Tag: What We Believe Series

6 min read

Scripture

What We Believe, Part 18: The Church in the Spirit

Father Joshua J. Whitfield

April 3, 2023 1:47 pm April 3, 2023

6 min read

2623 views

Comments Off

6 min read

The Church is a sacrament because it is in Christ. But also because it is in the Spirit. As we saw earlier, Lumen Gentium wastes no time describing the theological…

The Church is a sacrament because it is in Christ. But also because it is in the Spirit. As we saw earlier, Lumen Gentium wastes no time describing the theological nature of the Church, that it is in Christ like a sacrament, a sign and instrument. However, there’s more to be said.

To be in Christ, as we’ve seen, is to belong to God’s saving work, to belong to the history of salvation, so to speak. And it’s by that history — as told in Scripture and rehearsed in Lumen Gentium — that we are able to describe further the theological reality of our own experience as believers, the reality of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us.

Lumen Gentium puts it this way: “When the work which the Father gave the Son to do on earth was accomplished, the Holy Spirit was sent on the day of Pentecost in order that He might continually sanctify the Church, and thus, all those who believe would have access through Christ in one Spirit to the Father. He is the Spirit of Life, a fountain of water springing up to life eternal. To men, dead in sin, the Father gives life through Him, until, in Christ, He brings to life their mortal bodies” (LG 4). This, of course, is simply a rehearsal of Scripture, echoing the story of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-3), Jesus’s teaching in the John’s Gospel (Jn 4:14; 7:37-38), and Pauline teaching (Eph 2:18; Rom 8:10-11).

What’s remarkable, however, is Lumen Gentium’s claim that this rehearsed biblical story remains ongoing in us, in the Church. The Spirit given at Pentecost still dwells within in us, “continually” sanctifying the Church. That is, the Holy Spirit knows no ascension. And thus, as Lumen Gentium continues, “The Spirit dwells in the Church and in the hearts of the faithful, as in a temple.” And what the Spirit does is guide the Church (as Jesus said in Jn 16:13) in “the way of all truth,” continually restoring the Church in the “freshness of youth,” drawing the Church ever nearer its Spouse, the risen Bridegroom Jesus Christ (LG 4). The Spirit keeps the Church oriented toward its final heavenly goal, the heavenly Jerusalem; the Spirit keeps the Church aflame with desire for its final union, expressed in the final prayer of the New Testament — “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev 22:20).

But notice how the Spirit accomplishes this renewing, orienting work in the Church — “in communion and in works of ministry.” Lumen Gentium teaches that the Spirit “equips and directs” the Church with “hierarchical and charismatic gifts,” which he adorns with his “fruits” (LG 4). That is, we believe that the Spirit enlivens the Church both in its visible structures and ministries as well as in the hearts of all believers being sanctified. We believe the Holy Spirit is given assuredly and always to the Church’s hierarchical structure, to its clergy — bishops, priests and deacons. We believe, therefore, that our polity, our clerical structure, is divinely given. This will be explored further when considering the sacrament of Holy Orders and the papacy; suffice it to say at this point, though, that this is a fundamental claim — that the Church’s hierarchical structure of bishops, priests and deacons, a structure that belongs essentially to the mission of God and to the organic nature of the Church, cannot replaced. This claim is distinctly Catholic, shared though by the Orthodox Churches and even some Protestant traditions. This is why in Catholicism you’ll never see things like “executive pastors” or any other different forms of ecclesiastical organization, no matter how more efficient those different structures may be. It’s also why arguments surrounding leadership and hierarchy in Catholicism get so theological so quickly. Because we believe that even the visible structures of the Church belong to its nature as sacrament, enlivened by the Holy Spirit “continually.”

