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In many parishes throughout the United States, one of the many
positive impacts the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults
(RCIA) has had is that many newly-initiated Catholics have become
very active in and responsible for various aspects of parish life.
Some commentators have argued this is because adult converts have
“given
something up to become Catholic”
whereas “cradle Catholics” (like me) haven’t really given anything
up or suffered in order to be Catholic. Being Catholic has always
been a part of our lives and, like many of the things in life, we
take our religion for granted.
Without criticizing the notion of infant baptism, one of its
negative consequences as infant baptism became increasingly
normative over the centuries has been the loss of making a personal
commitment to the Christian faith. Many Protestants, like the
Southern Baptists and Methodists in the Bible Belt, communicate this
notion when they ask:
“When did you give your life to Jesus Christ as your Lord and
Savior?” The answer they are looking for in response to this
question is a specific date and time because making a personal
commitment to Jesus Christ is no trifling matter. For
fundamentalists, infant baptism is wrong because
an
infant has absolutely no idea of what in the world is going on nor
is an infant making any personal choice when being baptized.
To be
“baptized,” one has to
make a personal commitment to Jesus Christ as one’s Lord and Savior.
“Yes, that’s absolutely true,” many Catholics will assert, adding,
“that’s why the Sacrament of Confirmation is put off until later.”
In some diocese, like Philadelphia, “later” is the fourth grade. In
other places, like Tulsa, “later” is junior year of high school.
However, even that is problematic. As my completely
unscientific poll taken over the course of at least 28 years
reveals, what would you guess is the reason most young Catholics,
including teenagers and young adults, give when asked, “Why did you
get confirmed?” The answer of greatest frequency is not “I wanted
to give my life to Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior” or “I wanted
to be an active and practicing Catholic because I believe that what
the Church teaches is the way, the truth, and the life.” No, the
most frequent answer is, “I did it because my parents wanted me to
get confirmed. If I had my choice, I wouldn’t have gotten
confirmed.” (I think motivation is “then I could stay in bed on
Sundays.)
In the early Church, adults were baptized, just as Jesus was
baptized in the Jordan River by John the Baptist. The image many
people have of this ritual baptism is one of “dunking” the
individual to be baptized under water three times. That’s actually
an understatement. For the early Christians, the one to be baptized
was dunked, yes, not one but three times…in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. However, as historians have
written, once dunked, the individual was held under the water by
several strong-armed men and to the point that the one being
baptized begins to drown, that is, until the point that the
individual starts fighting for one’s life rather than drown…not
once, but three times. (It’s sort of like how waterboarding gets a
prisoner of war to spill the beans.)
The point not to be overlooked is that the person who was being
baptized had to decide to fight for his life in the name of the
Father, again, in the name of the Son, and once again, in the name
of the Holy Spirit. This “down and up” fighting for one’s life
in order to be a Christian was ritually symbolized the plunging
down into the “death to self” and the “death to sin” and the rising
up into new “life in Christ” and the “life of grace” for which
newly-baptized actually had to fight. This point has been lost in
the ritual of infant baptism but has been somewhat (and only
somewhat) restored in the RCIA.
The fact that so much of what the ritual means has been lost for so
many of us, especially those of us who are cradle Catholics,
requires re-entering into that “down and up” fighting for one’s life
as a Christian…not by getting re-baptized, as fundamentalist
Christians require, but by considering how that “down and up”
fighting for one’s life as a Christian is not something ritually
re-enacted just at baptism but actually is part-and-parcel of the
daily life of every Christian. The question each of us needs to
answer is: “Do I fight for my life as a Christian or do I allow
myself to be drowned and carried away by the waters of the culture
in which I find myself?”
Everything in life seems to have its down and ups. Consider for
example:
·
In your marriage, when you find yourself down and the waters are
threatening to drown you, do you fight your way out of those waters
by taking seriously your Christian commitment to love, honor, and
obey your spouse? It’s pretty hard to do, especially when it’s
easier to put myself and my feelings first so that I won’t have to
die to myself and to sin. But, then, I also won’t rise to new life
in Christ and the life of grace. How many marriages that currently
end in divorce—ravaged by selfishness and sin—would be saved if both
spouses were to fight their way out of those waters by taking
seriously their Christian commitment to love, honor, and obey each
other all the days of their lives!
·
In the life of your family, when you find yourself down and the
waters are threatening to drown you, do you fight your way out of
those waters taking seriously your Christian obligation to love God
and neighbor as yourself? That’s pretty hard to do too, especially
when it is so much easier to put myself and what I want ahead of
everyone else in my family rather than to die to myself and to sin.
But, then, I also won’t rise to new life in Christ and the life of
grace. Consider the amount of griping and complaining present
today in all too many families—all due to nothing other than
selfishness and sin—that would disappear if Moms and Dads and
brothers and sisters would fight their way out of those waters by
taking seriously their Christian commitment to love God and neighbor
as they love themselves!
I think my point is obvious. Many of us have experienced being
plunged “down.” But, when tested, many of us don’t fight to
“rise up”
to new life in Christ and the life of grace. Instead, we drink
in the environment around us and allow it to shape what we think and
what we do, irrespective of what Scripture and the Church teach.
Believing that’s what makes for a real life, we find ourselves
drowning in selfishness and sin. Worse yet, we don’t even
realize it.
