Intensive Workshop on Human Nature

I began this past week with celebrating the baptism of seven children and the reception of one adult into the Church. This is the largest number of baptisms I have had at any one time over my years at the cathedral.  For me, it stands as a milestone event.  

I found it a powerful, spiritual experience.  Following on, for the past week, I have found myself reflecting on it.  I found no easy response to the Why question, a question I am told not to ask when counselling, but, in this instance, was the big question.  It has not been a judgmental or inquisitive Why, nor should it.  Rather it has been a Why at the centre of a theological pursuit. In the end, I have no definitive or dogmatic response, nor should I have one.   

So what did I discover?  Firstly, it was a "we" experience, not an "I" one.  That speaks of who we are in solidarity as members of humanity, as members of church.  Fact is we never stand alone wherever we may be in life.  Still all these families came together from various parts of a big Bangkok.  They went to a lot of trouble to get to the cathedral and to stand with ones they never knew, ones I mainly did not know myself.  Why?  

Basically, this was about who they are, about who we are.  It is about spirituality.  The big question is not Why.  Rather it is asking who we are and how we give expression to who we are.  This is an appropriate reflection to pursue as we approach Christmas, for this is a time when we celebrate who God is and, as a result, who we are.   

As God is revealed through the birth of Jesus, so we are revealed for who we truly are as human persons.  God is God with us no matter what, through it all.  

For whatever reason, those families struggled to get their children baptised.  Life is a struggle.  God is with us in our struggle.  This struggle does not destroy us, nor ultimately pull us down.  Rather through the struggle, we remain part of something great, something greater than who we are alone.  We are participating in the divine narrative for humanity.  The coming of God through Jesus assures us of this.  So we know we are built up through life and its struggles.  

God is a mystery, of which we are an intimate part.  We live this mystery through the reality of life, its struggles, its dreams, its failures and successes.  Christmas is the perfect time for us to stand back and learn more about God and us.  At this time of the year, the Church invites us, through its liturgies, to join an intensive workshop, one on the nature of God and the nature of the human person.  Let us enter into this workshop offered to us by God, God with us, with joy and gusto.