But, of course, one mustn’t think the Holy Spirit dwells among and enlivens only the hierarchy of the Church. Even though that may sometimes seem to be the case, it never is; about that, the Church’s teaching has always been clear. Charismatic gifts belong to whomever the Spirit wills, to all the holy. The presence of the Spirit in the Church — present not just in the hierarchy but in all the saints — guarantees God’s sovereignty over the Church. The Holy Spirit dwells in all God’s people, not just clergy. In the faithful nun or monk. In the faithful parent. In the old lady, warrior at prayer, praying her rosary before Mass, who scares you a little. And it’s that spiritual fact — the fact of Pentecost — that makes for the joy and suffering, the tension, conflict and creativity of the Church. It’s what makes the Church so beautiful and sometimes so strange, giving the Church “the freshness of youth.” It’s also why one shouldn’t put too much store in polls or surveys suggesting the demise of the Church; such headlines make the rounds from time to time as if on schedule. Important though they may be, of course, they are no cause for despair. And that’s because the Holy Spirit remains — always has and always will — sustaining the Church “uninterruptedly” (LG 4).

And finally, it helps to recall for what purpose we believers live in the Church in Christ in the Spirit — so that we may be formed individually and together into Christ, “redeemed” and “re-molded into a new creation,” Lumen Gentium teaches, echoing St. Paul (LG 7; 2 Cor 5:17). That’s what the Holy Spirit, continually dwelling in the Church, does: he builds up the body of Christ, in the unity of faith and in knowledge of the Son, into the full stature of Christ (Eph 4:12-13). This is nothing other than the mission for glory for which Jesus prayed in John 17; it’s just now we see more clearly how this mission for glory is also the Church and its mission — calling in Christ by the Spirit all believers, sisters and brothers “together from all nations, mystically the components of His own Body” (LG 7). This thing we call the Catholic Church of Jesus Christ.

Father Joshua J. Whitfield is pastor of St. Rita Catholic Community in Dallas and author of “The Crisis of Bad Preaching” (Ave Maria Press, $17.95) and other books. Read more from the series here.

Comments Off

6 min read

Scripture

What We Believe, Part 6: The Church that is One and Holy

Father Joshua J. Whitfield

March 3, 2023 7:00 pm March 3, 2023

6 min read

1957 views

Comments Off

6 min read

What does the love and glory Jesus talks about and prays for look like in the disciples, in the Church in the world? Again, the Church’s DNA is found in…

What does the love and glory Jesus talks about and prays for look like in the disciples, in the Church in the world? Again, the Church’s DNA is found in John 17.

“And I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, while I am coming to you” (Jn 17:11). But Jesus is in the world, in Jerusalem. But he is also speaking in such a way and of such things like glory that, in a sense, he is not in the world. Certainly, this is not an academic point, but when Christians act like heaven, then in a certain sense they are not in this world. Paul said our life is “hidden with Christ in God” (Col 3:3). That is, having taken on the life and virtues of a Christian — say, when you forgive though it makes no sense to forgive, love though it makes no sense to love — then, in a sense, you are no longer in the world. In a sense, you are in heaven. Or, better put, heaven breaks into the world through your loving action. It is not escapist; it is transformative. As God said to that beautiful mystic, Gabrielle Bossis, “Let us begin heaven” (He and I, 17 October 1940). Jesus has been glorified in his disciples (Jn 17:10). The world is not merely the world anymore. The world is changed, like heaven.

“Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are” (Jn 17:11). Here we begin to get to the heart of the matter. Jesus will no longer be physically present to his disciples, so he asks the Father to protect them, to keep them in his name, faithful to the way of Jesus. But then he says this: “so that they may be one just as we are.” Remember Jesus said, “The Father and I are one” (Jn 10:30). The Father and Son are one intimately, uniquely — “consubstantially,” as the Nicene Creed puts it — one in essence. The disciples are to be one “just as we are,” Jesus says. What does that mean?

The Greek word John uses for “one” is hēn, which signifies numerical oneness. It does not mean “unity” or “agreement” but “one.” That’s important. You see, it is not that we are called to agree with one another all the time or even to like each other necessarily. The oneness Jesus prayed for was more than unity. It was a real, numerical, essential, you-can-look-at-it-and-touch-it oneness. The Father and the Son share a unity of nature and love. The oneness Jesus desires for his disciples like that, a unity of nature and love. “Accordingly,” St. Thomas Aquinas said, “the Church and people can be preserved if they remain one.” This is not mere sentimental or even moral unity, important though that is. Jesus prays that his disciples “be one just as we are” — hēn. The oneness Jesus prays for is something thicker than ordinary accounts of unity. Ultimately, it’s sacramental, ecclesiastical — one, holy, apostolic.

