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Sunday::May 19, 2024

Tactile Spirituality

K

ith and kin all gathered together to be present at the baptism of my son today. John Antonio is now a member of the Christian community, endowed with powerful graces that will be at his disposal for the rest of his life. I love that God works in this way -- that He infuses real, physical acts with real spiritual power. Taking the spiritual life out of the head, and into the real world is such a powerful invitation. It's not enough to be sorry for your sins, you have to ask forgiveness out loud to one of God's apostles; you can't just appreciate the words of the Bible, you have to have water poured on your head in His name; you can't just go around starting your own congregations, but need to be inducted into the orders of His Church; and so on an so forth.

There's a common protestant protestation against the idea of the Communion of Saints: "Why should I ask for the intercession of a saint? As a Christian, I can just go straight to God to help me!" And this is in some sense true. However, I think we could ask these protesters: "When your car breaks down, why do you call a mechanic to fix it for you? As a Christian, couldn't you just go straight to God to help you?" The answer is, technically yes -- but God made the world He made, and the vast majority of the time we take it on ourselves to act within its normative structures of use and power; in fact, we understand that most of the time it is precisely in this way that God is acting in our lives, both via being the sustainer of the universe, and more specifically via His Providence.

The Communion of Saints is exactly like this. God has ordained an order, and given powers to certain beings within that order to do His will. It is His will that mechanics mend cars, and it is His will that saints intercede on behalf of the faithful. This is the way of the New World He has wrought.