I've been thinking a lot about Baptism lately. Largely due to the fact that Traci and I are going to have our boys baptized finally. Once Tommy was born it seemed like we had a lot more going on than getting him baptized. Although I tried to have the priest at the hospital in Spokane do it before his first surgery, he refused as Tommy wasn't seen as being in danger of death from surgery.
Sadly baptism seems to be another of those things that divide Christ's followers. Some see it as a symbolic acceptance of Christ's message others see it as a regenerative cleansing and acceptance of the new covenant. For Catholics baptism is the first sacrament of initiation. It cleanses the soul of the stain of the original sin and breaks sins hold on the baptized. St. Peter likens the waters of baptism which save souls to the flood of Noah, we see this in 1 Peter 3: 20-21.
Going back a generation however; we see Jesus himself advocating Baptism. When questioned by Nicodemus, Jesus tells him one must be born by water and the spirit to gain eternal life. Jesus is calling back to his own baptism when he infused the Spirit into the water. Immediately after discussing this with Nicodemus, Jesus and the 12 begin baptizing people. John 3:5, 22.
Another argument I have seen against infant baptism is that babies can't make the profession of faith required of the baptism. This argument seems far more damaging than it is, one need only look to the shadow of baptism seen in the old covenant to realize that it was performed on infants as well. The mark of the old covenant was the ritual circumcision done on eight-day old boys. Jesus was himself presented and circumcised at eight days. In the old covenant as well as the new it is the parents of the child who seal them into the covenant. I doubt even the Incarnate Word was able to profess faith at a week of age. Also Colossians 2: 11-14, tells us that in baptism we die with Christ to be risen to eternal life. This passage is quoted nicely in the Catholic baptismal ritual.
In addition to all of this Ezekiel tells us that God will unite us to himself with a regenerative bath in pure water. Ezekiel 36:24-28. This passage outlines all of the things baptism does for us. Cleanses us from sin, imparts the Holy Spirit, enables us to avoid sins in the future and makes us covenant children of God. Powerful stuff. I also like what St. Paul says in Romans 6:4.
I have vague memories of my own baptism as I was about Tommy's age when I received my entrance into the new covenant. Mostly I have memories of lots of baptisms that I helped with as an altar server for nearly a decade. I am excited to start Matty and Tommy on their faith journeys and can only hope they learn to love and live their faith. That is the charge given to parents and Godparents at baptism to see that they raise these children as children of God. Here's hoping that between God, Traci and myself we do just that, with a little help from the boys Godparents, when we need it.
A tip of the cap to two wonderful websites that helped formulate a lot of my writing on this topic. They had the appropriate Bible verses searched out already. Shameless Popery and Jesus I Trust in You.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Thursday, February 10, 2011
"Do Whatever He Commands You...."
You might recognize the title of this post as being from John's Gospel, (John 2:5). It is something Jesus' mother, the Blessed Virgin, tells the servants during the wedding feast at Cana. I think it applies to anyone who calls themselves Christian.
We hear very little about Jesus' earthly parents in the Bible. Some believe Joseph, his stepfather was likely an old man who married his mother to give her a place. One tradition holds that Mary was likely a temple virgin, thus consecrated to God, her whole life. As for myself I tend to sort of mash both of these traditions into a single lump. It is my belief that Joseph took Mary in intending to live a chaste life with her; as she was a temple virgin and he was an old man. Regardless I think the life of the Blessed Virgin has much to teach us.
Mary was the world's first Christian. She believed in her Son, even before the world had beheld Him. But more than that, her existence does nothing but "magnify" him, as she says in the beautiful Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55).
Catholics are bound by the teachings of the Church to believe that Mary was conceived free of sin and remained in so pure a state throughout her whole life. I know a lot of people that hear that and it raises their hackles. A lot of people think it means that Mary is somehow equal with God or that she didn't need a Savior, but she even says her soul glories in God her Savior.
The ways I always try to explain this bit of Catholic dogma, are concerning Mary's role as the Ark of the New Covenant and the pit analogy.