Speaking personally, this is what began to convert me — hēn. Realizing that Jesus prayed for his disciples to be one, it became impossible for me to believe any longer claims that Christian division was in any way acceptable or good. It is not acceptable, and any thought that it is just is not true to Jesus’s own words, his own prayer, his own vocabulary. That Christian disciples are to be one as the Father and the Son are one, knowing what that oneness means, that certainly did not instantly make me a Roman Catholic. Yet it did shatter my complacent acceptance of Christian division, as if division and denominationalism were simply part of the order of things, something never to question. That is what began to convert me, the realization that my understanding and experience of divided Christianity was nothing like what Jesus actually prayed for. And I further had to accept that if Jesus actually said that — prayed that the disciples “be one just as we are” — then it stands to reason that he gave us the grace and energy to live in that oneness, to achieve it, if we would just let go of our hardened prejudices, question our givens.

“When I was with them I protected them in your name that you gave me, and I guarded them, and none of them was lost except the son of destruction, in order that the scripture might be fulfilled” (Jn 17:12). This, of course, is a mysterious, chilling reference to Judas Iscariot. St. Thomas Aquinas is silent about it. St. Augustine makes vague reference to Psalm 109:8. For me, again personally, I simply read it in haunting contrast to the oneness Jesus is praying for. Clearly, the stakes are high.

“But now I am coming to you. I speak this in the world so that they may share my joy” (Jn 17:13). We see now that glory is also joy. The glory belonging to the Father and the Son, shared among the disciples in oneness: the fruit of that glory and unity is joy. Earlier in the evening, thinking of Jesus’s departure — “Where are you going?” they ask Jesus — the hearts of the disciples were filled with grief (Jn 16:6). Now, because of glory in oneness, real joy is possible, the joy of heaven breaking upon earth. Like Gabriel to Zechariah and Mary, the angels to the shepherds, it is a joy that is heavenly smuggled into a dark world (Lk 1:14; 1:47; 2:10). Now, remember, we are talking about the community of believers, the Church, and the character of that community. It is a community of glory, oneness and also joy.

“I gave them your word, and the world has hated them, because they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world” (Jn 17:14). The disciples will be hated in the world. Jesus was plain about this earlier in the evening, and here he is plain again (see Jn 16:18-25). As he does with so much of this prayer, St. Augustine, in his “Homilies on the Gospel of John,” reads these words about the world’s hatred prophetically. “They hadn’t yet experienced that in their martyrdoms,” he preached. Having accepted the Gospel, the disciples — just like Jesus — are hated. But again, by accepting the Gospel — again, just like Jesus — they are no longer in the world, for as St. Thomas Aquinas comments succinctly in his “Commentary on John,” “one cannot be joined to God without leaving the world.” And again, we are not talking about escaping from the world or any sort of dualism, but about holiness. That is how the Church is to be in the world — not only is it one, but it is holy too.

Comments Off

8 min read

Scripture

What We Believe, Part 2: What Scripture Says of Jesus

Father Joshua J. Whitfield

February 8, 2023 8:12 am February 8, 2023

8 min read

4790 views

Comments Off

8 min read

To know what we believe, we must read Scripture. But what does the Bible say about Jesus? One way to answer this question is to examine the names and titles…

To know what we believe, we must read Scripture. But what does the Bible say about Jesus?

One way to answer this question is to examine the names and titles of Christ. In fact, the Catechism of the Catholic Church takes this approach (see Nos. 422-455). Theologians both Catholic and Protestant have done this for centuries. Simply put, it’s an easy way to explore how Jesus is portrayed in the New Testament — by studying his many titles. Examining only a few will be sufficient.

The most emphatic and repeated thing Scripture says of Christ, as Peter preached at Pentecost, is that he was crucified and killed, but that “God raised him up” (Acts 2:23-24). That is, Jesus is the Risen One. Such was the disciples’ most profound experience and what compelled them to preach to anyone who would listen.

