A reader writes about Confirmation Mass and a Bishop who has it right.
We had our Confirmation Mass last night. Numbers are up — we used to do this only every other year, but in 2000 we had 36 in the class, so they decided to move it to every year instead.
Our Bishop, Robert Baker, gave an excellent homily. He wasn’t afraid to tell the kids to be chaste, avoid the devil, and dress modestly — three things they may not be hearing at home.
Be chaste, avoid the devil and dress modestly. Sounds easy enough. I have one thing to add. Get rid of your television.
It was also refreshing last night to see the Bishop whip out a dog-eared Bible and (gasp!) *read from it* during his homily. Most of my family (dyed in the wool Babdists all) would be surprised to see that he even owns one. He read from the passage about the fruits of the spirit, which are much bruited about in the Babdist church, but hollowly — they think you’re supposed to get St. Vitus’ Dance when you ‘catch the Spirit,’ it seems. And I know — I used to be a Babdist myself.
I’ve got a few thoughts on this. First, I think it’s wonderful the Bishop pulled out a Bible. We hear readings from Scripture every time we go to Mass but do we read the Bible enough? I know I don’t. I am in Bible study with some dear Christian friends of mine. I disgree with them about the Bible being the only source of Truth but I greatly admire their faith and the charity they always show. I have to admit when I started doing this Bible study last year I didn’t have many of the answers on certain Catholic teachings, but you better believe I found them really quick. For me it has been a faith-affirming experience and I have also grown in love and understanding of our Christians brothers and sisters. I would never question their faith or their love of Christ. Some of their beliefs and practices I disagree with because they don’t contain the fullness of Truth of the Catholic Church. Much of the contention comes down to definitions for crucial words like baptism, saved/salvation, faith, works, law, etc. What is amazing to see is their love the Scripture as the Living Word of God – it is spiritual food for them. It isn’t God Himself (as the Eucharist is) but it is the story of God and His relationship with His people. I don’t find it to be such a leap of faith to accept the Eucharist as the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord. But then you get into whether His sacrifice was “once for all” as in over and done with or “once for all” as in accomplished and perpetual. When you look at the practice of sacrifice in the Old Testament you see Christ’s sacrifice in the same manner, not over and done but perpetual. I am preaching to the choir here but I will blog about it further to touch on issues that have come up in this Bible study.
The important thing in any Scripture study is to get a good translation and read the Bible with the Church. The easiest way to do that is get a Catholic study Bible with notes and commentary. The Navarre Bibles are excellent, as well at the Ignatius Study Bibles. If your Church does have Bible studies or small communities of faith you must write your pastor a letter, meet with him, tell him you’ll volunteer your time to assist in the effort of creating such groups. They are crucial to community building and growing in faith and love! Religious education does not end when you are young and they tell you “God doesn’t make junk.”
No doubt Alexandra from Oremus will have comments on this as well. Her husband, one of my best friends, used to be a Baptist. They still go to his parents church some times though. She also has a lot to say about religious education I am sure. I don’t want to steal her thunder on this – just watch her blog.
Finally, the Bishop also touched very tastefully on the subject of the Crisis. We have just had allegations surface here about a Msgr. Evitt of Aiken, SC — that he allegedly molested someone while he was at the Cathedral in Charleston in the late 1970s. Msgr. just had a heart attack last month — maybe he knew the victim was about to go public — and this might just finish him off. But the Bishop didn’t talk about ‘different ways of loving;’ he didn’t blame the victims; and he didn’t make excuses of any kind. He said “There can be no charity without chastity,” and “this is a failure of chastity *and* charity.” I was so relieved to hear an apostolic successor unafraid to tell the truth!
The failure of charity and chasity. I’ll have to blog about that later – I’ve got work to do!