Scottish Catholic Observer

It’s just as well I’m sitting down to write this, as I am reeling from a complaint. Normally this paper is delivered to the parish on a Thursday morning and, straight after Mass, I am forced to sit at the kitchen table while Sandra the housekeeper and Matthew our acolyte subject me to a dramatic reading of my own column—as if I didn’t already know what it says.

Over the past few weeks I have been getting pelters for using ‘big words.’ For example, in last week’s column, I described my voice as a soporific (meaning ‘with sleep inducing properties’) and was accused of ‘just showing off.’ Well, excuse me. If I can’t expand my readers’ spiritual horizons I can, at the very least, broaden their vocabulary. After all, every day is a school day, especially for me. I’m not really into motivational slogans but I do believe that you should learn something new each day you draw breath.

In fact, I now formalise that personal goal by recording my new knowledge at bedtime, just after my examination of conscience. And, just in case I forget that, there is a plaque on the wall with the Latin proverb Docendo Discimus (by teaching, we learn). We should always have an open mind about who can teach us—and about what. In last Sunday’s Gospel, the Pharisees were enraged because they considered themselves too learned to be taught anything, especially by an unschooled— and until recently blind—young man who had previously scraped a living by begging.

I get excited by learning new things. A couple of months ago, I was having a meal with my friend Christopher whose job is to teach and evangelise the schoolkids of Govan. As we ate, he shared with me a bit of learning he himself had just discovered, courtesy of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and a talk the Holy Father had given in 2012 on the topic of Baptism.

The Pope had made the point that when the Church, through its minister, says ‘I Baptise you in the name of the Father,’ that does not mean, as we might perhaps think, that he is saying with the authority or on behalf of God: “I arrest you in the name of the law.” Rather, ‘the name’ of God means all that is God and of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

When I Baptise someone, then, I am immersing them in the mystery of God, plunging them into the life of the Trinity. Moreover, when I absolve, bless or even make the sign of the cross myself, I am renewing that immersion in all that is God and of God.

Now, at the time of that conversation with my friend, I think I nodded as if to say ‘Yes, I knew that’ but inside I was going ‘Wow! That’s news to me!’ It is just possible that I was having an illicit caffe latte in the Greg Bar while that particular sacramental theology class was taking place back in my student days in Rome.

Even if I had missed that bit of wisdom at that point, I also managed to avoid it for the intervening 25 years so that, when it was presented to me over a chicken satay, it was like a light going on. There was me, all these years, thinking I was doing stuff on behalf of the Almighty when, in reality, I was doing something much more wonderful. As Pope Benedict said on the balcony after his election, God knows how to work with ‘insufficient means’ and that certainly includes me.

Laetare Sunday—or Mothering Sunday as it is known in the secular calendar—coincided with the change in the clocks. We lost an hour of sleep but gained more than an hour of glorious sunshine. Even here, in the normally cloudy Venice of the Clyde, the sun shone brightly and the arrival of spring was formally marked by the youths of the parish casting off their tops to let the air at their soon-to-be bronzed midriffs.

Of course, what drew most parishioners through the doors of the Church was not the spectacle of ‘taps aff’ but ‘rose vestments on,’ as Deacon Paul discharged himself from hospital rather than lose the £5 bet for not donning his rose Dalmatic on its biannual outing.

Seriously, though, Deacon Paul is to be admired for his determination not to allow his cancer and the occasional setbacks he has to endure prevent him from carrying out his Sunday duties. It was a cause of frustration for him to miss out on the bishop’s visit a fortnight ago, but he was resolved to be with us for the fourth Sunday in Lent. Please do keep him (and all those fighting cancer just now) in your prayers.

Now that the high school confessions have concluded, it’s been the turn of the primary school to do some ‘spring cleaning of the soul.’ All our local schools break up this weekend for the Easter holidays (as it used to be called): fingers crossed they manage to remain in their pristine state until the Triduum!

I have my own confession to make as well: I fell off my Lenten wagon. Despite administering the temporary Pioneer pledge to myself, one evening last week someone handed me a delicious homemade burger and, having run out of soft drinks and not wishing to consume it with water, I had a slightly out of date bottle of beer to wash it down.

It goes without saying that I felt bad, but I just had to dust myself down and start afresh next day (since, mea culpa, I also had an ‘in date’ Cidre to follow the beer). After all, Lent is a marathon, not a sprint. Now that’s put me in the mood for chocolate—even though they’re not called Marathons any more.

Sadly, the spate of funerals continues unabated: three this week and at least one arranged for next week. Among those taking place this week was the grandfather I mentioned in this column a few weeks back.

I had celebrated a Baptism in his room so that he could be present and ‘stand’ as godparent for his great-granddaughter. As I said at the time, the Paschal candle was placed on a dressing table and Danny held the Baptismal candle which was lit from it. Now that same Paschal candle burns at the head of his coffin: but it is our hope, as expressed in this Sunday’s Gospel, that he who is the Resurrection will call him forth into the light, like Lazarus.

In his own Baptism, Danny was plunged into the tomb with Christ and immersed into God and all that is of God. May he share in the undying life which is the name of the Father, Son and Spirit.

Well, the sun is still shining as I finish up for this week: time to get Jasmine out for an afternoon run up to Lyle Hill and the Golf Course. It looks as though we’ll be dodging golf-balls instead of showers for a change. Have a good week and, remember, learn something new today!