Believing that central message, however, only inspired more questions — biographical ones. Like, where was Jesus from? Who were his parents? What did he do and say? Jesus was a teacher, clearly. He was also recognized as a prophet and acted like one. But how was Jesus different from other teachers and prophets? The Gospels were written to answer just such questions — to meet faith’s curiosity, the desire to know more — just as Theophilus desired to know, the one for whom Luke wrote his Gospel (Lk 1:3-4).

Such desire, such curiosity, is fundamental to the Gospels, and it carries us into the whole world of the Bible. “But who do you say that I am?” Jesus asked. “The Messiah,” Peter answered (Mt 16:16). This makes sense only in light of the Hebrew Scriptures, as is true of almost all that’s said of Jesus in the New Testament. For instance, the word “Messiah,” the Greek translation of which is “Christ,” simply means “anointed.” In the Old Testament prophets, priests and kings were “anointed.” The Messiah for whom Andrew longed, as did the Samaritan woman, was imagined as a sort of king, like kings of old — the regal fulfilment of God’s promise to David that his kingdom would never end.

So Jewish meaning, you see, gives meaning to Jesus. Such is true even for his name — “Jesus.” The angel Gabriel gave Mary this name (Lk 1:31); it’s the same name as “Joshua,” transliterated also sometimes “Yeshua” or “Yehoshua.” Succeeding Moses, Joshua led the people into the Promised Land. Jesus, in a sense, did the same. The name also evokes the Tetragrammaton, YHWH, the four consonants that are in the Hebrew Scriptures, the unpronounceable, and at times unwritable, name for God. “Jesus” simply means something like “YHWH saves.”

The Jewish web of meaning also helps us understand titles like “Son of Man,” which is how Jesus often spoke of himself. In one sense it simply means “human,” for we are all sons or daughters of “man” (Ps 8:4). Yet, in another sense — and especially as Jesus spoke of the “Son of Man,” say, in Luke’s Gospel — it evokes the enigmatic figure found in the Book of Daniel, the “son of man” presented before the “Ancient One” at the end of history given “an everlasting dominion that shall not be taken away” (Dan 7:13-14). “For just as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day” (Lk 17:24). Jesus here was not simply employing a colloquial term for “human.” Rather, he was placing himself within the destiny described in Daniel. When Jesus talked about his death and resurrection, or about the end of the world, or when he said the “Son of Man has authority to forgive sins on earth,” it’s likely that this mysterious passage from Daniel came to the minds of his listeners, certainly to the Gospel writers (Mt 17:22-23; Mk 2:10-11). It is as if that is what the evangelists wanted us to understand about Jesus, about who he is and what happened to him, that we should understand him in terms of the eternal victory Daniel mystically saw.

Another term used of Jesus was “servant.” Peter called him “servant Jesus” (Acts 3:13). Paul said Jesus “emptied himself, taking the form of a slave” (Phil 2:7). Early on for Christians, talk of Jesus as servant evoked the Songs of the Servant found in Isaiah. In the so-called fourth Song of the Servant, for example, an enigmatic servant is “spurned” and “pierced for our offenses.” Yet, by “his stripes we are healed,” the text says (Is 53:3-5). It is easy to see how early Christians interpreted these passages from Isaiah in light of Jesus, as prophetic images of his death and resurrection. Such is how Philip explained this passage to the Ethiopian eunuch, for instance (see Acts 8:32-35). It also, along with imagery from Exodus, makes sense of what John saw in the Book of Revelation, the living triumphal “Lamb that seemed to have been slain” (Rev 5:6).

Jesus was also called “Son of God.” In the Old Testament a “son of God” was sometimes an angel or a king (Job 1:6; Ps 2:7). In the Gospels, however, more is meant. Mark’s Gospel, as it reads at the beginning, is the “gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mk 1:1). The whole story Mark tells leads to just this realization, voiced in the words of the centurion. “Truly this man was the Son of God” he says at the foot of the cross (Mk 15:39). But what does that mean? To call Jesus “Son of God” in one sense doesn’t immediately suggest Jesus’s divinity. When, however, Jesus prays to be glorified with the glory he shared with the Father from “before the world began,” we begin to see that “Son of God” means something more. Rather, it describes the unique relationship Jesus claimed to have with God, whom he called “Abba” or “Father” (see Jn 5:17-18) and which, adopted by the Holy Spirit, believers also have (Rom 8:15). Jesus, in this sense, is the “firstborn” of God’s many children, those in whose hearts the Holy Spirit is poured (Rom 8:29; 5:5).

