Dear Friends,
If you have been following The Bethlehem Community blog lately, you know that we are praying for our confirmands and those who will be received into the Episcopal Church on All Saint's Day, November 1st. In this space, we, too, are considering the life of faith, using the preparation materials that candidates have been thinking about and discussing in their meetings together. Having already considered Scripture (see earlier blog entries), we now take a look at The Book of Common Prayer-- with a close look at Baptism, Eucharist and the Ministry to which all Christians commit.
What follows here are the Prayer Book pages to read and the questions to be thinking about--
301 - 305: These pages are from the Baptismal Liturgy. They will be very familiar to you.
1) On the bottom of page 302 (and top of 303) you find six questions and responses.
What's going on here?
2) On page 304 you find "The Baptismal Covenant" which begins with The Apostles' Creed--that's the statement of faith that those to be baptized have always recited (that's a 2000 year plus tradition). Notice that the Creed is broken into three parts (one for each person of The Trinity)--
a) Do you believe in God the Father? Read this section (it's only two lines) and then write it down in your own words.
b) Do you believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God? OK, now, this time list three things from this section that you do believe and also write down one thing about Jesus Christ that you have some trouble believing (or that you have your doubts about).
c) Do you believe in God the Holy Spirit?
361 - 363: These pages contain one of the four Eucharistic Prayers. The Eucharistic Prayer is the Thanksgiving Story for Christians. Eucharist is a Greek word that means Thanksgiving. The Thanksgiving Story for Christians is God's Gift of Love given in Jesus Christ, shared by those who follow Christ, and then given again by the Church (that's us) to be shared with and in the world.
3) How would you tell this story?
** We have looked at Baptism and Eucharist, the sacramental focus of our lives.
4) What is a sacrament?
309 - 310: These pages are found found at the conclusion of the Baptism section in the Prayer Book. They are the special prayers at Confirmation.
5) What is Confirmation and Reception, based on the prayers on these pages?
365: This page has a Postcommunion Prayer, the closing prayer following Holy Communion. There's another one on p. 366 but we are just looking at this one.
6) How is the Postcommunion Prayer similar to a "Commencement Address" ?
OK, now go back to pages 304 and 305: Following the Apostles' Creed, five questions and responses are found (beginning towards the bottom of page 304 with the words "Will you continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship..."). These are the Baptismal Promises-- they were made for us at Baptism. At Confirmation, when we affirm our faith, we reaffirm these promises. Basically, the five promises comprise the blueprint of what it means to lead a Christian life.
7) Very carefully, read the five questions that the Celebrant (priest) asks. Be thinking about the when, where, how and why of these questions; the "Who" is You! So, how you might keep these promises-- when, where, why?
Also, keep in mind that you are invited to post a response on this blog.
The candidates are working on statements that answer these two questions:
What does it mean to be a Christian?
What is distinctive about being a Christian in The Episcopal Church?
If you'd like to respond to these questions, please post your response here.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Baptism - Eucharist - Ministry: Confirmation of Faith
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2 comments:
Q: What does it mean to be a Christian?
A: To me, being a Christian is about answering Christ’s call to Love. He teaches us that in order to find salvation, we must love God and one another. But what is love and how do we express it? To paraphrase the Oxford English Dictionary, to love someone is to delight in their presence and possess an earnest concern for their welfare. I like this definition. And love is expressed through service– we help those we love; we sacrifice for them. We don’t think twice about going out of our way for a family member in need. In fact, in our heart of hearts, we welcome moments when we can help because it is an opportunity to show loved ones how much we truly care. Christ’s challenge to us is not an easy one. To care for everyone in that same way, to see the Christ in everyone, requires faith and sacrifice. I know that I fail more than I succeed. But when we try, when we open our minds and our hearts to others, we are answering Christ’s call. When we love each other, we show our love for God.
Q: What is distinctive about being a Christian in The Episcopal Church?
A: When I was a kid, my family did not attend church, but my mother taught me to be a Christian. She told me about Jesus and read to me from a children’s book entitled, “The Greatest Bible Stories Ever Told.” She taught me to be patient and kind, to accept others for who they are and not what I want them to be, to love everyone. All wonderful things to learn, but as I got older, it ruined me in terms of finding a church home. As I began to understand the stories of my father’s break from the Catholic church because of their refusal to allow my mother, a non-Catholic, to receive communion with her family, and I witnessed those who professed to be Christians thumping their bibles and condemning those whose beliefs differed from their own, I became aware of the closed-mindedness of many churches. None of that sounded like what I had been taught by my mother. I began to believe that my relationship with God would have to continue to exist outside of a church family. For a while I wanted nothing to do with any church. My faith in God continued, but my contempt for organized religion grew. Then I met my wife, Claire. She was brought up in the Episcopal Church, attended an Episcopal High School, and was the most loving and accepting person I had ever met. When we got engaged, we decided to get married in her home church, St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Del Mar, California. This is how I became acquainted with her priest, Father Tally Jarrett, the most wonderful human being whom I have ever had the pleasure to know. This man knew love like my mother. He opened his heart to others in ways I didn’t know were possible. Over the next seven years, we stayed in close contact with Father Jarrett, and my conversations with him helped me to realize that The Episcopal Church was the church I had looked for as a young man, and hadn’t found.
What is distinctive about The Episcopal Church is that it allows people to remain individuals and helps to support personal relationships with God. It is accepting of everyone and welcomes all to Christ’s table. Members can disagree and still remain members. In fact, debate is welcomed. How wonderful is that! Ours is a church that believes that “continuing debate brings continuing insight.” It is a church whose foundations are so simply rooted in the teachings of Christ that it can accommodate differences among its members. The Episcopal Church is a family, and “a family is bound together not by its ability to agree, but by its ability to love.”
I like Chris's response; it sums up a lot of my own feelings about what it means to be a Christian and specifically what draws me to the Episcopal Church as my vehicle for sharing and expressing Christian community.
I would add that as a Christian I see myself in a state of perpetual anticipation. Something wonderful is about to happen--maybe something small, maybe something big, maybe even our reuniting with God as foreshadowed by Christ. Each moment is to be treasured as both a fulfillment of the promises of the preceding moment and a joyful promise of more to come.
Jesus admonishes us to keep a good watch for the coming of God's kingdom, less we be found asleep at the door by the master's return. While those words were written by the evangelist at a time when Jesus' return was expected to occur within a generation, they apply to me even if his return comes thousands of years from now. As a human being, the breath of God animates me and a spark of divinity resides in me; through that spark I share, remotely and "as through a glass darkly," God's transcendence of time and space, so that no matter how remote Christ's return is in narrow chronology, it is always just over the horizon, just in the next moment, in the wide timelessness of the Holy Spirit's flame that lives within each of us.
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