What happened to Mary?

At the close of the book of the Acts of the Apostles we leave Paul in Rome awaiting trial by Caesar. We are not told the outcome of his appeal, or what happened to Paul after that. We are likewise not informed in the Bible what Peter did after the last mention of him in Acts 15, where he is in Jerusalem, although his reference to Babylon (a Christian nickname for Rome) at the end of his first letter implies that it was written from Rome. It is tradition that tells us that both Peter and Paul met their death as martyrs in Rome, Peter by crucifixion and Paul by beheading.

The Bible makes no mention of theses facts, simply because the writings of the New Testament were written before these events had taken place. If we were to be bound only by what the Bible tells us on the matter, we could make any kind of conjecture about their subsequent lives. For example we might speculate that Peter got bored with being an apostle and returned to the quiet life of a fisherman in Capernaum, or that Paul became a successful and wealthy merchant and died in indolent luxury at a great old age. We don’t believe these things, because it is a matter of faith for Christians that both Peter and Paul remained true to their apostleship and died for the faith. There is no reason to doubt that both died in Rome, since this is what Christians have always consistently believe, and we continue to celebrate their martyrdom every year on 29th June.

Similarly, just because the Bible is silent about what became of Mary after its last mention of her in alongside the apostles in Acts 1.14 does not give us any reason not to celebrate the close of her earthly life and her entry into heaven. We know that she died, and that she must be among the saints in glory – on this all Christians must agree. This is what the feast of the Assumption in the middle of August, the greatest of all the celebrations of Mary in the church calendar, is all about – the ‘taking up’ (from Latin as-sumere) of Mary into heaven.

What is a matter of dispute however is the long held belief that Mary’s death was unusual in that she was taken both soul and body into heaven. Those who object to this will point out that it is not in the bible. Well, in fact her death is not mentioned in the Bible for the same reasons that Peter’s and Paul’s deaths are not mentioned, that it happened after the New Testament books were written, although many would see the John’s vision in Revelation 12 of a woman clothed with the sun as a depiction of Mary glorified. In support of the traditional belief in the bodily Assumption of Mary, two things can be mentioned.

1. Biblical precedent.
Both Enoch, ii Genesis 5.24 and Elijah in 2 Kings 2.11 were taken bodily into heaven at the end of their lives.

2.Absence of any earthly remains
In a faith which has always honoured the tombs and the bodily relics of its saints, it is telling that at no point in Christian history have there ever any claims of possessing relics of Mary, or of any tomb of Mary being a focus of veneration.

Mary's house in Ephesus

Christian tradition holds that, after the Day of Pentecost (where we last see her in the Bible), Mary accompanied the apostle John, to whose care Jesus had entrusted her, to the city of Ephesus where she ended her days and was taken by God ‘in the fullness of her person’ into his glory. This is what we celebrate on Sunday 14th of this month.

Familiarity

Bat Mitzvah - Painting by Laura Bolter - http://www.laurabolterdesign.com

A couple of weeks ago I went to the Bat Mitzvah of a friend of my daughter Dorothy. The Bat Mitzvah is a girl’s version of the Bar Mitzvah, and therefore only celebrated within Reform Judaism, and is a rite of coming of age when the candidate is called to read a passage, in Hebrew, from the Torah. All this took place within the normal Saturday morning worship in the Progressive Synagogue just behind the cinema on Broad Street.

For me this was a first time experience, and for once I was assailed with all the bewilderment that must be the experience of many people who come to church for the first time for, say, a baptism. I found myself anxiously looking around me, worrying about breaking any unknown taboo, or whether I was supposed to be standing up or sitting down. The order of service was clearly set out in the service book, but a lot of the singing by the choir was in Hebrew, and there were a number of small deviations from or additions to what was in the book, making it not easy to keep up sometimes. How similar to what we do in church! And we, the old hands, assume that anyone can easily follow our books, and understand such arcane terminology as ‘psalm’ and ‘gloria’ and ‘communion’. Yet, you know, I think that if I went to the synagogue just a couple more times, I’d very soon get the hang of itall!

Do we worry unnecessarily sometimes about making church services instantly ‘accessible’ and run the risk of turning them into something resembling school assemblies by giving out directions and page numbers at every opportunity?