Now, all this thus far simply speaks to the hope of Israel, and that Jesus fulfills it. He was, however, called other things that say more. For instance, calling Jesus “Lord” as both Peter and Paul did (Acts 2:35; Rom 10:9; Phil 2:11) was perhaps the most radical thing one could say of him. Calling Jesus Lord carried both religious and political meaning. Religiously, one could argue, it identified Jesus with God himself. Whenever Jewish scribes came across YHWH in the Hebrew Scriptures, for instance, out of respect they often replaced it with “Adonai,” which is translated “Lord.” And politically, of course, Caesar was “Lord.” Thus, to call Jesus “Lord” was blasphemous to some and seditious to others. Which is why, for Christians, calling Jesus “Lord” was so charged and also dangerous.

And no less daring, at least philosophically, was to call Jesus “Word.” That is what John said of him, that Jesus is the Word that “was with God” and “was God” (Jn 1:1). This should be read in light of Isaiah where God speaks of his word that goes forth from his “mouth” (Is 55:11), but also in light of all the words of God and the Law, which Moses begged Israelites to keep and pass onto their children (Deut 32:46). It also evokes the word spoken by God at creation (Gen 1:3). The Greek mind, though, would have read “Word” a variety of ways: as speech, as concept, as the rational organizing principle of the cosmos. Philo, the Jewish philosopher, understood it to be the divine reason of things. This makes John’s statement startling, that in Jesus the “Word became flesh” (Jn 1:14). Here we’re talking about not simply the fulfillment of Israel’s hope, but something more. It is a unique claim that Nicaea would summarize only a few centuries later — that the Father and the Son are “consubstantial,” that Jesus is “God from God.”

Now, this is but little of what is said of Jesus in the New Testament. There is, of course, so much more. John said as much at the end of his Gospel (Jn. 21:25). St. Athanasius said the same, that trying to learn about Jesus was like trying to count waves on the sea (On The Incarnation, No. 54). There is, indeed, much more. Yet, one must start somewhere, and Scripture is the best somewhere to begin. Because what we believe is found in the Bible, and it is also where you will be found if you keep reading. For the truth is, we are all sought by what we are seeking. So, keep reading until you are found.

Father Joshua J. Whitfield is pastor of St. Rita Catholic Community in Dallas and author of “The Crisis of Bad Preaching” (Ave Maria Press, $17.95) and other books. Read more from the series here.

Comments Off

6 min read

Scripture

What We Believe, Part 37: Anointed and Sealed in Confirmation

Father Joshua Whitfield

January 23, 2023 11:20 am January 23, 2023

6 min read

787 views

Comments Off

6 min read

How do we understand the meaning of the sacramental ritual of confirmation? In St. Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians, we see vocabulary emerge, describing what happens at Confirmation when…

How do we understand the meaning of the sacramental ritual of confirmation? In St. Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians, we see vocabulary emerge, describing what happens at Confirmation when the Holy Spirit descends upon the Christian: “But the one who gives us security with you in Christ and who anointed us is God; he has also put his seal upon us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a first installment” (2 Cor 1:21-22). The words “anointed” and “seal” are used to describe the work of the Holy Spirit upon and in the soul of the individual baptized believer. That’s what the Spirit does: anoints and seals.

The word “anointed” itself contains even more meaning and insight. The Greek verb for anointed, χρίσας, is, of course, similar to the word “Christ” (the phrase in 2 Cor 1:21 actually reads: Χριστόν καί χρίσας). This gives us an even more profound sense of what confirmation does: by the gift of the Holy Spirit we are anointed, or in a sense “Christ-ed.” Remember early Christians saw Christ’s baptism and Spirit-driven desert experience as a pattern of their own experience? This is why. Because the Anointed is the pattern for the anointed.

