Issue 70 - The Pilgrim - April 2018 - The newspaper of the Archdiocese of Southwark

The Pilgrim April 2018
Viewpoint
How adult baptism
has changed
By Father Ashley Beck
Last month we considered the
baptism of infants; this month,
just after Easter, we think about
adult baptism.
There are many ways in which
the ways in which we mark Lent
are very different from a
generation ago. One of them, in
most parishes, is the way Lent is
defined each year by the progress
of what we call the Rite of
Christian Initiation of Adults, RCIA.
Before the reforms to the
liturgy following the Second
Vatican Council, at least in
developed countries, if someone
expressed a wish to become a
Catholic he or she was normally
prepared one-to-one by a priest
according to an informal structure
suited to the prospective
convert’s needs and taking
account of any prior religious
background.
Then, at the end of the process
he or she was received into the
Church and if necessary baptised.
Often – and this wasn’t meant to
happen – converts were baptised
conditionally just in case they had
not been baptised validly in
another Christian community.
Such a ceremony was normally
very quiet and restricted to a few
friends of the new convert.
Confirmation normally took place
at a later stage, and in a way
which some thought was rather
perfunctory.
When the liturgy was reformed
it was decided to move away from
this model, if you can call it that.
A big change came about,
prompted by two pastoral factors
in different parts of the world.
First, the Church in the 1960s
was rapidly expanding in the
developing world and large
numbers of converts were being
prepared; and in the developed
world, more and more converts
were actually coming into the
Church without being already
baptised, let alone brought up in
Nearly 400 people took part in
The Rite of Election service at St
George’s Cathedral in February.
another Christian body. The
Catholic Church with converts was
increasingly “starting from
scratch”.
Therefore, the preferred way
for converts to be prepared is for
this to happen in a corporate
setting, that is, in a group; and
the preparation is expected to
take place over a number of
months, leading to baptism at the
most important act of worship in
the Christian year, the Easter Vigil.
In our diocese the Centre for
Catholic Formation in Tooting does
a great deal each year to support
parish RCIA groups and
co-ordinate what is done across
the diocese, also providing
training for RCIA catechists.
As many of you will know those
who join the process are enrolled
initially usually in Advent; at the
beginning of Lent they go to the
Rite of Election in St George’s
Cathedral, when they are
“chosen” by Archbishop Peter.
And during Lent they undergo
the special ceremonies at the
three central Sundays known as
the “scrutinies”, focusing on the
three great accounts from John’s
gospel of Jesus’ encounter with
the Samaritan woman, the healing
of the man born blind and the
raising of Lazarus.
At the great Easter Vigil itself
the baptism of the adult converts
is one of the climactic points. It
helps to root the whole
community’s Easter faith in the
meaning of baptism and the
Church’s missionary and
evangelistic ethos.
We certainly ask more of
converts than we used to, in that
they are made the focus of big
public acts of worship repeatedly,
but in my experience most find
this something which really
strengthens their new Christian
faith. In the RCIA process we are
not only getting closer to the life
of the early Church; we are
engaging effectively with mission.
In the ceremony of the second
scrutiny the priest prays in these
words: “Free these elect from the
false values that surround and
blind them.” Men and women who
freely decide to become Catholics
are making a definite choice to
engage in clear journey from one
place to another, and we use the
powerful contrasts of thirst v
water, blindness v sight and death
v life.
When you become a Catholic
you move away, sometimes very
clearly, from your previous way of
life. Traditionally in the early
Church this involved leaving some
walks of life (often being a
soldier, but also jobs like being a
Temple prostitute); we are
probably less severe about this,
although a male convert would be
expected to leave organisations
like the Freemasons, which is at
odds with the life of the Church.
But in our preparation
programmes we share the whole
of what Catholic moral teaching is
about, so that new Catholics can
discern real evil in the world,
perhaps where they had not done
before. In baptism are reborn –
they enter a completely new
relationship with God.
This RCIA process and its
culmination in the baptisms at the
Vigil are not simply for the
converts themselves. Their new
Christian journey is something we
support at these ceremonies at
Mass. But it is also a model and
example of all of us. In Lent we
try to undergo a re-conversion;
and most of us still need to be
freed from false values that
surround and blind us.
