Purgatory...CNY...and the super new website!

Well, it’s been over three weeks since I posted...and there was a reason for it. Three weeks ago I was hit by a triple whammy of shingles, a possible ocular migraine and high blood pressure. So, I was confined to bed and fed a diet of day-time Sky television (- thank goodness for re-runs of ‘Bargain Hunt’, the auctions programme!).   

I always thought shingles was a disease suffered by the very elderly and that I would have another twenty or thirty years of peace before it hit me – wrong!

Front of body (side and back not shown)

The spots appeared overnight, on one half of the trunk, on the front and on the side and on the back. And they were extremely sensitive, rather painful at times - causing at least a couple of utterly sleepless nights – and then turned itchy beyond belief. At one stage it felt like my body was on fire, which reminded me of Purgatory (and the Other Place).

The jury is out on whether Purgatory (the after-death purification that leads to a level of holiness permitting entry to Heaven) is a geographic place where excruciating pain of the senses happens - the early Church Fathers favoured a cleansing fire - or the later, equally painful but entirely mental, realisation of one’s separation from God and a desperate longing for Him – or a mixture of both, or something entirely different. Various visionaries have referred to Purgatory and it is interesting to compare the testimony of, say, St. Faustina and the Medjugorje seers. 

On a lighter note, today is the first day of the Chinese New Year (CNY) of the Horse.

So, Happy New Year! Kung Hei Fat Choi!

As I walked through Chinatown in London today, the area was awash with strings of red lanterns and decorations. CNY is a happy time, a family reunion time, a time for celebrating, feasting and eating auspicious foods.

 

 Finally, the website of Sacred Heart Church in Hove has been updated – and it’s really good. Go on – have a look!

Sacred Heart Church, Hove

The Devil is in the Detail

I was intrigued to read at the weekend of the Church of England’s proposal to banish references to the Devil and to sin from the Church’s baptism ceremony.

Apparently, in some of the key parts, the candidate now says ‘...Oppose the power of evil...’ instead of ‘Fight valiantly...against sin, the world and the devil...’ Also, the question ‘Do you reject the devil..?’ becomes ‘...Do you reject evil...?’

So, the Church wants to do away with the idea of the devil as a personal reality, and sin, the result of an offence against God, becomes the generic notion of evil, a moral category.

There are dissenting voices and I’m with the theologian and former Bishop of Rochester, Nazir-Ali, who writes ‘because of (the Church’s) anxiety to make everyone feel welcome and its desire not to offend anyone...(there is a trend to) ...minimise depth and mystery in its worship...(which may) reduce the fullness of the Church’s faith to easily swallowed soundbites.’ (The Mail on Sunday).

There is a similar unease at times in the Catholic Church. As a catechist, I’m familiar with the Rite of Infant Baptism which contains a Prayer of Exorcism followed by anointing with the Oil of Catechumens.

Following the 1973 horror movie ‘The Exorcist’ and its successors, the public associates the word exorcism with diabolical excesses and scary antics such as head-spinning and projectile vomiting. It is difficult to fathom why the cute infant being baptized should require a prayer of exorcism. What evil spirit is it that inhabits the child, requiring such a prayer?

The answer lies in understanding the intention of the prayer and of the anointing that follows it.

First, it addresses the ‘reality’ of Satan who successfully tempted our first human ancestors to disobey God the creator, thereby grafting the sin gene onto the DNA of the human race.

Almighty and ever-loving God,
You sent your only Son into the world
To cast out the power of Satan, spirit of evil,
To rescue man from the kingdom of darkness,
And bring him into the splendour of your kingdom of light.

Then, it invokes divine assistance in negating the inherited condition of potential for sin and prays for ongoing protection through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

We pray for these children:

Set them free from original sin,
Make them temples of your glory,
And send your Holy Spirit to dwell within them.
Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

 Infant baptism is driven by the faith of the parents, godparents and community. Thus, the prayer references (what should be their common and key) beliefs including creation, the creator God, the only Son and the Holy Spirit, the reality of sin – the root of which is a lack of love, its origin in Satan, the need for rescue and ultimate unity with the creator of light.

This is echoed during the anointing with oil when the priest prays that ‘Christ may strengthen’ the infant with his power.

So, rather than expelling some demonic entity in the child, the prayer reflects on the origin and reality of sin or the lack of love. To remedy that omission, the eternal and loving creator sent His only son to teach, to demonstrate divine love and to die for us, redeeming us in the process. The prayer asks God to strengthen the infant so that he or she will make the right choices when, in future, there are difficult decisions and temptations to face, and the potential for sinning.

And who is the author of sin? Inspired scripture tells us it is the devil/Satan/Lucifer. In fact, it mentions him no less than 107 times (KJV according to an internet source). That’s not an accident.

We can apply a broad brush and chose many synonyms (sin-onyms maybe) to describe sin – but the Devil is still in the detail!

New Year's Eve and Cousin Helena

The mains

Two or three photos from last night's New Year's Eve dinner at the Sacred Heart Church's winter night shelter. Maestro Georges did us proud, as usual, this time with a buffet selection of salad, cold meats, quiches, salmon, prawn, cold and hot gammon ham, chicken drumsticks, satays, soup, potato, coleslaw, olives...and more.

and pudding too!

There was pudding to follow, I can still taste the Black Forest respberry gateau, Alas, I didn't manage any lemon tart and was too full for the mince pies - but I did snack on a heavily-fruited Christmas Cake (maybe it counts as one of the five-a-day fruit and veg?).

Much more importantly, the men piled their plates, with several telling me that it was the best food that they had for a long time. We've concentrated on providing nourishing hot dishes so far this winter, but I can see that variety and an extra effort at Christmas and New Year does a lot to raise the spirits, which is important when, just a few hours later, you are back on the streets, in the cold, trying to dodge the heavy rain showers, passing the time until the next shelter opens its doors.  

And I met a reader. It's rare that someone mentions to me that they've stumbled across this blog, so rare that there's a sudden flash of pleasure, like meeting distant family, maybe a second cousin twice removed that you didn't know existed. So, hello cousin Helena, glad you enjoy it.

Chilling out...