Given to the Syro-Malabar community of Louisville, Apr 7, 2019 (4th Week of Lent) at Holy Family Catholic Church for their Easter preparation retreat.
That was a fantastic trip. I very much enjoyed exploring Kerala and learning about Thomasine Christianity. I have also enjoyed experiencing your community through several India Days at Bellarmine and mass once at Bellarmine’s chapel.
Thankfully today I have had more warning that morning mass. I must confess to being a little out of my comfort zone. I am not used to speaking for a long period. As a teacher, I usually break a class period up with written reflections, readings small assignments, video or audio clips, and many visuals. Today you just have me! Gulp.
Fr. John said he wanted to give me a little practice preaching since I am in formation to be a permanent deacon. The classes I have had on homiletics have said that under no circumstances should any homily go more than 8 minutes. Uh oh.
A few words about myself. I am a theology teacher and the campus minister at an all girls Catholic high school just about 5 minutes down the road. I have been working there for 11 years. It is a fantastic school. If there is a young woman in your life, I would strongly suggest you recommend it to her.
Before I was here I started teaching at Mercy, I was a Peace Corps Volunteer. I lived and taught English in Bangladesh for 27 months. I was deeply immersed in the culture, language, religions and people of South Asia at that time and gained a love for the region. I was also able to travel to Mumbai, Goa, Darjeeling, Sikkim and to Nepal during time there, so in addition to my trip to Kerala, I have experienced a fair amount of South Asia.
I am also in formation to be a permanent deacon. It is a five year process and I am in the fourth year, due to be ordained in August 2020. It is a long but rewarding formation program where I have added to my knowledge of theology and ministry. The diaconate is open to married men, so it might be something some of you are interested in discerning. Please talk to me or Deacon Pat Wright here at Holy Family if you have question. Okay, that’s enough recruiting and preamble!
The theme of the this retreat that you are undertaking is “Preparation for Easter.” We are now two weeks away from the greatest feast in the Christian calendar: the Resurrection of the Lord. Today is the Fifth Sunday of Lent. Next Sunday we will begin Holy Week with Palm Sunday or Passion Sunday.
You may know that the Lent began in the early Church as a kind of 40-day retreat. It is a season of Easter preparation. The original purpose of which was preparation for baptism for catechumens. These people to be baptized were typically adults rather than babies, and so they this extended period of instruction, training, spiritual exercises, and prayer to prepare for a major life change: baptism. Our current Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults or RCIA, which was renewed during Vatican II in the 1960s, has restored this ancient process.
I know that most Catholics in the Roman Rite have been baptized as babies. I am curious about you. How many of you were babies or infants when you were baptized? Please show me by a show of hands. [take a minute to look]. Interesting. Thank you.
Have you ever been to the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday before? I had the pleasure of sponsoring a candidate three years ago. He had already been baptized into another denomination, so he was not baptized again. He did, however, receive three sacraments for the first time in his life—Reconciliation, Confirmation, and Eucharist. It was deeply inspiring to me as a cradle Catholic to seem the devotion, fervor, faith and raw hunger for the sacraments that my friend Michael had that night. He broke down into tears at several moments during the vigil. So did I.
For those of us who are cradle Catholics (most of us? All of us?), do we experience the sacraments with the same sense of gratitude, joy, and need that our catechumens do? My challenge to you is to treat this Lent and Easter as if you were making the adult decision to be received into the Church, to put on Christ, and to renounce the works of darkness, and to renounce the world. Approach the end of Lent as process of coming to our Resurrected Lord in the same way as a catechumen. Recommit yourself and allow the grace of God to transform you.
In the RCIA process, there is a period following Easter called ‘the mystagogy.’ During this time leading up to Pentecost, neophytes—new Christians, a word literally meaning ‘new shoots’—are initiated into the mysteries…. Consider ourselves to be neophytes. There are no old Christians. Only new. Consider ourselves to be continually initiated into the mystery of what it means to be Christian. To receive the Body of Christ and become the body. To have our sins washed away. [efficacious symbol]
I want to us to think about what a radical decision it would have been to become a Christian in the first century. In India, no less than the Roman Empire, it would have meant an active rejection of the society, community, and values of the time. The ancient practice was for Christians to be baptized naked. The catechumen approaches the waters by casting off everything that she was before. She takes off the name of Parvati, or Shakti or Lakshmi. Narayan, Krishnan, Ganesha. And rises Mary, Magdalena, Anne. John, George, Anthony. She washes the foot of Vishnu off her head. He takes off the cord of the twice-born, if he is high born. He puts to death all of the old things that have come before. He comes out of the water a new creation, clothed in white.
This action proclaims that in Christ, there is no brahmin or Dalit. No Maharaja or dhabi wallah. No male or female. No one born or re-born into a higher better karmic position on the social ladder. In Christ, all are one. All are alike in dignity, created in the image of the One God.
[Example of my friend slapping a rickshaw wallah – caste mentality of a secular Muslim]
The One personal God, not a transcendent impersonal force with a hundred million faces of little ‘g’ gods. But One singular deity who wishes to have a relationship with me today. The one who created this world as a singular event, never to be repeated. And who created my life and my soul as a singular event, never to be repeated.
As St. Paul wrote in the letter to the Ephesians, “one body and one Spirit, as you were also called to the one hope of your call; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (4:4-6).
I imagine this was an incredible challenge to Indian society of the day, again no less than Roman. [Read DBH pg. 115 Atheist Delusions] No wonder St. Thomas died a martyr’s death. No wonder the first several centuries of Christianity were a time of great persecution. That is, again, a challenge to us. Do we share in the faith of those early martyrs?
