SYCAMORE: The Catholic Faith Explained

THE CATHOLIC FAITH EXPLAINED Fr Stephen Wang

All booklets are published thanks to the generosity of the supporters of the Catholic Truth Society

Contents Introduction..................................................................................................... 7 How to use this book..................................................................................... 8 THE SEARCH FOR HAPPINESS............................................................. 11 1A The impossibility of sitting still........................................................... 12 1B What is happiness?............................................................................... 15 1C How to press the pause button......................................................... 18 THE EXISTENCE OF GOD....................................................................... 25 2A Why bother thinking about religion?................................................ 26 2B Five reasons not to believe in God................................................... 29 2C Arguments for the existence of God............................................... 33 A GOD WHO SPEAKS.............................................................................. 39 3A The hiddenness of God....................................................................... 40 3B When God broke the silence.............................................................. 43 3C Discovering the face of God.............................................................. 46 WHO IS JESUS?.......................................................................................... 53 4A He came to bring life to the world.................................................... 54 4B The saving death of Jesus................................................................... 57 4C The meaning of the Resurrection.................................................... 60 THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE CHURCH............................................... 67 5A How the Holy Spirit can change your life....................................... 68 5B No one gets into heaven alone...........................................................71 5C Why we need signs, symbols and sacraments............................... 75 THE BIBLE.................................................................................................... 81 6A What is the Bible?................................................................................. 82 6B Can we trust the Bible?....................................................................... 85 6C How the Bible can change your life................................................. 89 FAITH............................................................................................................ 95 7A What is faith?...........................................................................................96 7B Are Christians just stupid or are there good reasons to believe?......99 7C How to take a step of faith............................................................... 102

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PRAYER.......................................................................................................109 8A What is prayer?.................................................................................... 110 8B Does prayer make a difference?...................................................... 114 8C How to pray.......................................................................................... 117 FINDING TRUE FREEDOM...................................................................123 9A Is there such a thing as right and wrong?...................................... 124 9B Where can we find moral guidance?.............................................. 127 9C How do you discover your true identity?......................................130 THE MEANING OF LOVE......................................................................137 10A What is love?...................................................................................... 138 10B How to love your neighbour.......................................................... 141 10C The love of God................................................................................ 145 THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY..........................................................151 11A The Christian Creed......................................................................... 152 11B The Light of Christ............................................................................ 155 11C The Holy Trinity.................................................................................158 CREATION, FALL, REDEMPTION.......................................................165 12A The goodness of creation............................................................... 166 12B Suffering and sin............................................................................... 169 12C The gift of salvation......................................................................... 173 THE COMMUNITY OF CHURCH........................................................179 13A Why do we need the Church?....................................................... 180 13B The special place of the Catholic Church................................... 183 13C Being Catholic today........................................................................ 187 THE SACRAMENTS OF BAPTISM AND CONFIRMATION . .......195 14A The power of the sacraments and the liturgy........................... 196 14B How baptism can change your life...............................................200 14C Confirmation and the gift of the Holy Spirit..............................203 THE HOLY EUCHARIST.........................................................................209 15A The meaning of the Mass............................................................... 210

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15B The Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.............................. 214 15C The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass..................................................... 218 FORGIVENESS, CONFESSION, HEALING AND MISSION...........225 16A Forgiveness and the sacrament of confession.......................... 226 16B Healing and the sacrament of the sick........................................230 16C Christian mission and the call to share our faith.......................234 SINGLE LIFE, MARRIAGE, ORDINATION, CONSECRATION .....241 17A The meaning of vocation................................................................ 242 17B Marriage and family life................................................................... 245 17C Ordination and consecrated life.................................................... 249 THE SOCIAL TEACHING OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH............. 257 18A The dignity of the human person and the right to life............258 18B Christian teaching about family and society.............................. 262 18C Speaking the truth and following conscience............................ 266 THE ADVENTURE OF PRAYER............................................................273 19A The amazing adventure of prayer................................................. 274 19B Four basic ways of praying............................................................. 277 19C Prayers and devotions to help you through the day................ 281 THE HOPE OF HEAVEN........................................................................289 20A Death, judgement, and our longing for eternal life..................290 20B Holiness, the saints, and our hope for heaven..........................293 20C What Catholics believe about the Blessed Virgin Mary......... 297 GOING DEEPER...................................................................................... 304 Online videos and websites....................................................................304 Books............................................................................................................305

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Introduction Many people are seeking to explore the Christian faith, or deepen the faith that they already have.

