The Hidden Meaning of Confirmation

There will be those who can cite Hippolytus of Rome at a thousand paces or else give you the stock  Liturgical Commission interpretation of what a Confirmation Service is all about. Yes, it is the moment when someone who was probably baptised as an infant stands before the world to declare their faith for themselves. Yes, it is the time when the Holy Spirit is invoked through the laying-on of hands so that the process begun at baptism is consummated. Yes, those who are in a cynical mood might tell you that it is a neat way of keeping bishops out in parishes, but for me it is far more. 

Tomorrow sees the first Confirmation Service that I have organised as a Vicar. I have put the liturgy together, provided some education and made sure that lemons and rose-water were obtained by a kindly sacristan. I am reliably informed that with twelve candidates it is the  'biggest' confirmation for as many years and we will be celebrating that with our diocesan bishop. It is also, fittingly, our parish harvest festival and just to add more to the mix, the end of a specific period of celebration  for the 150th anniversary of the founding of the parish. 

For the first time since I have been ordained, this confirmation reminds me of my own in 1983. Confirmed by the wonderful (and to this Christian, very special) Peter Ball, it was an occasion not just for my faith, but for everyone else's too. I remember the day, the family celebrations, the parish church's feeling of overwhelming joyfulness, and a whole manner of other things that for this 11 year old, sealed the day firmly in my heart. 

We have a large number of candidates, period - let alone for a small parish church in days when it reputed that church attendance is dwindling (not here, mate). I have a faint concern that we might actually not be able to seat everyone, but I leave that concern un-uttered. We will be a church full of guests and new visitors who will experience a service (I believe) that will rock their socks. Plans are made, rehearsals will happen and the day will arrive - and a 150 people will know how faith in Christ is alive. Twelve wonderful candidates will leave church changed. And so will the rest of us - because I don't believe that anyone who cares enough about the stuff of faith can remain impartial and unchanged when vocations are exposed and blessed. 

In this little church in west London, we celebrate with Leon, Tricia, Quais, Sarah, Miriam, Claire, Heidi, Marie, Roxane, James, Mia and Jeff - for those being confirmed and standing up to be counted as God's Chosen. We celebrate too for our own sake, as this is our day of confirmation too. 

Moments of Perfect Clarity

This time of the year is special for many ordained people as it is Petertide (more or less), the time when many of us were ordained. Already I am considering the fourth anniversary of my Making as a Deacon, the third of my Ordination to Priesthood and they have been the best of times.

The very grave issue with blogging is that as an activity it can become a spittoon or else the residue of the rumination - which it to say that we use our blogs to whine, grumble and work though our minor psychoses. Mine is no exception, although I have tended to rant less than in previous years. It struck me how I log on to complain, and rarely to celebrate in that unfettered way that we Brits find so hard. Christian Brits do celebration with an ecstasy of self-apology like so other race on Earth. 

Earlier this week, and not for the first time since my own 'moment', I was privileged to be present for the First Mass of a new priest. For those of us of a sacramental disposition, such a Rite is in many ways the perfect pinnacle of priestly experience, the best of things. One's First Mass is a stunning balance of abject terror and child-like excitement, all bound up in the person of one who feels oddly fraudulent placing a chasuble over their heads, let alone waving arms around in a liturgical way. 

First Masses represent different things. By their very nature they are perfectly crafted and long-planned affairs with every facet and movement of ceremonial designed and intended. A new priest is so terrified that each step and gesture is deliberate, considered and executed with precision. The music is often from the heart of the new priest so a provision of such wonder and true authenticity, it is almost as if the spirit of the priest him/herself is singing for us. Family and dear friends, supporters well-wishers, observers and guests - all turn out to make First Masses fully populated and thereby buzzing with the tension that the Spirit sees fit to imbue such gatherings with. In short, you will see a priest presiding his/her heart out, and a priest almost certainly a sixteenth of an inch from tears all the way through (or else closer than that in my case). From within and without, First Masses (for those who do them) are the absolute summit of all that a priest regards as special before God. 

For those of us who bear witness to such events (I include ordinations in that), these Rites of Priestly Passage do something very deep within us. They remind us. They simply do that. They remind us why we accepted God's call. They re-affirm in us the absolute and complete rightness of accepting that call and making all the sacrifices in life that such acceptance demands. We feel again that feeling we had in our hearts when it was our time to process in to our own Masses or ordination - that sense of bewildering joy and trembling uncertainty. More usefully perhaps after the fact we are reminded of how wonderful this job is - how perfect, how it is more than we could ever hope for or dare dream ourselves capable of. Even in the context of the Stuff of Grumbles, we are given moments of perfect clarity as to why we are who we are - priests and ministers in God's Church. 

