and the community.

I will not spoil the enjoyment of anyone intending to watch the film by describing the last few scenes but they are a revelation as to how innocence can be rediscovered in a fallen world. Prior to these final scenes, one of the old monks who had gone blind is speaking of suffering, death and God’s love. Only someone with such spiritual integrity could speak in such a way. It was a simple message and, while many churchmen have come up with the same correct expressions, after two and half hours of silence, a mere fragment of his own monastic life, the monk clearly showed that he was expressing, not in some vague way, his personal experience of God’s love through his blindness.

Throughout the film, the spiritual progress of two novices is charted, but only one stays. The image of the aeroplane with its vapour trail in the deep blue sky passing overhead symbolises freedom, but one with limited scope. A novice from Korea is seen leaving while the other from Africa is later seen in his cell with a photograph on his desk of his smiling family, standing outside their house in the brilliant sunshine. His commitment comes at a cost, of distance, weather, culture and much more besides.

The Carthusian order has its own special charism, and it is most certainly not the only way to seek sanctity, nor union with Christ. What the film does show though is that, contrary to popular conception, the abandonment of material possessions is not the difficult step in religious life. It is only the beginning of the inward journey of self-understanding in the light of God’s love. Just because we might think that giving up material possessions is impossible, and rightly so for those with family commitments, this is no excuse not to enter the inner journey. The path of prayer and reflection is no different to the monks in aspiration, but only in intensity and vocation. Their life is an inspiration also to enter ‘into great silence’. The purposeful blocking out of the noise of the world is the necessary start of the inward journey, but unfortunately this is becoming progressively more difficult. Mobile phones, blackberries, email, etc., are marketed as the instruments of ‘on-the-move’ communication, yet their illusory sense of constant personal availability make virtually impossible any profound reflection or considered response necessary for true friendship, human or divine. These modern means of communication do not remain tools for living, but may seize control of our lives, becoming instruments of their own justification, something to be avoided at all costs. The world of silence is becoming ever more remote, but it is the world of God, and the experience of the desert, whether natural or man-made as at the Grand Chartreuse, will always remain the place to encounter God.

4th Week of Ordinary Time - Sunday 28th January 2007

The right of conscience must prevail in the matter of adoption, and the interests of children paramount

The issue of adoption has suddenly opened up a fault line between the government and the Church. There seems to be a desire within some elements of the Government to ride roughshod over the question of conscience in the public realm. It comes as no surprise that Catholic adoption agencies places 10% of all children adopted throughout the country. Anyone old enough can remember that during the 1980s many Councils refused couples the possibility of adopting through some perverted logic of ideology. Long before children from abroad could be adopted, whether rightly or wrongly, the Church’s agency did bring joy both to the child, who found a loving home rather than an institutional home, and to parents who were unable to have their own children. The Catholic Children’s Societies have a consistently good record of placing older children and those with learning disabilities. The absolute numbers may be small but all this quiet work is in danger of being destroyed over the ‘rights’ of gay couples to adopt children.

What is also clearly becoming apparent is that the Government is unhappy with the many and varied types of provision, whether it is for schools, universities and now adoption agencies. Everything must fit the same template and adhere to some centrally organised criteria. The trouble is that human life, whether informed by a religious conscience or not, does not fit into one type. There is a marvellous richness and variety in the way families conduct their lives, educate their children, and seek their pleasures. The march for complete uniformity is something profoundly inhuman.

However, this issue is just the first to cross an invisible line between what as Catholics, one can accept as part of western democratic life, and what will result in a crisis of conscience. The arguments surrounding this government measure is fast making this the new Act of Supremacy, over which St Thomas More gave his life. All the past legislation over homosexuality has never had a compulsory aspect to it. Indeed these laws have led, rightly, to less prejudice over these issues. Whether one agrees or not, this form of behaviour has become a matter of private choice. However, this is a private choice that does not impinge directly on the teaching of the Catholic Church on homosexuality, and issue remains a matter of pastoral concern and guidance.

Now though, the Government is forcing the Catholic Church and other faith organisations to accept a life style that is in contradiction to their teachings. The culture of liberal tolerance is suddenly turning to one of doctrinaire intolerance under the misguided view that ‘equal opportunities’ are a moral concept without a surrounding framework. ‘Equal opportunities’ needs to be linked with the natural law, ‘do good, avoid evil’, the primacy of conscience, and use of freedom. Moral thinking can be seen as a matrix, in which all the concepts define each other. When one element becomes dominant then violence is done to the whole edifice. For instance, when ‘conscience’ is divorced from the natural law, conscience just becomes an excuse to do whatever one wants; the same is true with ‘equal opportunities’; divorced from conscience and natural law it assumes its own moral agenda.

Whether it is right to close all Catholic adoption agencies, as threatened by the hierarchy because of this legislation, is a difficult one to call. But it will undoubtedly bring suffering to those without a voice, the vulnerable children themselves. At this stage all we can hope for is that the Government will have a change of mind, and respect the rights of conscience of those who believe that a child has a right to a mother and father, whether natural or adopted. However at the time of writing this is now looking increasingly unlikely, though many Labour MPs, outside London, are already beginning to reflect on the possible electoral consequences

The Sacrament of Baptism Part 1 (CCC 1210-1233)

The Church teaches that Jesus Christ instituted seven sacraments, and these sacramental moments resonate with the rhythm of natural life. Three sacraments lay the foundations of the Christian life: Baptism, Confirmation and the Eucharist. The sacrament of Baptism is the gateway to life in the Spirit, and so it differs from simply believing in Jesus Christ. Through the act of baptism the believer is freed from sin and reborn as a son or daughter of God. Through this rebirth they become a member of the Body of Christ, the Church and so, as a consequence, should share in Jesus’ mission to save the world.