Sycamore looks at the central beliefs and practices of Catholic Christianity, and the most common questions that people raise. It’s written in a conversational style, with stories and anecdotes to bring the ideas alive.

At the heart of each chapter there is a clear presentation of what exactly Christians believe and why this faith is especially important today.

Topics include the search for happiness, the existence of God, the death and Resurrection of Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the Church, the Bible, the gift of faith, and the power of prayer.

There are chapters about the seven sacraments, the moral and social teaching of the Church, the Christian vocation, Mary and the saints, and the hope of heaven.

This book grew out of a course that has been used in Christian churches and chaplaincies around the world. You can find out more about the course at the Sycamore website, which includes information for Christian leaders about how to run Sycamore in your local communities: www.sycamore.fm

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THE CATHOLIC FAITH EXPLAINED

Why the name “Sycamore”? In the Bible, Jesus comes to the town of Jericho. A man called Zacchaeus is so curious about Jesus that he climbs a Sycamore tree to get a better view.

When he finally meets him, they begin a conversation, and his life is changed for ever. Sycamore is meant to help you get a better view on the big questions of life, so you can find the best way forward.

How to use this book Questions for reflection: These questions help you connect your

own life with the ideas that are being presented in each section.

They were originally used in the context of group discussions.

Some of them are very simple and personal because they were designed as ice-breakers to help people get to know each other. Some of them go a lot deeper.

Wisdom from the Bible: These pages bring together quotations

from Holy Scripture that are relevant to each chapter. They show how Christian teaching is rooted in the Word of God which speaks to us through the words of the Bible. The quotations can be used in your personal prayer or meditation.

If you are running a prayer group or a Bible study group then you can reflect on the passages together.

Readings from YOUCAT: The passages from the Youth Catechism of the Catholic Church will help you deepen your understanding of each topic. YOUCAT is not just for young people, but for any adults wanting a clear and attractive explanation of the Christian faith. The text of YOUCAT is not available online, but you can order a copy from the Catholic Truth Society and look up the relevant paragraphs.

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INTRODUCTION

Longer readings from the Catechism of the Catholic Church: These

passages will enable you to go even deeper. Here you can find references to the main Catechism of the Catholic Church, which presents the Christian faith in all its fullness. The text of the Catechism is available online (see the website links on page 304), or you can order a copy of the book from the Catholic Truth Society.

Explore the Sycamore films: Each chapter in this book is based

on a film from the Sycamore programme. You can watch the twenty individual films online here: www.sycamore.fm/videos Watch the short videos: Each of the sub-sections within each

chapter has its own short video associated with it (e.g. 1B “What is happiness?” or 4C “The meaning of the Resurrection”).

You can watch the sixty “Sycamore Shorts” on the Sycamore website: www.sycamore.fm/shorts or on YouTube: https://www. youtube.com/c/SycamoreSeek Going deeper: At the end of the book there is a short list of

websites and books that will help you continue to explore the Christian faith.

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1A THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF SITTING STILL

1B WHAT IS HAPPINESS?

1C HOW TO PRESS THE PAUSE BUTTON

CHAPTER 1

THE SEARCH FOR HAPPINESS

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1A The impossibility of sitting still

I

grew up on an ordinary street, in an ordinary town near the city of St Albans in Hertfordshire. But at the bottom of the hill where we lived was a river that ran down the east side of town.

I’d play there with my brother at the weekends or after school.

It was a place of incredible discovery and adventure.

We’d dig in the riverbed, looking for lost treasure: a discarded bottle or a bicycle wheel. We’d hide in the reeds, pretending to be cowboys. Or we’d follow the course of the water, racing along the river bank, not knowing where it would lead us, wondering how far we dared to go before mum wanted us back for supper.

Now these were just children’s games. But it says something about the human heart that is true for adults as much as it is for children.

On the one hand, we like safety and security: family and friends; food in the fridge; a bed to sleep in; a door to lock at night. We are very domestic creatures, and the idea of home is almost built into us like an internal compass. I think it explains why Grand Designs and a hundred other TV programmes about housebuilding are so popular.

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CHAPTER 1: THE SEARCH FOR HAPPINESS

On the other hand, we long for adventure, romance, and a little bit of drama. We get easily bored. The writer Jack London said that our deepest purpose is to live, and not just to exist.

