Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?” And Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.” And he replied, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” [Acts 8:35-37, NRSV]
[L] Jacopo Tintoretto, The Baptism of Christ, 1580. [M] Colin chrismed by Fr. Cosmas Lee in St Simon’s new chapel. [R] Stained glass depicting symbol of baptism in the chapel.
Colin and us go back a long way. When he phoned from Kota Kinabalu to ask if we could be his sponsor at his baptism, we could not turn down the request even though we were very hard pressed for time at that particular season. Having walked the spiritual journey with him for a decade and a half, we felt very strongly that we owed it to him as much as to ourselves to be at his official reception into the faith community. Colin is representative, but only in a far more intensive way than all others, of those who bring you immense joy as you progress in age, in renewing old acquaintances and thenceforth enjoying endless dialogue on the Christian faith with.
Long before his baptism, Colin’s eagerness to receive the Lord’s Word, matched only by a readiness to act, would put any baptized Catholic to shame. As long as we could remember, he has always shown the three qualities which Scriptures hold up for praise in the positive spirit of the Bereans: open-minded, ready to welcome the Word, and eager to study the Scriptures daily [Acts 17:10-12]. And, like the Ethiopian official we read about in Acts 8, Colin has been reading the Scriptures and raising many questions, a nuisance to some perhaps, but pleasant music to our ears, always. Indeed, there was nothing to prevent him from being baptized any more.
Another old friend, Fr. Cosmas Lee of Saint Simon’s Church, Kota Kinabalu, presided at the celebration of the sacraments of initiation – Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist. It is impossible to forget his vision and leadership at the 1989 Kuching Archdiocesan Eucharistic Congress, the first of its kind in the region of Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei. It was immensely delightful on our part to collaborate with him at the central committee for a major year-long event of the local church before we left for our theological studies in Belgium.
A liturgist by training, Fr. Cosmas typically undertook the celebration in ways which were at once solemn and warm, official and personal, meaningful and touching. In the midst of a rich and memorable liturgy, one’s senses are usually overwhelmed by more stimuli than one can entirely take in and process. On reflection, three things, amongst a list of other things, stand out in our memory of the day.
1. We Are All Handicapped Before God
Before the day was chosen for the baptism, Fr. Cosmas had already intimated to Colin that if Eugene, Colin’s son studying in Melbourne, were to come home for the Christmas and Chinese New Year festivities, he would preside over the celebration of the sacraments for Colin while Eugene was home. Otherwise, he would ask Colin to join the rest of the catechumens under the regular RCIA programme for baptism on Easter Vigil. In the event, Eugene was back for holiday, so a day was specially appointed. But Colin was not baptized alone on that day. In a brilliant coincidence, or was it by design, Fr. Cosmas included another gentleman, David, for baptism that same morning, adding an immense value-plus to the occasion. The two could not be more different in age, language skills, qualification, and professions. David is a labourer of sorts, slightly mentally-challenged and needing help from his sponsor during the celebration. Colin, on the other hand, is a seasoned Barrister with a busy practice who, because of a disease that ever so slowly wastes away the bones in one of his legs over the years, walks with a limp. They, in non-serious ways, are a little “handicapped”. The deeper dimension of the term “handicap”, however, did not escape our attention that morning.
Are we not all handicapped before God? When we think of handicaps we think of physical and or mental limitations. But ponder Jesus’ simple and yet piercing question, and we may all feel a little challenged: “Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?” [Matthew 7:3] When we realize that anything that holds us back is a handicap, we at once see that perhaps our psychological and spiritual handicaps cover a pretty long list. For starters, doubt, non-belief, lack of discipline and waywardness are all handicaps that keep us from getting closer to God. Then, when we but make a slight turn to take in other, darker, emotions like anger, hatred, violent thoughts, unforgiving spirit, greed and lust, well, we don’t really want to go there, do we? Our reluctance to open up to God is handicapping us. Our inability to get close to God even though we know that getting closer to God is our ultimate goal, is handicapping us. Daily communicants we may be, but if we do not open the door to our hearts [Revelation 3:20], are we not blocking the flow of grace in our lives? Truly, we are much handicapped before God.