So at Easter we have an
opportunity to renew our own
baptismal commitment and faith.
n Father Ashley Beck is assistant
priest of Beckenham, senior
lecturer in pastoral ministry at
St Mary’s University and dean of
studies of the diocesan
formation programme for the
diaconate
I believe in the resurrection
By Sister Janet Fearns
“Humankind cannot bear very much
reality,” said T.S. Eliot. Okay. Just
for a moment, take Jesus and Mary
out of the crucifixion and see a
young man in his early thirties,
tortured and executed in front of his
mother.
What if the mother were you?
How would you feel? Would you
utter pious reflections about it
being Good Friday, knowing that
your son would rise again from the
dead within three days?
Would you, instead, experience
indescribable agony, longing to
spare him by taking that pain upon
yourself? Might a sense of utter
helplessness and despair threaten to
overwhelm you? Would you have
flashbacks to your innocent son’s
infancy and childhood?
When he eventually died before
you and was placed in your arms,
were there any words to express
how you felt? What about when he
was hurriedly buried, knowing that
regulations prevented you from
showing the love, respect and
tenderness that he deserved? How
did you feel afterwards – numb,
angry, vengeful, despairing – or joyfilled,
hopeful and rejoicing?
Did Mary, the mother standing
beside her crucified son, skip happily
away from Calvary? Or did she need
the supporting arms of grieving
friends and relatives to help her
away from the tomb; to make her
way back home towards a new life,
changed forever by Good Friday?
Would Easter Sunday take away
those memories or merely give them
a different perspective? Be real.
What was it like?
Belief in the resurrection is a
conscious decision. It does not
happen automatically. Our massproduced
images of Calvary
anaesthetise most people to the
reality. Crucifixion was the ultimate
indignity, signifying abandonment by
heaven and earth as the condemned
hung suspended between both.
The death of Jesus means
everything to the Christian world.
Yet it happened before the mass
executions of early Christians,
before someone invented the words
“genocide” and “ethnic cleansing”.
Our beautiful Easter gardens in
churches and chapels exclude the
thousands of subsequent crucifixions
of Jesus’ first followers across the
Roman Empire. Jesus’ crucifixion
was not even the first such event:
following the Spartacus rebellion in
71BC, more than six thousand slaves
were crucified on the Appian Way.
Jesus, although unique, was also
one of many.
History has never accurately
recorded the names and numbers of
Christian martyrs during the past
two millennia: even the Church
reaches its limits. Although there
were an estimated eight to ten
thousand Korean martyrs during the
19th century, the Roman
martyrology records only one
hundred and one by name.
Similarly, in Vietnam, where an
estimated 130,000-300,000 people
died for their faith, only 117 have
been canonised. The numbers are so
vast that most of those who suffered
fall into the category of the “also
ran” – or, to use more ecclesiastical
language, “and companions” - and
so the story continues across the
world.
Yet each individual had a name
and a personal life story, belonged
to a family and had a circle of
friends and acquaintances. Because
they died before we were born does
not mean that they were faceless
anonymities.
Just as Calvary can become
sanitised, so also have we become
used to hearing of mass killings in
various countries across the world.
How many Christian martyrs have
been created by militant Islamists
during the past few years?
We will never know. Sometimes it
takes the media to bring forward to
our minds the full horror of the
crucifixion and to translate it into
our own times and circumstances.
We know from the Gospels that
the Apostles did not automatically
expect the resurrection, even when
they had heard Jesus speaking of it.
They did not return to the Upper
Room in order to hold a party in
anticipation of Easter Sunday
morning. Peter and John had to see
the empty tomb for themselves
before they could believe the
incredible story they heard from
Mary Magdalene.
Thomas declared, “Unless I see
the nail marks in his hands, and put
my finger in the nail holes and my
hand in the wound in his side, I will
not believe it.”
Can the Apostles really be blamed
for not celebrating the resurrection
in advance? It took the empty tomb
to convince them into making a
conscious decision: “I believe in the
resurrection!” Mary Magdalene met
the risen Jesus in person – and
believed. None of them would ever
forget Good Friday: Easter Sunday
put it into perspective.
In our own lifetime, the world has
witnessed the brutal disregard for
life amply demonstrated by violent
extremists. Through them, countless
people are still experiencing their
Good Friday. May God bring them –
and us – to Easter Sunday. May we
all, one day, say “I believe in the
resurrection” – and mean it from the
bottom of our hearts.
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