The Bible can very easily be read with an eye toward types. Something in the Old Covenant routinely prefigures something in the New. The holiest thing in the Old Testament was the Ark of the Covenant. It housed the tablets on which God wrote the Commandments, the manna from the desert and the rod of Aaron. When God told Moses to build the Ark, he instructed him in complete detail as to every inch of its design. The Ark was to be made with pure acacia wood and pure gold. It was so pure and holy that God smote a man for touching it merely to keep it from falling off an ox cart (2 Samuel 6:6-7).
So if the Ark was that holy and it held stone tablets, a rod and a jar of manna, how much more holy the ark that carried the Incarnate Word. Mary was kept from sin by a special grace of God. Unmerited, undeserved grace. God in his ineffable plan, took the victory of the Cross from Calvary and extended it back in time by about 50 years and infused Mary's soul as one without sin. Catholic theology says that in essence God baptized Mary before he infused her soul; however Mary unlike the rest of us was so devoted to God that she was able to remain free from the stain of all sin.
The pit analogy would be that if someone is walking along in the woods they can be saved from a pit in two different ways. A person could fall into the pit and be pulled from it, thus being dirtied from the fall into the pit. Or the person can be told "hey there's a pit there don't go into it." That person wouldn't be stained from falling into the pit.
Mary shows up routinely in the Gospels at important moments. As I said in John's Gospel she is the one who kick-starts Jesus' ministry by having him turn water into wine. Notice what He calls her during this scene. "Woman" (John 2:4), He does it again in John's Gospel, it's hardly an accident. When Jesus is dying on the cross he turns to his mother once again and address her and "the beloved disciple" (John 19:26-27).
St. John is making a connection, from Genesis to Jesus. In Genesis Eve is called Woman. See Genesis 2:20 and compare it with Genesis 3:23. In Christ we have the new Adam, if we have a new Adam we must have a new Eve. Eve was created immaculately in the Garden from the old Adam. Mary was Immaculately Conceived to bear the new Adam in Bethlehem.
St. John again uses "Woman" to identify Mary in Revelation 12:1-6, compare that with Genesis 3:15. It's clear from the Johannine literature in the Bible that John views Mary as an integral part of salvation. He makes her the Ark of the New Covenant and the Woman against whom the Dragon wages war during the end times.
Which brings me back to my original point. Mary has an important part to play in our salvation and it is more than just bringing Christ to the world. All her efforts, all of her life continually point to her Son and are best summarized in the quote from the beginning of this post. If indeed we "Do whatever He commands of us we shall find our eternal salvation. If we say it's too hard, or not worth it, or we serve ourselves we can easily lose out on that salvation.
On a side note I find it interesting that two of the most famous and most venerated Marian apparitions highlight some of these things. When the Blessed Virgin appeared to St. Juan Diego, on a hill outside of Mexico City in 1531, she appeared as a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and crowned with stars.
Three Hundred years later, in 1858, she appeared to St. Bernadette Soubirous outside of Lourdes, France. When the young peasant girl asked her who she was, she was told "I am the Immaculate Conception." Blessed Pope Pius IX had formally declared the Immaculate Conception as dogma, just four years before the apparition 1854. It was Pius IX who also declared the apparition at Lourdes to be authentic.
We hear very little about Jesus' earthly parents in the Bible. Some believe Joseph, his stepfather was likely an old man who married his mother to give her a place. One tradition holds that Mary was likely a temple virgin, thus consecrated to God, her whole life. As for myself I tend to sort of mash both of these traditions into a single lump. It is my belief that Joseph took Mary in intending to live a chaste life with her; as she was a temple virgin and he was an old man. Regardless I think the life of the Blessed Virgin has much to teach us.
Mary was the world's first Christian. She believed in her Son, even before the world had beheld Him. But more than that, her existence does nothing but "magnify" him, as she says in the beautiful Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55).
Catholics are bound by the teachings of the Church to believe that Mary was conceived free of sin and remained in so pure a state throughout her whole life. I know a lot of people that hear that and it raises their hackles. A lot of people think it means that Mary is somehow equal with God or that she didn't need a Savior, but she even says her soul glories in God her Savior.
The ways I always try to explain this bit of Catholic dogma, are concerning Mary's role as the Ark of the New Covenant and the pit analogy.
