Abandoned At The Font

Abandoned At The Font

Reading ‘between the lines’ takes practice. Jesus’ teaching in the first part of this Sunday’s Gospel: “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”(Luke 17:5-6) may fire up a challenge in a precocious young mind such as; “I’ve tried that and it didn’t work!”

Young peoples’ challenges to Faith in Jesus may be disguising real questions they are embarrassed to ask. Pushed-for-time parents may unthinkingly brush aside such a challenge thereby losing an important teaching moment.

Jesus always has time. “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”’ (Jesus’ words in Matt 19:14)

Making time to expound your personal appreciation of a Truth of Faith to a questioning child, whom you promoted to Baptism, is delivering on the promise you make at the Baptismal font. Here’s a reminder:

The celebrant asks: “What name have you given to your child?” The parents announce the name(s)

The celebrant continues: “What do you ask of God’s Church for your child?” The parents say clearly: “Baptism”. 

Then, the celebrant, speaking on behalf of the Church community, addresses the parents:

“You have asked to have your child Baptised. In doing so you are accepting the responsibility of training him (her) in the practice of the faith. It will be your duty to bring him (her) up to keep God’s commandments as Christ taught us, by loving God and our neighbour. Do you clearly understand what you are undertaking?” 

Parents:  “We do.”

Some will argue that, for too long, Catholic primary education undermined the parents’ priority role in developing God’s seed of faith to their children. That role remains the most important gift a Baptised, believing parent has to give their child. Other gifts are time-limited; this one is eternal. Moreover, it’s at the heart of Evangelisation. Telling your child to ask their teacher in school or another adult in the family is the equivalent of saying their challenge/question isn’t important to you and yet you, as mum or dad, are so important to your child. It would be more honest to say so if you don’t have a clear understanding yourself and then, with your child, find the pathway to that understanding.

Genuine faith is so much more than Sunday Mass and daily prayer. It’s good to remember that our ‘morning offering’ consecrates the entire activity of our day as prayer, not just the time spent in actual prayer. Faith is believing without seeing, praying without ceasing and trusting, without proof, that God is – that Jesus is – and that the Holy Spirit dwells within. Faith is that deep, strong, blessed restlessness that drives believers so much that they cannot settle down in this world as if there were no hereafter with God. Abraham, our father in faith, went out from the land of his fathers and became a wanderer in the land of promise. He left one thing behind  – his earthly understanding – and he took one thing with him – his faith in God. (Kierkegaard ‘Provocations’

Most people lead, cautious, ‘safety first’ lives. However, we are disciples of Jesus and Abraham’s descendants! We must accept the risk of trusting God fully without complete pre-knowledge of what may come or where we might be called to be. If ‘faith’ can see every step of the way, then it’s not really ‘faith’.

For faith in Jesus to take root its presentation has to be clear, uncompromised and uncluttered. Theological brilliance is not necessary but it does need to be resonant with love – your love for your child and for God, attractively visible to your child in your daily life.

With the essential collaboration of the Holy Spirit faith is built little by little. It could be compared to a coral reef – delicate and fragile in formation but, when bonded in unity, able to tame the ocean.

The heading, ‘Abandoned At The Font’, refers to the countless number of infants baptised into the Catholic Church whose on-going formation through parents and family borders on the non-existent.

Among the reasons for this might be:

–     The parent’s school-based religious formation bears little resemblance to the teaching methods used in Catholic schools today.

–     The parent’s mainly rote ‘catechism’ learning may not have been taken to heart. Launched into life with such a lack of commitment, many had only tenuous links with ‘the Church’ through births, marriages and death. These links are more functional than faith revealing.

When Jesus said: “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed …..” his intention was to embrace even the least well catechised. A dormant seed can be helped to germinate, provided it hasn’t been crushed.

Imagine the scene at a primary school gate on a sunny June afternoon. As school ended, an infant child came running out clutching an A4 sheet on which, in class, she had drawn her picture of Jesus to be taken home for their mothers. The teacher had praised this infant’s work. Her little face was a picture of sheer happiness as she ran to her mother, who was in conversation with other adults. The child failed to win her mother’s attention, so she tried again. The child was shouted at then and the picture she held out to her mother was waved away. I picked it up later from the gutter. That child’s ‘world’ had been trashed by the one person who mattered most to the child, her mother. Jesus, too, had been ‘trashed’. Had the class teacher asked the following day what anyone’s mother had said about their child’s drawing, you can be sure one little pupil’s eyes and head would have been lowered! Even tiny mustard seeds can be crushed.

Erik Erikson (1902–1994), a German-born American developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst, was known for his theory on psychosocial development of human beings. He may be most famous for coining the phrase ‘identity crisis’.

Erikson proposed a lifespan model of development, taking in five stages up to the age of 18 years and three further stages beyond, well into adulthood.  He put a great deal of emphasis on the adolescent period, feeling it was a crucial stage for developing a person’s identity. He maintained that personality develops in a predetermined order, and builds upon each previous stage. This is called this the epigenic principle:-

(1)   that the human personality, in principle, develops according to steps predetermined in the growing person’s readiness to be driven toward, to be aware of, and to interact with, a widening social radius;

(2)   that society, in principle, tends to be so constituted as to meet and invite

this succession of potentialities for interaction and attempts to safeguard

and encourage the proper rate and the proper sequence of their

enfolding.

In ‘Identity, Youth and Crisis’, Erikson makes the epigenetic principle clearer by saying that, “this principle states that anything that grows has a ground-plan and that out of this ground plan the parts arise each having its special ascendancy until all parts have risen to form a functioning whole.”

The optimum outcome of this ‘maturation timetable’ is a wide and integrated set of life skills and abilities that function together within the autonomous individual. Erikson was interested in how children socialise and how this affects their sense of self. A balanced sense of self is essential for developing inter-personal skills including, naturally, their relationship with Jesus.

I’m not qualified to make a professional assessment of Erikson’s theory. His ‘stages’ do offer a new perspective on – “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed…” Experience shows that if a disruptive relationship impacts in a child’s early years, the effects of the injury or injuries ricochet through subsequent stages.

The same is true in the spiritual world. If Baptism begins and ends at the font, the emerging Christian remains stunted. A child may claim the ‘Catholic’ label but have no understanding of how to forge a personal relationship with Jesus Christ or the truths of the Catholic Faith.

The restored prominence of the ‘The Catechumentate’ came about as a result of the Second Vatican Council.  It is also known as the ‘RCIA’ (Rite of the Christian Initiation of Adults). Its final stage is called the Mystagogian period. The Catholic local community is called to walk with the newly Baptised, infant and adult, giving encouragement, example, fellowship and a real sense of community. The Mysytagogian period has no time limit as our awareness of God is growing until we surrender our self to Jesus in the moment of our death. The Mysytagogian period is where all the Baptised are, whatever their age, though how many recognise and actively participate in this on-going journey gives cause for concern. The ‘seed’ of faith each of the Baptised has received requires continuous nurturing, in and through the life of the worshipping community, from birth to re-birth.

An accompaniment to this Sunday’s Gospel would be Jesus’ parable of ‘The Sower’ in Matthew 13: 3-9. Parents, Godparents and close family could find much fruit for reflection on the specific vocation to which they committed themselves when they promoted their loved one(s) to Baptism.
Footnote:
Erikson’s (1959) theory of psychosocial development has eight distinct stages.