Confirmation Service on 27th June

On Sunday 27^th of this month, four people from S.Augustine’s, Daniel Scott, James Scott, Anne-Marie Barrett and Kit Smith will be confirmed during the Parish Mass by Bishop Michael Whinney, along with four people from St Germain’s Edgbaston. As neighbouring congregations have shared the confirmation service for a number of years now, taking turns to host it. I do encourage as many as can to come to this happy occasion and support our candidates.

Confirmation is an often misunderstood rite. The common assumption is that it is when we ‘confirm’ the promises which were made on our behalf at baptism, and this is what seems to be suggested in the old Prayer Book service of part of what confirmation is about, and is not really supported by the biblical  background to the service. It has really much more to do with what God does for us, as the Church of England catechism puts it:

 “Confirmation is the ministry by which, through prayer with the laying on of hands by the bishop,  the Holy Spirit is received to complete what he (the Holy Spirit) began in baptism and to give us strength for the Christian life. ”

And the short Roman Catechism similarly states:

“Confirmation is a sacrament by which we receive the Holy Spirit in order to make us strong and perfect Christians and soldiers of Jesus Christ.”

 The point which is made is that in confirmation we are actually given something, i.e ‘strength’ and the Holy Spirit. It is the Latin word for ‘stregthen’, “confirmare” which has given the service its name.

 There are two passages in the Bible which give some direct background to confirmation.

In Acts chapter 8, we read how Philip the deacon brought a lot of people to faith in Christ through his preaching and baptised them. However the apostles Peter and John then had to visit them and lay hands upon them so that they would receive the Holy Spirit.

Later in Acts chapter 19, St Paul visits Ephesus and finds some believers who have been baptised, but have not yet received the Holy Spirit. Similarly he lays his hands on them so that the Holy Spirit would come to them. In both these cases it seems that there are Christian believers, but that they need to be “activated” so that they can lead the full Christian life. Two things stand out in both cases:

1.  This ‘activation’ is done through the ministry of the apostles, and no one else
2. It is done through the laying on of hands on the persons head.

The church has ever since faithfully followed this example, reserving this action to bishops, who stand in the succession of the apostles. The laying on of hands, has since the earliest days been accompanied by anointing with holy oil, or “chrism”, an ancient biblical symbol of  the Holy Spirit.

I think that it is reasonable to see confirmation as a rite of passage from being ‘nurtured’ in the church to becoming fully active members of the priesthood of all believers. It can be seen as being quite similar to ordination.  In ordination certain members are ‘activated’ for a very specific role in the church. In confirmation we are activated for the many, many different roles we play in the church as members.

We could also, looking at the Roman Catechism’s definition, think of it in terms of moving from being trainee soldiers to fully commissioned soldier; Christ. (There used to be a custom which has now, perhaps understandably, dropped out of use, where the bishop would strike boy candidates on the the after confirming them, to show that the were now tough enough to endure hardship for Christ. I believe that the custom was a relic from the Roman an but I have seen one elderly Welsh bishop actually do this, much to the consternation of the confirmees!)

Christians Together

A number of years ago, when the Diocese of Llandaff, where I was at the time, was shaken by a couple of clergy sex scandals, I remember a Roman Catholic rather confidently saying that this seemed to be an ‘Anglican thing’ and would never happen in his church. Of course it was only a couple of months before the RC Archdiocese of Cardiff was itself rocked by its own clergy sex scandal which eventually led to the forced resignation of Archbishop John Ward.

 

About the same time, the sex abuse scandal erupted in the RC church in America and then in Ireland. Even then, and until recently, die refrain was heard that this seemed to be a problem in the English speaking world, and in the case of the RC church, that it was a problem of the Irish diaspora which makes up a large part of the English speaking Catholic world, and that it revealed something rather dark and disturbed in the Irish national psyche. Again it was said that this sort of thing wouldn’t happen in Europe, in, say Germany or France. Now we have witnessed an absolute explosion of sex abuse allegations throughout Europe which has thrown the Roman Catholic church into crisis. Of course this has drawn a huge amount of salacious attention from the media, not unrelated to a certain prurience abiout celibacy, with the implication being made that all priests are perverts and paedophiles.