The double sided action of baptism, the burial into Christ’s death and rising out into new life, is seen in the act of plunging into and emerging from the water. These actions bring about birth through ‘water and the Holy Spirit’ (John 3.5) that is necessary for salvation as Jesus explained to Nicodemus.

The action of baptism has a long pre-history in the Old Testament. First, water is considered the source of life. At the very beginning of Genesis, the Spirit hovers over the waters. Secondly, the water of the sea also symbolises death in the story of Noah’s Ark. The symbolism of death is revealed in the Cross, which is the baptism that Jesus must complete. Later the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, which resulted in the liberation from slavery and their entry into the Promised Land.

Jesus begins with His own mission by submitting to baptism by John, as an act of solidarity with sinners, and to confirm the validity of John’s baptism of repentance. For Jesus this was a public self-emptying since, as God, He had no need for repentance. At His baptism the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus, and the Father announces that He is His beloved Son. This hovering of the Holy Spirit on Jesus is the mark of the beginning of a new creation.

The institution of Baptism began at Pentecost when Peter replies to the crowd by telling them to repent and be baptised. Peter has elicited a faith from his hearers who now ask for what Jesus has told the disciples to do, ‘Go baptise all the nations beginning with Jerusalem’

The Rite of Baptism (CCC 1233-1245)

The individual liturgical actions within the rite of Baptism bring out the meaning of what is being celebrated. The celebration begins with the Sign of the Cross, and a few prayers of welcome at the front door of the Church. The proclamation of the Word of God then follows. These specially chosen readings enlighten the candidates with revealed truth, and which in turn elicit a response from either the adult or the baby’s parents. An incipient faith is necessary for the sacrament of Baptism. Afterwards the rite of exorcism is performed, and the candidate liberated from original sin prior to proclamation of the faith.

The priest then prays over the water (the Epiclesis) and calls down the Holy Spirit so that the baptised person can fulfil the command of Jesus to Nicodemus, of being born of water and the Holy Spirit. Then follow the Baptismal promises. Every person seeking baptism is being brought into an existing community of believers who share in the Church’s perfect faith as expressed in the creedal statements. The faith of any adult or parent need not be perfect but these statements are the necessary threshold, and the adult, or child’s parent, assents to each one. The Baptismal promises are renewed every Easter to remind us of our own commitment to the faith.

The rite of immersion, or the pouring of water over the candidate’s head, brings about the death to sin (The Cross) and the entry into the new life of the Trinity (The Resurrection). Through baptism the candidate becomes an adopted son/daughter of God the Father through the in-dwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Afterwards the newly baptised is anointed with chrism which signifies the gift of the Holy Spirit, and incorporation into Christ. (Confirmation will confirm this anointing). Later the candidate will have a white garment placed on his or her shoulders, a literal putting on of Christ. Next a candle is given to show that Christ has enlightened the mind and heart to live the life of the Trinity.

Lastly the candidate and sponsor, standing around the altar, recite the Our Father, as the reality of baptism makes sense of this prayer as well as intimating a direction of life towards the Eucharist. Finally mother, father and those present are blessed.

The Rite of Baptism (CCC 1246-1284)

The catechism concludes the section on Baptism with some remarks on who can be baptised, and finally the necessity and outcome of baptism for salvation.

The Church teaches that every un-baptised person whether adult, child or baby may be baptised. For an adult the sacrament brings the long search for God to maturity. This search has been in response to a prior divine initiative, and baptism forms the entry point to a life of faith, liturgy and charity. Infant baptism does the same but also requires the child’s parents to nurture his or her faith.

The close connection of baptism with confirmation was emphasised by Jesus in his conversation with Nicodemus. Everyone must be born from above, by water and the Holy Spirit if they wish to be saved. It is therefore necessary for all those who have heard the Word of God, and who are able, to ask for the sacrament. Jesus Christ has died for all peoples so ultimately all share the same destiny. Consequently those who die without baptism can share unconsciously with Christ’s salvation if they have implicitly accepted Him in this life. These are the ‘men and women of goodwill’, martyrs who share the baptism of blood and un-baptised babies.

The effects of baptism are felt in this life as the death to sin, and the purification of the soul. At Baptism all sins are forgiven, and there is nothing to impede entry into paradise. However, the temporal consequences of sin remain such suffering, illness, death, weakness of character, the inclination to sin (concupiscence). These are difficult challenges but are no longer eternally fatal.

The grace of baptism also regenerates and renews the baptised. They become an adopted son/daughter. The Holy Spirit has justified them with sanctifying grace. This enables the newly baptised to believe, hope and love God (three theological virtues), and to live/act under the Holy Spirit (gifts of the Holy Spirit). This life is not an individual religious life, but an incorporation into the Body of Christ. Baptism is the source of responsibilities and duties – a life for others; hence every Christian should participate in the apostolic mission of the Church.