Then, too, there are many downs and ups we encounter simply by
living in a culture whose members’
lifeblood is
television. Consider these examples:
·
On Monday evenings at 9:00, about 10 million people watch “Two
and Half Men” on CBS television, a series which rates
consistently in the weekly top 10. Charlie, played by Charlie
Sheen, constant goes to bed with other different women. His
brother, Alan, played by Jon Cryer, isn’t so “lucky.” But, in the
October 20 episode, Alan scores a lap dance that brings him to
climax—on screen. The stripper atop Alan is Jake’s former teacher,
the “half” man and young teen who glides through scene after scene
with what once was innocence, but is now a world-weary indulgence.
The stripper, by the way, agrees to be Jake’s tutor. That puts
a whole new twist to the meaning of
“education.”
·
In another episode, Charlie takes a blonde to bed. His mother walks
in, mildly upset. She then dares Charlie and the blonde to have sex
while she will watch on. At first, Charlie bluffs; then Charlie
says he can’t do it. The blonde lifts the sheet, looks down, and
agrees. Meanwhile, a drunken woman who is slouching on a couch
mocks the finale of the movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life” by
saying, “every time Charlie has sex, an angel gets a stiffy.”
Any guess why this particular movie is mocked?
·
The September 21 episode of “Family Guy” featured the Griffin
family watching television as golf commentators talked crudely about
the sexual capacity of a golfer’s wife. On October 2, the plot of “The
Ex List” included a lengthy discussion of female pubic hair. On
October 16, FX’s “Testes” treated audiences to scenes of two
men who have undergone sex-change operations playing with their new
female equipment. The October 19 episode of “House” began
with a lesbian bed scene. The October 21 episode of “Law &
Order: SUV” featured a dead victim of a rape with her genitals
mutilated and hands cut off.
·
Add to this the record-breaking number of recurring homosexual,
bisexual, and transgendered characters appearing on network TV. The
Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (a.k.a., “GLAAD”)
proudly announced that 22 television series in 2008 would have a
total of 35 gay characters. On Showtime, “The L Word”
focuses solely upon lesbians. MTV features regular homosexual plots
in many of its programs aimed at kids, such as the bisexual dating
show “A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila.” Added to this, MTV
contributes “Gossip Girl,” “Supernatural,” and “90210”
which collectively have featured teen drug use, cannibalism, and all
kinds of sex, including group sex, homosexual sex, and pedophilia.
All of this water is streaming right into our homes and teeming
around our families so much so that we may already be the casualties
of what once was called the “Family Hour.” Profanity is routine.
Sexual innuendo is rampant. Marriage is disrespected. And,
according to a Parents Television Council study conducted in 2007,
entitled “Happily Never After,” there were nearly four times as many
references to non-married sex than married sex in the 8:00 p.m.
so-called Family Hour. The Parents Television Council’s Director of
Communications and Public Education said:
It’s clear that there is no line the networks won’t cross in their
drive to obliterate any remaining vestiges of decency on TV.
They’ve aggressively pushed an agenda of more frequent and more
explicit and bizarre sex and violence on TV while claiming that, far
from violating the public trust, they are actually championing free
speech.**
We may be drowning in the waters of a television culture that has
nothing to do with what Scripture and the Church teach and not even
know it. As spouses, parents, young people, and families, are we
going to allow this culture to drag us down and destroy us along
with our religious and moral values? Or, are we going to fight for
our lives by rising up from this water to new life in Christ and the
life of grace?
Just because we were baptized as infants doesn’t mean we aren’t
challenged, like the early Christians, to fight in order that we
might live as Christians. This “down and up” fighting for one’s
life as a Christian is how we actually live out our baptism each
day. That’s what it means to take our baptism seriously. And,
to this end, the Church provides us with reminders:
·
When we walk into and leave Church, many of us instinctively look
for and then dip our fingers into a holy water font to bless
ourselves with the Sign of the Cross. It is a sign intended to
remind us of our baptism and the need to fight if we are to live as
Christians.
· Sometimes,
Mass begins with the blessing of water and a sprinkling in place of
the penitential rite. The ritual begins with this prayer: “Dear
friends: This water will be used to remind us of our baptism. Let
us ask God to bless it and to keep us faithful to the Spirit He has
given us.” The sprinkling is a sign intended to remind us of our
baptism and how we’ve passed through death to sin risen to the new
life in Christ.
·
At the beginning of every Funeral Mass, the casket is stopped at the
doors of the church. Standing in the doorway, the priest blesses
the casket of the deceased with holy water. The ritual reminds us
that baptism is our entry into the life of grace offered in the
Church.
Plunging down into the water is one matter. Rituals reminding us of
our baptism is another matter. But, making the determination
that we will fight to rise up to new life in Christ and the life of
grace each and every day is an entirely different matter. When we
make that determination and live it out each day—whether in our
marriages and family lives or by the choices we make concerning what
we will or will not watch on television—that is when the “heavens
are torn open and the Spirit, like a dove, descends” upon us. Then,
as this determination becomes a way of life, God will say of us,
“You are my beloved…with you I am well pleased.”
** I have taken these examples of prime time, family hour
television programming from the article “Not So Prime: The 2008-08
TV Season Slouches Onward and Downward,” written by the Director of
the Culture and Media Institute, Robert Knight, appearing in the
December 2008 edition of Townhall (pp. 52-55).
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HOMILY