You see this in all the great road movies, when the hero leaves home, willingly or unwillingly, and discovers the freedom of the road. You see this in every classic Western, when the cowboy gets on his horse and rides into the wilderness, looking for riches or romance, or both. It’s the Greek mythology of The Odyssey; it’s Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz; it’s Frodo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings. It’s the idea of being on a quest.

I can recall my very first memory. I was nearly three, tucked up in bed, and my father woke me in the middle of the night. He carried me into the living room and sat me on his lap in front of the TV. I distinctly remember the darkness of the room, and the glow of the screen, as we looked at these grainy black and white images of the very first moon landing.

THE CATHOLIC FAITH EXPLAINED

I think Dad wanted me to be part of that great adventure, even if I didn’t fully understand what it meant at the time. To see Neil Armstrong stepping down from the lunar module onto the surface of the moon. To see that there is always something beyond – beyond the horizon. He was teaching me never to get too settled, or too complacent.

There is a restlessness in every human heart. It’s good to acknowledge it now and then. We’re searching for something.

We’re made for something more. It doesn’t mean I need to pack up my bags and walk out the door: probably not a good idea. But at least I can give myself permission to listen to the deepest longings of my heart and ask the question: What am I really searching for?

Questions for reflection What games or activities did you enjoy as a child? What was your greatest adventure?

What part of the world did you grow up in and what was it like growing up?

What questions did you have when you were a child? What did you wonder about?

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1B What is happiness?

Y

ou may have seen videos of the famous “marshmallow test” that was done at an American university in the 1970s.

A young child sits at a table with a single marshmallow on a plate in front of them. The adult tells them they have a choice: they can either eat the marshmallow straight away, or if they wait for fifteen minutes without eating it, they will be given a second marshmallow – and then they can eat them both.

The adult leaves the room. And you see the agony of these children, one after the other, trying not to eat the marshmallow: staring intently at it; looking up at the ceiling and pretending it’s not there; touching it; sniffing it; sometimes taking the tiniest nibble from the corner; and sometimes just giving up completely and gulping down the whole piece. The experiment is about self-control and desire, and what this says about us as human beings.

Sometimes desire is uncomplicated. We want food, friendship, freedom, love, security. We want the things in front of us. We want the things we don’t have. If you’ve been fired, you want a new job. If you’ve lost your keys, you want to find them. If you’re practising for your driving test, you hope you can pass the first time. But sometimes we realise we are looking for something more.

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THE CATHOLIC FAITH EXPLAINED

The Greek philosopher Aristotle said we are all searching for happiness, even if we can’t agree on where to find it. Now that might sound a bit superficial. Go to Piccadilly Circus in central London and you see those huge digital adverts like giant TV screens. And the main one, right in the centre, is an enormous bottle of Coca Cola with the words “Open Happiness” floating above it. Cross the road and walk into McDonald’s and you can buy a Happy Meal to guarantee that your children will be… well…happy!

But Aristotle meant something deeper than a Chicken McNugget or a glass of Coke. He believed that true happiness is found in a life that has meaning and purpose. It’s to do with the way I live, and the kind of person I am, and not just with the things I have.

How do you know what’s really important to you? One simple way is to look in your diary, and then in your wallet. What have you spent your time and money on over the last week?

It tells you a lot about your priorities and what you think is the meaning of your life.

CHAPTER 1: THE SEARCH FOR HAPPINESS

I did an experiment with a group of students once. I said to them: If you knew the world was going to end in one hour, what would you do? It was half fun and half serious. One said, “I’d ring my mum.” One said, “I’d pray.” Another said, “I’d go down to the pub and get smashed.” Someone else, with James Bond fantasies said, “I’d steal a helicopter and fly into the distant horizon.”

What are we looking for? What is happiness? I don’t think there’s a simple answer. And perhaps if we think about it too much it tends to disappear. Edith Warton said: “If only we’d stop trying to be happy we could have a pretty good time.”

But imagine if you only had one hour left, or one week. What would you do? Who would you call? Where would you go?

And when you get your answer, it’s still worth thinking: Is that it? Or is there something more?

Questions for reflection What do you think people are looking for most in their lives?

What is happiness? Is it possible to find?

If you knew the world was going to end in one hour, what would you do?

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1C How to press the pause button

A

few years ago Susan Maushart and her three teenage children began what they called “The Experiment”. For six months, as a family, they came off the grid and did a digital detox – no Wi-Fi, no internet, no music or video streaming, no smartphones. Normal life went on: they weren’t living in a shack in the outback. But it wasn’t the normal they had known up to that point. You can read about it in her wonderful book, The Winter of Our Disconnect.