The Bible can very easily be read with an eye toward types. Something in the Old Covenant routinely prefigures something in the New. The holiest thing in the Old Testament was the Ark of the Covenant. It housed the tablets on which God wrote the Commandments, the manna from the desert and the rod of Aaron. When God told Moses to build the Ark, he instructed him in complete detail as to every inch of its design. The Ark was to be made with pure acacia wood and pure gold. It was so pure and holy that God smote a man for touching it merely to keep it from falling off an ox cart (2 Samuel 6:6-7).
So if the Ark was that holy and it held stone tablets, a rod and a jar of manna, how much more holy the ark that carried the Incarnate Word. Mary was kept from sin by a special grace of God. Unmerited, undeserved grace. God in his ineffable plan, took the victory of the Cross from Calvary and extended it back in time by about 50 years and infused Mary's soul as one without sin. Catholic theology says that in essence God baptized Mary before he infused her soul; however Mary unlike the rest of us was so devoted to God that she was able to remain free from the stain of all sin.
The pit analogy would be that if someone is walking along in the woods they can be saved from a pit in two different ways. A person could fall into the pit and be pulled from it, thus being dirtied from the fall into the pit. Or the person can be told "hey there's a pit there don't go into it." That person wouldn't be stained from falling into the pit.
Mary shows up routinely in the Gospels at important moments. As I said in John's Gospel she is the one who kick-starts Jesus' ministry by having him turn water into wine. Notice what He calls her during this scene. "Woman" (John 2:4), He does it again in John's Gospel, it's hardly an accident. When Jesus is dying on the cross he turns to his mother once again and address her and "the beloved disciple" (John 19:26-27).
St. John is making a connection, from Genesis to Jesus. In Genesis Eve is called Woman. See Genesis 2:20 and compare it with Genesis 3:23. In Christ we have the new Adam, if we have a new Adam we must have a new Eve. Eve was created immaculately in the Garden from the old Adam. Mary was Immaculately Conceived to bear the new Adam in Bethlehem.
St. John again uses "Woman" to identify Mary in Revelation 12:1-6, compare that with Genesis 3:15. It's clear from the Johannine literature in the Bible that John views Mary as an integral part of salvation. He makes her the Ark of the New Covenant and the Woman against whom the Dragon wages war during the end times.
Which brings me back to my original point. Mary has an important part to play in our salvation and it is more than just bringing Christ to the world. All her efforts, all of her life continually point to her Son and are best summarized in the quote from the beginning of this post. If indeed we "Do whatever He commands of us we shall find our eternal salvation. If we say it's too hard, or not worth it, or we serve ourselves we can easily lose out on that salvation.
On a side note I find it interesting that two of the most famous and most venerated Marian apparitions highlight some of these things. When the Blessed Virgin appeared to St. Juan Diego, on a hill outside of Mexico City in 1531, she appeared as a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and crowned with stars.
Three Hundred years later, in 1858, she appeared to St. Bernadette Soubirous outside of Lourdes, France. When the young peasant girl asked her who she was, she was told "I am the Immaculate Conception." Blessed Pope Pius IX had formally declared the Immaculate Conception as dogma, just four years before the apparition 1854. It was Pius IX who also declared the apparition at Lourdes to be authentic.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Web Links Wednesday
It's Wednesday, everybody. You know what that means. Web links:
- How bout a little inspiration from one of the great works of art. The Vatican's virtual tour of the Sistine Chapel.
- Here's the Wikipedia page on the Chapel.
- Ken Jennings the all-time Jeopardy Champion has a fun website with a blog and even a forum. He routinely posts in the forums. although so does his father also named Ken Jennings. Tune in to Jeopardy next week when he and Brad Rutter will face Watson the IBM built supercomputer. Rutter was a five-day Champ under the old rules, who went on to win his season's Tournament of Champions. Rutter also won the Ultimate TOC, He has never lost a game of Jeopardy.
- One of my all-time favorite websites, the Internet Movie Database, has tons of info on just about every movie ever made. I am not crazy about their latest redesign but it is still a useful resource. Plus they have parents guides for movies to help decide if it is ok for your little ones to see.
- Miss a Super Bowl ad, check this site out. My favorites were the Faith Hill flower ad and the Darth Vader VW.
- One of my favorite political sites. Red State is a solidly conservative corner of the internet.
- Here's a fun little deal from M&M's find the 50 "dark" movies hidden in the poster.
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