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I was speaking to a priest the other day who was telling me about something some other priest had said about how we need to stop preparing people for "a sacrament" and start preparing them to "live sacramentally".

No doubt when understood in the correct way there's nothing wrong with the above. If "a sacrament" is understood to be one off event that has no lasting significance in our lives and "live sacramentally" is understood to mean that we live our lives in such a way that both the physical and spirtual parts of our human nature are fulfilled then yes. Okay. We have an improvement.

But the general impression one actually receives is that the sacraments are not important, it's how we live that counts. The net result is to downplay the sacraments and tell people to be nice. Don't worry about a Baptism, try to teach your children to be good. Don't worry about a Wedding, try to love your partner.

This is dangerous and foolish because the Sacraments are not merely a social event to mark the fact that we intend to start being nice to a girl we like. Sacraments are a source of sanctifying grace. The very grace we need to make a sacrifice of our lives for our wife and children.

If we really believe in the supernatural then what we are saying sounds awfully like "don't worry about meals, the important thing is to live your life without being hungry". The two are related.

Anyway, the whole thing put me in mind of a blog entry by Fr Dright Longenecker...

From the distorted deity of the modernist and the un-Christian anthropology comes an un-Christian understanding of Christ and the gospels. The modernist cannot accept the old supernaturalist understanding of a Virgin Birth, the Incarnation, the Atonement and the Resurrection. These events must be 'de mythologized' and re-interpreted. Consequently, the whole understanding of the salvation of souls is totally eviscerated. Jesus Christ's death on the cross is nothing more than the martyrdom of a good man. For the modernist it cannot be a saving sacrifice. Such metaphysical and medieval concepts are impossible given his faulty theology and anthropology. At most the sacrifice of Christ is a symbol of human selflessness and sacrificial love, but even this is a nonsense if all we have is the senseless death of a political prisoner.

If this is true--if Jesus' death is no more than symbolic image, then the entire ecclesiological structure and sacramental system is no more than an archaic symbolical structure. It is a historic mythology that, at best, unlocks something within the human subconscious. It is a human construct that helps people to transition through their lives. Indeed, the vicar in the next door parish to me in England in the late 80s said as much. He said, "I see myself as a sort of shaman of the tribe. I'm there to offer them rites of passage."

What strikes me now is how honest my fellow clergy were about their paganism. Unfortunately, their honesty was rare and usually not conscious. More often they indulged in a kind of dishonesty which I can only now admit is really a lie from Satan himself, for what they did was to use the traditional language of the historic Christian faith while not believing the historic Christian faith at all.

So when they said they believed in the Incarnation they actually believed that "Jesus Christ was the most fulfilled human who ever lived. He was so self actualized that he achieved a kind of divine status. He, more than anyone else, was one with the god within." When they 'affirmed' the Virgin Birth they really meant that Mary was an especially pure young woman before she had intercourse with Joseph or a Roman soldier. When they proclaimed from their pulpit on Easter Day, "Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed!" what they meant was, "In some sort of wonderful way I would want to say that Jesus Christ continued to inspire his followers after his tragic death."

I used to think that his lie was simply being told in the halls of academia, that the rot was really only in the universities, but of course it was not only there. It had been disseminated throughout the Anglican Church through the education of the clergy for the last fifty or sixty years. Of course there were pockets of true belief and there are still. In making this critique of Anglicanism I am not damning all Anglicans.

However, Catholics who are involved in ecumenism should be aware that this is the real nature of the people they are talking to. The Anglican theologians will talk a Catholic language, but they mean something totally opposed to Catholicism when they do. They will talk a Christian language, but they mean something totally opposed to Christianity when they do. We must not imagine that this modernism is held only by radical theologians and heretical bishops. It is the mainstream.

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PS: I am well aware that the same sort of modernism has poisoned the Catholic Church too, and will post on this soon.

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Perhaps the priests who are speaking about the need to stop preparing people for "a sacrament" and start preparing them to "live sacramentally" mean it in a good way, but the problem is that it's hard to tell and I can't help feeling this kind of ambiguous language is a sign of a wider uncertainty about the role of Sacraments.

If we really believe that the Sacraments are outward signs of very real sanctifying grace then it is crazy to talk about going past them. We should be forever talking about going back to them.

We should forget preparing people for married life and start preparing them for marriage.

That dream within a dream...

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Of all the Sacraments, Confirmation can be the hardest to get my head around. It's almost a part of baptism, But it isn't. Or is it? Along with Baptism it's one of the Sacraments of Initiation by which we enter the Church, only Baptised people are already members of the Church. It's like Baptism for grown ups... but it isn't Baptism. It perfects the work started at Baptism. But it isn't a part of Baptism. I think that's right anyway...

What I do find helpful is to look at the guys (and Mary) who followed Christ before and after Pentecost. Something happened in that upper room. Something significant. Before then, they followed Christ like a child follows a parent. They take a share in the life of Christ and they try to do what he says but, when the shepherd is struck down the sheep are scattered. After Pentecost they go out to work on Christ's behalf. It's not just a change in job description, there is a spiritual change as well. At Pentecost the Church received the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit which is necessary if we are to do Christ's work which we cannot do on our own. An important spiritual event that we cannot see but need to experience... sounds like a job for a Sacrament to me.

Just like the disciples. We follow Christ at first in a passive childlike role (usually because we start out as children). What is interesting is that Church recognises that the move from childlike listening to active participation in the life of the Church is not simply a matter of personal development. It's not a coming of age thing, where we gradually change from child to adult and then the Bishop comes for a big party when we are fourteen. No. It's a hidden internal spiritual change, like at our baptism. It's a change that can't and won't happen without the work of the Holy Spirit.

So when the Bishop anoints you with oil and says "N... be sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit" N actually is sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit. N needs the gift of the Holy Spirit because without the gift of the Holy Spirit N is going to find the Christian life not just very difficult, but impossible.

Anyways, tuesday last (I'm behind on my blogging) that all happened to Ella's brother...

I thought it a bit of a shame that the confirmations took place at St. Charles. I think it's a lot nicer when the Bishop visits an individual parish and confirms a smaller number of people. It's closer, more personal and less like one of those giant Moonie weddings. The Bishop confirmed over seventy people which took a while. It would have made a huge difference to break that down in to three groups. Maybe a Polish group, a West Hull (Inc. Hessle) group and a North Hull group. I can understand how that's difficult to do with the current crisis in vocations, I mean, back when the Diocese had as many as one Bishop that sort of thing was possible. These days that number has plummeted to only one Bishop and there's no way we can expect him to get around as much.

Joking aside, our Diocese has been without a Bishop for a while and there's probably a lot to catch up on. In spite of all that, Bishop Drainey has already been around a lot more than I thought any Bishop ever would. He's definitely putting in overtime. Unfortunately when you confirm over seventy people there is no time for a mass (actually, I think there bloody well is time for a mass, but the general populace says two hours is long enough already).It was a real source of sadness to many people present and I overheard more than a few poignant remarks. I'm really hoping it's a temporary situation.

At the end of the day, confirmation is a very good thing no matter how you celebrate it. Thanks be to God that we had so many young people to celebrate it with.

Advent Reconciliation Service: As is our tradition at this time of the year, you will have the opportunity to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation in a relatively painless atmosphere during our Tuesday evening Mass this week which begins at 7.00 p.m.

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Relatively painless confession... is that like relatively dry baptism?