When I first wrote my last ‘update’ I included a paragraph about spiritual health and then took it out. I thought it was a bit too religious. But I’ve now decided to go the whole hog!
I can still remember, just, some of my Confirmation classes from school. Confirmation is that later part of Christian Initiation when, as an ‘adult’ – we were thirteen or fourteen – you are confirmed in the faith and take on yourself the promises your Godparents made when you were Christened. At Christ’s College, in those days, you were Confirmed in your second year.
It was part of what you did, like cricket in summer, and rugby in winter – both compulsory. It was taken for granted. Some parents assumed Confirmation was included in the school fees. You didn’t get Confirmed if you were Jewish like my contemporary Ollie Nathan who also didn’t have to come to compulsory singing practice in the chapel on Saturday mornings but did have to go to the Synagogue instead.
You must have been able to get off being Confirmed if you were Roman Catholic but generally you just were – Confirmed that is. It was a Church of England School – in New Zealand. There were no Muslims at College in those days. I guess you could get off compulsory cricket or rugby if you had a doctor’s note but I never heard of anyone managing that – not long term anyway.
But to get back to Confirmation class. We learnt some of the Catechism from the Prayer Book. It’s questions and answers and begins:
Question. What is your name?
Answer. N. or M.
When asked ‘What is your name?’ we all enjoyed saying N or M in a childishly fourteen year old way and the Chaplain, Pat Parr, was always tolerant of our childishness and explained that N or M was the abbreviation for nomen vel nomina Latin for name or names and that we were to give our names. We knew perfectly well we were meant to give our own names and the only surprising thing was that we were to give our Christian names and we didn’t know each other’s Christian names because we were Acland, Anderson, Armstrong and all of that.
But what I’ve been remembering lately, from the Catechism, is,
Question. What is a Sacrament?
That’s what I remember. In fact, I’ve just looked it up, the question is:
Question. What meanest thou by this word Sacrament?
Answer. As I remember it and I’m nearly right.
An outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace given to us, ordained by Christ himself, as a means whereby we receive the same, and a pledge to assure us thereof.
Question. How many parts are there in a Sacrament.
Answer. Two. The outward and visible sign and the inward and spiritual grace.
And then, later on in the Catechism, and I hadn’t remembered this exactly, and I will get to the point,
Question. What is the outward part or sign of the Lord’s Supper? At St Agnes we call it The Mass, when I was at school it was Holy Communion.
Answer. Bread and Wine, which the Lord hath commanded to be received.
Question. What is the inward part, or thing signified?
And this I do remember.
Answer. The Body and Blood of Christ, which are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord’s Supper.
Then, to cap it all.
Question. What are the benefits whereof we are partakers thereby?
Answer. The strengthening and refreshing of our souls by the Body and Blood of Christ, as our bodies are by the Bread and Wine.
At the moment, under Lockdown, we are deprived of this strengthening and refreshing. And we’re not even allowed with all proper care, cleanliness, distancing, gloves, masks and all the rest into our churches where this Sacrament is enshrined.
When I was Vicar of St Paul’s in Singapore one of the Chinese parishioners told me about her visits back to China ‘in the old days’. The old days were when China was closed to the West and the rule of Chairman Mao was at its height. Chinese from South East Asia continued to visit their families though they were carefully watched and their movements monitored.
I asked Joyce how she coped, as a Christian, when Christianity there was forbidden. She told me that when things were really bad she could not meet other Christians. If they were found to have a Bible they would be put in prison but, she added, of course she continued to make her communion.
But how could she possibly? I asked. Joyce told me that there was a bread seller at the local market and, though the authorities didn’t know it, he was an Anglican priest. If, when you went to buy your bread in the morning, you said some special words, a password, he would give you bread from a different part of his cart than where he was selling bead to everyone else. This bread was consecrated. This was the Body of Christ with which he fed the Faithful at the cost of his life.
I had known that in the first centuries of the Christian Church, and especially under the Emperor Diocletian, Christians, like St Agnes, were martyred for their faith. They were frequently caught when they met to share in the Lord’s Supper. I hadn’t realised until I listened to Joyce, that in my life time my fellow Anglicans were prepared to go to such lengths for their souls to be strengthened and refreshed by the Body of Christ.