 

I don’t wish to belittle the crime of sexual abuse of children or vindicate those who abuse positions of trust, but let’s get a few facts straight. The number of RC priests against whom allegations have been made is just under 1%. Of these, only in about a third of cases are the allegations found to have any substance. This is about the same percentage as for any other profession, including zoologists (as has been pointed out more than once to the increasingly zany professor Richard Dawkins). Statistically a Roman Catholic priest is no more likely to be a paedophile than an aircraft pilot or a rabbi or a paediatrician.

 

However the real anger about this matter has really been to do with the culture of ‘cover up’ by the RC hierarchy. Instead of handing offenders over to the law – and it is a responsibility of all citizens to report crime – it was more often judged by bishops to be expedient to keep quiet and just move the offenders elsewhere. This seems reprehensible to us now, but. the RC church cannot be solely held guilty of taking this course of action, or inaction. Many other institutions from schools to social services did just the same – and, let’s not forget, churches of other denominations including our own.

The motive for this ‘cover up’, as the press calls it, was not always just a cynical desire to preserve the reputation of the institution, or to protect offenders. Other causes which played a part are:

1.       Naivety – the failure of authorities to appreciate die danger of this type of offence, and the likelihood of it occurring again. The assumption was often made that a sexual offence against a minor was a one off failure which with repentance would not recur. There was also a widespread failure to appreciate the long term damage done to the victim of such crimes.

2.       Concern for others involved. For the sake of the familiies of both victim and perpetrator, and to protect them from the public gaze and media, secrecy sometimes seemed to be the best counsel

When the Roman Catholic church is coming under such attack, one thing that we, as Chhristians of other denominations, must not do is feel smug and imagine that this is not our problem.  In fact, our own Anglican church is just as guilty of the same actions or inactions, and, in fact, before the attention turned on the RC church, the Anglican Churches of Australia and Canada both suffered from lawsuits taken out over abuse, leading in one case to the bankruptcy arid dissolution of one Canadian dioces, and , in Australia to the resignation of a Governor General who was a former Archbishop of Perth.

What has been most disgraceful in this latest round has been the personal attacks on Pope Benedict, both in the media and in the recent infantile Foreign Office memo. Pope Benedict has in fact done more than anyone, since taking office, to deal swiftly and correctly with clergy who break the law, and it is partly as a result of his decisive action that the cases that have drawn such opprobrium have come to light.

After Joseph Ratzinger was elected as pope 5 years ago, a Roman Catholic neighbour gave me a framed photograph of him, which I hung in the sacristy of S.Augustine’s. I am still one of his great supporters, and I look forward to seeing him when he comes to Birmingham in September.

Congratulations!

Congratulations to Emma & Matt Causey on the birth of child number three, Oscar, on 24th March.

Triduum

I would like to wish you a very happy and blessed Easter and ask you please to check the Parish Diary for the timetable of events for Holy Week. Let’s not forget that this is the greatest of Christian celebrations. The fact that it comes just at the moment when nature is bursting with new life (a symbolism which must seem sadly absent in the countries of the Southern hemisphere) underlines Jesus’ promise that we will have life and have it abundantly (John 10.10).

But to really appreciate the full impact of Easter – and God’s abundant gift – it is really worth travelling through the worship of the three days before Easter, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Eve known sometimes by the Latin name as the “Triduum” These are dramatic and rather unusual services which are both emotionally and spiritually moving, and those who have followed them in sequence will know of the impact they have on us. This is not just play acting. but as in all liturgy, an entering into the mystery of God. It is one of those things that can’t really be explained without missing the point (a bit like trying to explain a joke). and it really just has to be experienced to be understood.

The three Triduum services are the Mass of the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday, initially a joyful celebration which ends in darkness (literally) as we remember Jesus’ betrayal and arrest the Liturgy of the Day on Good Friday which takes place in a bleak and bare church at midday (this is the only day of the year when mass cannot be celebrated, which might seem strange since every mass Is in fact a memorial of Jesus’ death) and the. Easter Vigil on Saturday evening, the most mysterious service which takes us back much further in time to the original Passover but concludes with the first mass of Easter.

As I said, there is not too much point in trying to explain it all, I just urge you to try it. Once done, there is no going back. My daughter Cecily, was most disappointed to miss part of the Triduum last year for the first time in her life because of a school trip.

Welcome to the Blog

Welcome to St. Augustine’s Blog!