Fortunately, our rich theological heritage on the Church is welcoming and accepting of us who are not perfect. In most recent memory, Pope Francis has said things that resonate well with what we are reflecting here. In that famous and lengthy interview he gave to La Civilta Catolica in August 2013, the first question to which he responded was this simple and direct question: “Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?” Taking a pause, he replied, “A sinner whom the Lord has looked upon.” In his simple and most precise way, the Pope brought us all to the heart of the matter, this core of the “Catholic thing,” namely, this encounter between us sinners and the God of amazing grace. Today, let’s just say, it’s the encounter between us who are far from perfect and the God of marvelous surprises. Standing before God is always a graced moment when unacceptable sinners get accepted. No wonder Pope Francis speaks of the Church as a “field hospital after battle”. This is pretty close to the analogy drawn by Saint Augustine, the most influential theologian Christianity ever produced after the first disciples. With his concept of the fallen human nature, Saint Augustine regarded the church as a hospital where fallen humanity could recover and grow gradually in holiness through grace. Pope Francis knows that today, millions of people are, in the spiritual sense, gravely wounded. The Church must be a special place for the walking-wounded who are in desperate need of mercy and healing. We need to remove all the barriers in our lives that hold us back so that we can soar, and we need to remove all the barriers erected in the Church that prevent us from showing the mercy and the healing power of God to the walking-wounded. We need to be less dogmatic, legalistic and exclusive, and be more pastoral, more human, have bigger hearts and be more inclusive.
2. The Sacramental Character of Our Calling
Fr. Cosmas began the proceedings in a way that was refreshing and theologically sound. He began at the entrance to the chapel. Standing outside the chapel to welcome the catechumens and their supporters, he drew everyone into the inner reality that the physical chapel was a pointer to. At its commissioning, which in the Christian domain is called a consecration, the chapel was anointed and blessed. Now, the chapel represented the Church, a holy People of God, the Body of Christ and, at the same time, a holy, anointed place, a sanctuary, God’s hospital for the tired and weary. Fr. Cosmas, in other words, began by opening the congregation’s mind to the holy and the sacred. Baptism is the door to the sacred. It could not be more appropriate to stand at the door of the chapel and be alerted to the sacramental character of our calling.
As we reflect on the sacred dimensions, it is well to remind ourselves that God is God and only God is God. And yet, God relates to humans. So our Christian experience speaks to a basic truth, that is, sacraments are a particular part of the relationship between God and human beings. But then, is God not wholly spiritual and are we humans not, by contrast, physical, material, bodily creatures? Is there not, therefore, a gulf separating God and humans that is so immense that it is impossible to bridge? What then, is the basis for the contact, or the encounter, between the spiritual and the material? Two premier Catholic theologians of the last century, of blessed memory, help our understanding tremendously.
- The Dominican theologian, Edward Schillebeeckx OP, gives a straightforward answer: Apart from the sacramental principle, there is no basis for contact/encounter between God and the human community. And the sacramental principle is the embodiment of the spiritual in the material and the communication of the spiritual in the material.
- The Jesuit theologian, Karl Rahner SJ, lifts us out of the understanding of human beings as “mere ashes”. With a profound analysis of the human being as having been created with a fundamental spiritual openness to the eternal horizon, he defines human creatures as spirits in the world, endowed with the capacity and the capability of hearing the word spoken by God when God speaks to us. Made of ashes we may be, we are “spirits in the world” so structured by God that we are “hearers of the Word” at the same time.
What Baptism does is that, by an external ritual, persons are physically admitted as members of the Church and spiritually incorporated into the ecclesial Body of Christ. There ought to be no doubt about it. Every baptized and confirmed lay person is called, quite as much as every bishop, to be a ‘prophet, priest and king’ – for and in Christ. We are all called both to live and to preach the Gospel. One thing that the external rites cannot do, however, is to make people into true Christians; genuine Christian living is wholly dependent on the individuals opening themselves to the grace of God and committing to a life of Christian discipline. And yet, even before his baptism, it did not appear that our friend needed anything more really. Colin is someone who has had the cross run through his life. Suffering patiently and charitably, he understands and appreciates the joys and sorrows of human existence more deeply than most people. With lived experience of human struggles, he is in an ideal position to appreciate the suffering of the Lord and can truly bless himself and others. He is someone who, in the midst of a busy legal practice, would commit to driving long distance to deliver food supplies and other stuff to an orphanage and to spend time with the orphans. We are not entirely sure how being “baptized” can “add” to what Colin already was in terms of authentic Christian discipleship before baptism and in the eyes of God. There was no question of explicit faith; his faith had always been an open, explicit Catholic faith. That said, so long as we live, we are regulated by human rules. In human eyes, things are of course different. Now, whatever he does in the church may be “regularized”. Perhaps that would count for something in complex human relationship.
The three sacraments the community celebrated with Colin and David on that day could engage academically inclined Christians in a life time of study. Worthy of mention is that Colin’s baptism reminds us of the depth call in baptism.
- The act of baptism is rooted in Exodus, which creates a depth in understanding. What we should not do is to treat baptism as a mysterious bit of magic like “you are baptized, so you are saved”. It is far more meaningful to think of baptism as an Exodus-moment, a leaving behind a life of slavery to sin and a turning to a Spirit-led life [Romans 8]. Baptism, from this Exodus analogy, means a definitive departure from Egypt, and a refusal to return to Egypt! Even more, baptism means the baptized no longer belongs to him or herself or his or her family, but is now consecrated to God. Now, the baptised is to live according to that consecration.