We find this terminology in other passages of the New Testament, too. For example, in Ephesians we read about believers “sealed with the promised holy Spirit” (Eph 1:13). That’s why, as it says later in Ephesians, believers shouldn’t use foul language so as not to “grieve the holy Spirit of God” by which they were “sealed for the day of redemption” (Eph 4:29-30). That Christians were “sealed” by the Holy Spirit evoked the image of being owned by Christ. Soldiers, for instance, were marked by their generals, then enslaved by their masters. So, for the Holy Spirit to “seal” the believer meant that he or she was owned by the Holy Spirit to be, as Paul said of himself, “a slave of Christ Jesus” (Rom 1:1) — a Lord, certainly, whose yoke is easy and burden light, but who is Lord all the same (Mt 11:30).

Beyond the Scripture, we find the same pattern and vocabulary in the tradition. The Apostolic Tradition — an ancient Church manual from the third century — describes confirmation this way:

“And the bishop shall lay his hand upon them invoking them and saying: ‘O Lord God, Who did count these worthy of deserving the forgiveness of sins by the laver of regeneration, make them worthy to be filled with Your Holy Spirit and send upon them thy grace, that they may serve You according to your will.’ … After this, pouring the consecrated oil and laying his hand on his head, he shall say: ‘I anoint thee in the name of Christ’” (The Apostolic Tradition, No. 21).

Recall that a typical baptismal ceremony in the early Church saw catechumens baptized in the nude (men and women baptized separately). Stepping down into a large font, they were immersed in water three times. Coming out the other side, they were dressed in white robes. Sometimes they were given honey and milk, symbols of entering the Promised Land. And then immediately, the newly baptized would go into another room and there meet the bishop where he would lay hands on the newly baptized and anoint them with chrism, a perfumed oil used at ordinations and coronations, symbolizing the new Christian’s share in the kingship of Christ. St. Cyprian, who lived in North Africa, describes this: “They who are baptized in the Church are brought to the prelates of the Church, and by our prayers and by the imposition of the hand obtain the Holy Spirit, and are perfected with the Lord’s seal” (Letter 73).

We see the same from St. Ambrose; but from him, we learn even more. “For after the font,” he wrote, “it remains for the perfecting to take place.” He too calls confirmation a “spiritual seal.” But he links the gift of the Holy Spirit to the gifts mentioned in Isaiah 11:2-3: “a spirit of wisdom and of understanding, a spirit of counsel and of strength, a spirit of knowledge and of fear of the Lord.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church calls these the “gifts of the Holy Spirit” (No. 1303). These gifts Isaiah described were interpreted in early Christian tradition to be gifts belonging to Christ, as a prophecy about Jesus. So, when St. Ambrose said that, at confirmation, these gifts were now given to the Christian, he was describing the intimate moral and charismatic union made between believers and the Lord in the Sacrament of Confirmation. The newly baptized now possessed these prophetic and Christ-like gifts. These Messianic gifts are now given to the Christian through the Holy Spirit. Again, the anointed become like the Anointed.

Now, what are the gifts of the Holy Spirit? St. Thomas Aquinas described them perfectly, saying such gifts give the believer an “ardent desire” for virtue and make the person who possesses them hungry for virtue (Summa Theologiae, I-II 69, Answer 3). For example, we all have an innate sense of justice since it’s written into the natural law. If I paid one person $100 and another person $50 for doing the same job, the person who was underpaid would undoubtedly feel the injustice of it and likely complain because, of course, his or her sense of justice is innate. And the person who was paid $100 will also sense the injustice of it too, and he or she may even ask that the other person is paid more, or he or she may share the extra money. Now Aquinas says the gifts of the Holy Spirit make a person desire justice more. That is, the person possessing the gifts of the Spirit would not consent to such iniquity but would passionately want to do something about it. That’s what these gifts do. Everyone has a sense of justice, but the gifts of the Holy Spirit enhance a Christian’s natural moral sense with desire.