So to Fr Andrew next door, and all ordinands, deacons and priests all about to pass or have just passed through these exquisite moments of the greatest joy we can know - my prayers to you, your families and those who support you in your ministries. May the Lord be with us all. 

On Being Insulted Nicely

As one of your common or garden liberal Anglo-Catholic types, there are things I do well and things I do less well. I come with my own story and as priest, it is a story that contains (in large italicized print) the whole Calling Thing and in my case one that was within my consciousness most of my life.

As one of your common or garden Christians, I have me a relationship with God that is reciprocal, fruitful and yes, life giving. This Christian appreciates a bit of ritual, regard the Sacraments as central to my faith's expression, enjoy the beauty given by things like music and practice that (probably for very good reason) have survived the test of time and can now be regarded as old. I have been ordained in Holy Orders and as one who regards those orders as sacramental, endlessly wrestle with worthiness and and my place in such a precious ministerial and spiritual place. 

The Triduum - I can do that like a pro. You want liturgies emotional roller-coasters born of ancient ecclesiastical practices? I can do that. Tenebrae? Yup! Stripping of Altars after the Pange Lingua? Yessum! The unfolding light of Holy Saturday? No problems! Want pathos squeezed from familiar and ancient words? I'm your man! Want to sense the Passion, not just rock it up? My place, please!

Pentecost? Less sure of that, actually. For I am not your common or garden born-in-the-spirit charismatic Christian c1960s. Baptized in water and glad for it, but in the Holy Spirit? Can't claim that as a fact of my past in the way meant by so many. Do I find myself speaking in tongues on demand? No, not me. am I open to the possibility? Absolutely, but the Holy Spirit of the Charismatics seems not to want this meagre Christian man. 

After this Sunday's main service, a delightful women (and I mean that, her presence here is cherished) said to me that she wished I knew the Holy Spirit better. Now - that may sound like a nice thing to say and it was certainly said with love. However, the net result was that I felt like a stinking fraud. For the rest of the day. I regard the Spirit to be God as the Son is God and so on - so this was received as the gravest accusation delivered with such grace and without a scintilla of malice or desire to offend. 

The problem is (if 'problem' is the right word) that I am made as I am made. I am the disciple I am. I am not another sort of disciple, and if being Charismatic is what God wants, and that I need to be more richly imbued with God's Holy Spirit, then I am not the man for this job. Is being Charismatic the only way? Does the Lord only want people who speak in tongues? Why not me? I love God too, in my own way. If I am part of a wing in the church that God wishes reformed into oblivion, then God will lose my ministry and he will lose me - because he will have been stringing me along for long enough. 

I am what I am, and I cannot start to feel bad about it now. It's far too late for that. 

Hardcore Calling

If you say "vocation" in a church, chances are people will think priest 'minister'. If someone comes forward claiming a sense of calling, invariably they are saying "I think I want to be a vicar". Vocation and ordained ministry have become synonymous (more often than not).

Oh that it was that simple. 

I don't deal with vocations in the way some of my colleagues do. I don't have to read the fine print and the words between the lines with those who feel that inexorable pull from God. Maybe one day I will, but not now. Now, I regard it as a tough job and one where I would struggle. 

Today we remember Simeon ('the Righteous', for there is a panoply of Simea), the old geezer of Candlemas, the fella who just happened to be stood there when Mary and Joseph carried in that peculiar little bundle of out-of-this-world new life. With Simeon, we then witness a hardcore calling, an extreme vocation. 

The thing with Simeon, is that his calling was there from before his birth, placed within him by God as he was formed in his mother's womb. This is, I believe, where all callings are placed - whether we care to take any notice or not. His calling was not to pop down to the nearest clerical outfitters for an array of Fairtrade poly-cotton tunnel-collar sky-blue shirts. His calling was not to move into a generously proportioned vicarage or take the keys to a marvellous edifice. 

Simeon was called by God to receive that Christ child - and then, basically, to die. For Simeon, his vocation to was wait an entire lifetime for the moment that may or may not happen in his dying days. When we think "vocation", we think beginnings, new directions. For Simeon, "vocation" meant fulfillment, accomplishment and endings. God, having filled the old bloke with the Holy Spirit, had kept him alive so that his eyes may see the child, the Messiah. We know that it all worked out perfectly for Simeon, for our Bible tells us so. But imagine waiting seventy, eighty or ninety years for a single moment that may or may not happen - a moment that you feel called to enter. 

Callings are universal - which is to say that all people have a calling placed upon them from God. Some listen, some can interpret that, many mis-interpret that, but some are the hardest callings of all. May Simeon become your Patron Saint.