- New Testament scholar NT Wright argues that for Paul, baptism means a complete change of identity. He sees this depth understanding in Pauline theology as having been commonly lost to Christians living in safe and comfortable settings. Referring to the danger to people getting baptized in regions of religious conflicts, he says: “We in the West, particularly in my tradition where we have infant baptism in parts of UK for a very long time, it’s very difficult to talk about baptism with the same sort of meaning as it has, say, in a country like Pakistan today. Somebody gets baptized, everybody knows what’s going on: you are leaving this community; you are joining this community. And it really is a death of the whole identity, and the structures and network and all the rest of it, and it’s a coming alive in this new one which is very scary. And in many countries and in many traditions today, if somebody gets baptized, they may not live very long. I mean it’s a dangerous thing to do. It’s interesting that sometimes, people of other faiths recognize the huge importance of baptism better than we Christians recognize it ourselves.”
That this baptism was celebrated with the Eucharist added tremendously to our reflection on the day. Call it personal reason if you wish, but the part that is regularly captivating of our attention is what the presider at the Eucharist says while pouring a drop of water into the wine in preparation for the consecration: “By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who came to share in our humanity.” The idea here is of great significance for Christian living, for it points to the understanding that Christ did not give us His Body and Blood because He wanted to transform bread and wine into Himself, but as the liturgical rubric says, to give us a share in His divinity. That means Christ intends to so transform us that we become more like Him. This focus draws attention to the Eucharist as a verb before it becomes a noun. With that, the Eucharist will more immediately be seen as an action – no doubt of love and sacrifice – before it is spoken of as an object. It seems awfully important to realize that we who gather at the table of the Lord and receive Christ in the Eucharist, are to so fundamentally orient our lives that we live out this divine-human calling in our lives and our relationships.
All this, at its best, upholds the understanding that Catholicism is in truth a fleshy religion. This fleshiness provides an essential aid to our experience of God’s love. The Incarnation, the second person of the Trinity taking human flesh out of love for us, is the primary expression of this. As St John puts it:
- We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us— we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. [1 John 1:1-4, NRSV]
Truly, just as the Eucharistic Lord painfully taught, you cannot love someone with words alone. Speaking of the love of God is quite useless, really, unless people can touch it, feel it, and experience it, unless, in other words, it is concrete. Our sacramental life is meant to make sure of that.
3. Learning Love in the Community of Love
Tears are a sign of gratitude, of love and joy. This is especially true of weddings where tears seem to come easier to the spectators, than to the bride and groom who are too anxious to get things right – walking right, sitting right, saying and answering right. Tears did not come during baptism for Colin and David; perhaps they and the people in attendance were too busy making sure they stood at the right places and answered correctly at the right time and so on. Tears would come later for Colin, tears of joy and gratitude, even during lunch, as we shared thoughts which inevitably pointed to the graciousness of God in our lives.
We are individuals. Yet, we are not as individual as we think we are. There is something about community from which we cannot run. One of the things is love. We need community because that’s where we learn love. We all appear before God as our most essential self, as imperfect walking-wounded, but children of God no less, always loved by God.
Accompanied by relatives and friends, both catechumens were surrounded by love on that day. In a serious sense, we cannot talk about divine love for us and us “loving” God when we have yet to understand human love. Talks about God-related love in pure theory of a theological kind can seem so unreal and unearthed, unless we factor in a prior understanding of love that is learned through the long, hard labour of life. In her Monastic Way, Sr. Joan Chittister puts it well for us:
- Love is something learned only by the long, hard labor of life. It is sometimes over before we’ve even known we had it. We sometimes destroy it before we appreciate it. We often have it and simply take it for granted… But sometimes, if we’re lucky, we live long enough to grow into it in such a way that because of it we come to recognize the value of life.
- As the years go by, we come to love flowers and cats and small infants and old ladies and the one person in life who knows how hot we like our coffee. We learn enough about love to allow things to slip away and ourselves to melt into the God whose love made all of it possible. Sometimes we even find a love deep enough to detach us from the foam and frills of life, all of which hold us captive to things that cannot satisfy. Sometimes we live long enough to see the face of God in another. Then, in that case, we have loved.
Without being too pious about it, we can certainly say that our prayers in the chapel that morning took on a slightly different hue. We were much more aware of others praying at the same moment throughout the world, and of the mystery of how God’s relationship with each one of us was still uniquely personal.
Copyright © Dr. Jeffrey & Angie Goh, May 2014. All rights reserved.
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