And so, biblically speaking, we understand confirmation in terms of being anointed and sealed. These two images give us a sense of the Christological reality of confirmation, how confirmation perfects our union in Christ beginning in baptism. These images and this pattern continued throughout the tradition. They are the basic elements of Catholic theology and the practice of baptism and confirmation. But confirmation is part of the single twofold event of baptism and confirmation, which for much of Christian history was celebrated within a single ceremony. Baptism and confirmation belong to the same spiritual reality, forming us into one Christ. But these eventually became separated as we know today.

Comments Off

4 min read

Scripture

What We Believe, Part 36: Confirmation Completes Baptism

Father Joshua J. Whitfield

January 16, 2023 1:32 pm January 16, 2023

4 min read

1397 views

Comments Off

4 min read

The sacraments of baptism and confirmation belong together. It can be confusing, of course, because people experience confirmation in different ways. If you’re baptized as an adult, for instance, you will be confirmed immediately after baptism. However, if you’re baptized as an infant, then you’ll not be confirmed until many years later.

Here is the reason for this. Christian initiation is understood historically in the early Church as one event, wherein the two sacraments of baptism and confirmation, along with the Eucharist, were celebrated together. This was broken up for a variety of practical reasons, giving us the diverse ways in which we can receive confirmation today. It’s critical to know, though, that these two distinct sacraments belong together — and, alongside the Eucharist, form one initiation experience.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it this way: “Baptism, the Eucharist, and the sacrament of Confirmation together constitute the ‘sacraments of Christian initiation,’ whose unity must be safeguarded” (No. 1285). Their unity arises from the fact that these sacraments work together to form the believer into the person of Christ — or as the New Testament puts it, into “the full stature of Christ” (Eph 4:13).

In baptism, a person is born in Christ — grafted, to put it another way, into Christ himself. Confirmation, on the other hand, names the experience of the Holy Spirit shedding his grace upon a Christian even more perfectly, catalyzing the grace already present in the baptized person. The words used by the Catechism are “completion,” “more perfectly bound,” “enriched.” After confirmation, the baptized person is “more strictly obliged to spread and defend the faith by word and deed” (Catechism, No. 1285). One can begin to see from this, of course, how confirmation came to be viewed as a sacrament of adolescence, a sacrament marking one’s growth and development. Confirmation came to be seen as an opportunity for a young person to take ownership of his or her baptism, to be “more strictly obliged” to live the Christian life. This, though, is a later development — a broadening of the meaning of confirmation and not the way Catholics always thought about the sacrament.

This twofold pattern is recognizable in the Bible. We see it in the story of Jesus’ baptism and temptation. After Jesus was baptized by John, after the voice broke from heaven saying, “You are my beloved Son,” we learn in Mark that “the Spirit drove him into the desert,” where he was tested by Satan (Mk 1:9-13). Some of the early Church Fathers saw this passage as a symbol of confirmation. They saw that, like Christ, when we are baptized, we too are called sons or daughters of the Father. And, again like Christ, after baptism, the Spirit drives us out into the wilderness to fight the devil.

In Acts of the Apostles, Peter and John are sent to Samaria, because although believers there “had accepted the word of God,” the Holy Spirit “had not yet fallen upon any of them.” Before the two apostles arrived, believers in Samaria “had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.” Later, Peter and John laid hands on them, giving them the Holy Spirit (Acts 8:14-17). Although in the New Testament, we do not find a systematic sacramental theology — that would take centuries of synthesis and tradition — we do find the basic elements and ingredients, as it were, of sacramental theology, including the elements of our Catholic belief about baptism and confirmation. We see that their relationship is a relation of presence to perfection and action. In baptism, we’re made present to Christ. In confirmation, we’re perfected and pushed into action by the Spirit.

Comments Off

5 min read

Scripture

What We Believe, Part 35: What About Infant Baptism?

Father Joshua J. Whitfield

January 9, 2023 10:12 am January 9, 2023

5 min read

1046 views

Comments Off

5 min read

For all our talk about baptism previously, infant baptism remains, for some, a controversial practice. Why do Catholics and some other denominations baptize babies? Why not wait for the child…

For all our talk about baptism previously, infant baptism remains, for some, a controversial practice. Why do Catholics and some other denominations baptize babies? Why not wait for the child to choose baptism for him or herself? Here is what the tradition of the Church teaches us.