Disclaimer about Hinduism. Great, wonderful diversity of religions in both countries. Nostra Aetate, “we reject nothing that is true in other religions.” Impressed how much Indian Catholicism has gained from dialogue with Hinduism and other South Asian religions—how much Indian Catholicism has to offer the global Church as a result.
Growing nationalist forces in this country and in India today. Hindutva and the danger of being a Christian in India today. Attack on a Hindu temple in Buechel earlier this year.
American ‘post-Christian’ culture today. Scientific materialism, secularism, hyper-individualism, the consumerism of late capitalism, faith in technology and progress, and the idea that good and evil amount to personal opinions. What does it mean to say ‘yes’ to Christ in contemporary American culture?
Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. A sudden unlooked for inbreaking of graces into the world.
Eucatastrophe. Inelegant word—give the background in drama and Greek tragedy. “To turn downward.” Oedipus finding out his terrible fate (murdering father, marrying mother, his daughters are also his sisters—taking his vision). Romeo thinking that Juliet is dead and committing suicide. Juliet awakening and doing the same.
Talk about how it can also connect to the common meaning of ‘catastrophe.’ Expecting triplets. Finding out on January 31st. Tell the story of discovery. Kate’s reaction and mine. [Use Tolkien’s books for quotes]
Baptism and Easter both as eucatastrophic.
I taught a class on sacraments at Mercy for several years. The majority (though not all) of my students are cradle Catholics like us. I gave them an assignment called a “Baptism History Project.” In it, they needed to find out as much about their own baptism as they could. They needed to go through photos of the event to find out who was there. Who baptized them. Where it was. When it was. They needed to find their baptismal candle and gown, if their family still kept those. Then they needed to interview several people who were present and record their conversations. Finally, they recorded a self-reflection about the process and how they felt about their baptism afterwards. They edited this raw material into a five to ten minute video.
The process was very interesting—I think you would love to see one or two of them. According to the theology of the Church, baptism is the most important day of our life. Do we really think that way or live that way? How many of know anything about our baptism other than that we have heard it happened?
In preparing this reflection, I took my own advice and learned more about my own baptism—and I would like to share what I learned. I was baptized on September 28, 1980 when I was 42 days old.
I was baptized in St Patrick’s Catholic Church in Watertown, Massachusetts, which is a suburb of Cambridge across the Charles River from Boston. My family moved to Louisville when I was five, so I did not get to know this parish or the priest who baptized me. I did return to see the parish a few years back when I was visiting Boston. It was an off-time, unfortunately, and the doors were locked. I would love to return again for a Sunday mass.
A few more details. My godfather is my paternal uncle, Frank Stevenson Berghausen. My godmother my maternal aunt, Gerri Anne Cassidy. My baptizer was named Francis E. O’Brien. As I was preparing this talk, I decided to find out more about this priest who had baptized me … and yet I knew nothing about. Fr. Frank died 11 years ago—on Sept 19, 2008, which was nine days before the 28th anniversary of my baptism as it turned out—so I was able to learn more about him from his obituaries. Another priest described him as, a very kind man, very gentle. Inside the church, he was very easy to talk to.” He worked as a guidance counsellor and chaplain at a St. Patrick’s High School. A alum said he was someone who went above and beyond the call of in both roles. “A lot of us, a lot of kids, lost parents. He was a guy you could go to for help in the hard times,” he said.
I mention Fr. Frank because he was one of the small (or large) community of saints that helped form me in my faith—a man that I didn’t know, but now that I am working as a high school campus ministry, I have to believe that he is praying for me and actively playing a role in my work and ministry.
Additionally, I learned about two of the saints whose feasts days are celebrated on September 28th. The first, St. Lorenzo Ruiz was a Filipino layman who travelled with Dominican priests to Japan during a persecution. He was arrested and tortured. His captors tried to get him to renounce his faith, but he refused and was eventually martyred. His story reminds me of the book and recent movie Silence, which has become one of my favorites. The second saint is St. Vaclav Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia—the Good King Wenceslas of the Christmas carol. He has a really fascinating biography and role in the story of the Czech people. I now feel very connectedto both of these saints. Both were lay persons. Lorenzo was a husband and father (perhaps the Duke was, too). I wonder if they have been interceding for me since the day of my baptism? I think that they must have!
Another baptism story: my son EJ—who is now two and a half years old—was baptized right here at this baptismal font by Fr. John on December 3, 2016. St. Francis Xavier feast day. Saturday—lots of people for what might be called a ‘private baptism’ but hardly felt that way with all the friends, family, members of the deacon community, current and former students, and friars. I think it was one of Fr. John’s first baptisms in English. Deacon Pat helped him. My brother and sister are EJ’s godparents. I plan to be able to tell him in detail about the most important day of his life when he gets older. We have been celebrating the anniversary with him the last two years. Connection with the Holy Family and St. Francis Xavier.
So I ask: What is your baptism story? What was the date? Where did it happen? Who was present when you received the sacrament? Who was the person that baptized you? If you don’t know, I challenge you to find out!
Reading 1 IS 43:16-21
Remember not the events of the past,
the things of long ago consider not;
see, I am doing something new!
Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
Brothers and sisters, we are new thing that God is doing. We are the people whom God formed for himself, and he has remade us as chosen people new creations, cleansed by the waters in the desert, the rivers in the wasteland. Remember not the sin and darkness that came before. This Lenten season has renewed us. Given us the chance to begin again with our God who is every young and ever new. This God who opens a way in the seas, who parts the might waters. Let us clothe ourselves in Christ. Put on the armor of life, and recognize that the battle has already won. Christ is victorious, and the gates of hell are cast broken to the ground. Death has no sting.
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