First, in the New Testament, there are references to entire “households” receiving baptism. When Lydia was baptized, for instance, Luke says “her household” was baptized too (Acts 16:15). Or, in Corinth, Paul said he baptized the “household of Stephanas” (1 Cor 1:16). This was thought, by many in the early Church, to include all people — those enslaved, children, parents. Now that, by no means, clinches the argument, nor was it the most important argument for the practice in the early Church. But it is significant.

In many parts of the early Church, adult baptism was clearly the norm, a practice also typically associated with intense moral rigor. Only after achieving a level of moral perfection would a person dare to receive baptism, which is why so many put it off until old age or just before death. Early Church Father Tertullian — a thoroughly rigorist Christian — represents this thinking: “If any understand the weighty import of baptism, they will fear its reception more than its delay” (“On Baptism,” No.18).

Yet it’s clear that in many parts of the Christian world, the practice of infant baptism was accepted and even, in some places, the norm. “The Apostolic Tradition,” a manual of Church worship and practice like the Didache, but from the third century, lists both adults and children as candidates for baptism. “The children shall be baptized first. All of the children who can answer for themselves, let them answer. If there are any children who cannot answer for themselves, let their parents answer for them, or someone else from their family,” it says (“The Apostolic Tradition,” No. 21.2-4). The growth of the practice of infant baptism likely had some connection to the idea that baptism was necessary for salvation — a theological claim that, whatever we may think of it now, would have been taken seriously in earlier eras of serious faith and high infant mortality.

But aside from evidence found in the tradition, what theological defense is there? Enter here, St. Augustine. He offers a theological defense for infant baptism, saying basically that a child becomes a believer through the sacrament. “Therefore an infant, although he is not yet a believer in the sense of having faith which includes the consenting will of those who exercise it, nevertheless becomes a believer through the sacrament of that faith. For as it is answered that he believes, so also he is called a believer, not because he assents to the truth by an act of his own judgment, but because he receives the sacrament of that truth” (Epistle, No. 98.10). Now what does this mean?

Let’s use an analogy. Think of parents determined to give their children the best education possible. And understandably, they decide that the best school for, say, their teenage daughter, is the Catholic high school down the road. Thus, they make their daughter apply; they pay; they make her go to the Catholic school. Now, their daughter may not understand the value of the gift of such an education. She may not understand the good things her parents have done for her. She may even hate the school at first. But in time, she will have the opportunity to grow into the school and into all the benefits that the school offers. Of course, it’s up to her whether she succeeds or fails, but it was up to her parents to give her the opportunity. And why did they give her the opportunity? Because they knew it was the best thing for their daughter well before their daughter did. If they had waited for her to choose on her own, she may have not made a choice at all, or she may have made a bad choice.

This same sort of thinking is what’s behind the practice of infant baptism. That’s what St. Augustine meant, saying the infant becomes a believer through the sacrament of his or her parents’ faith. It doesn’t at all take away the freedom of the child to live his or her life any more than the parents sending their child to the school they know is best takes away their child’s freedom either to succeed or fail as a student. But that’s why parents have their infant children baptized because, by faith, they know the gift of the sacrament is what’s best for them.

Now we should be clear this is not uniquely Catholic thinking. John Calvin, for example, advocated infant baptism. His argument was in fact quite biblical. He pointed to Noah and to the covenant he made with God on behalf of the whole of creation. Calvin’s reasoning was that if Noah could enter all the dumb animals of creation into a covenant with God, then surely parents could enter their children into a covenant with God. “From this the ignorance of the Anabaptists may be refuted,” Calvin confidently asserted (“Commentary on Genesis,” No. 9:10). Only some Protestant groups reject infant baptism, we should remember, so this isn’t exclusively Catholic belief and practice.

There is, of course, much more that can be said or argued about infant baptism, but this brief look into the tradition is a start. What we believe about baptism — that it’s a sacrament of God’s desire for us — is clear; thus, why wouldn’t we baptize infants? For Christ bids the little ones come to him, too (Mk 10:13-16).

Comments Off