I’m not recommending this to everyone. And I love my smartphone! But most of us, most of the time, would admit that we are too busy and too stressed and in need of a detox.

We are busy with work or studies; we are busy with family and relationships. And when we are not busy, we are desperately trying to be busy; when there is a gap or some downtime, we are desperate to fill the silence with noise and digital distractions. Adult internet usage in the UK averages about four hours per day, but it’s five hours for young adults, and six hours in the States.

We expect instant gratification: an immediate answer from Google, an immediate delivery from Amazon, all twenty-four 18

CHAPTER 1: THE SEARCH FOR HAPPINESS

episodes of the latest series on Netflix to binge-watch this weekend. It’s like being on water skis. We are going incredibly fast, and maybe having a great time, but we have absolutely no control over where the speedboat is taking us.

So what can you do? At the student centre where I work we run a few de-stressing activities, especially during the exam periods: relaxation classes; counselling sessions; football in the park. And because this is England we also have afternoon tea.

This year we did an experiment and gave out three hundred stress balls at church one Sunday, thinking that if all else fails it’s better to throw a small foam object across the room than a laptop out the window.

But people are searching for more than rest or relaxation. There is a real hunger for stillness and silence, to step back from the rush of life and make space for reflection. It’s a human need; I’d even call it a spiritual need. It’s partly why mindfulness has become so popular today.

It’s why most cultures, traditionally, have had a Sabbath day, a day of rest. Maybe this is coming back: I read recently that some supermarkets are experimenting with a ‘quiet hour’ on Saturday mornings when they turn the sound-system off.

You can still shop as usual, but without the in-store music and announcements.

In the Bible, the prophet Elijah expected to find God in the noise of the wind and the earthquake and the fire, but in the end he found him just outside the cave, in the sound of sheer silence.

Many religious traditions speak about the symbol of the desert: leaving the city and the noise behind and going into the wilderness, in order to get some perspective. Not to escape to another world, but to rediscover what is truly important in your own world.

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CHAPTER 1: THE SEARCH FOR HAPPINESS

This is hard! How can you create little moments of reflection, desert moments, when the kids are screaming and you’ve missed the latest deadline at work?

I really need one or two moments of stillness and silence each day, however brief. A little bit of quiet in the morning before I check my phone for messages; a brief pause before the next meeting; a short prayer at the end of the day. The poet TS Eliot said that there are some things we can only hear “in the stillness between two waves of the sea.”

I don’t know how you personally can press the pause button.

It might seem impossible. I just know how important it is.

Questions for reflection What helps you to relax and de-stress?

What advice would you give someone who says they are too busy?

How would you cope without your smart phone or the internet?

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WISDOM FROM THE BIBLE Psalm 46:10

The Lord says: Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 23:1-3

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul.

Deuteronomy 4:29

You will seek the Lord your God, and you will find him if you search after him with all your heart and soul.

1 Kings 19:11-13

[The Lord said to Elijah] “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.

Matthew 7:7-11

[Jesus said] “Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone?

Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”

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John 14:27

[Jesus said] “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.

I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”

John 16:33

[Jesus said] “I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!”

READINGS FROM YOUCAT Foreword – Pope Benedict XVI 279 to 290 – freedom and the search for happiness

LONGER READINGS FROM THE CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 1716 to 1729 – the search for happiness 1730 to 1748 – human freedom NB the numbers refer to paragraph numbers and not to page numbers.

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CHAPTER 2

THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

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2A Why bother thinking about religion?

M

y full name is Fr Stephen Wei-Jon Wang. You can probably guess from the name that I come from a mixed race family, and that my parents and grandparents had very different cultural and religious roots. My Scottish grandmother was Anglican, then Catholic; my English grandfather was Methodist, then Quaker, then Anglican; my Chinese grandfather was brought up in a Protestant church and then settled in an Anglican parish when he emigrated to England; and my Chinese grandmother remained Buddhist all her life.

Most families have some kind of religion somewhere in the background. But things have changed, at least in the West, over the last few decades. A recent survey showed that for the first time since records began, over half the people of the UK say they have no religious affiliation at all. Some of these might say they are “spiritual but not religious.”

This is part of a bigger story that has been called “the Death of God”. People have been predicting for over two hundred years that with modern science, better healthcare, public education and greater affluence, there would be no more need for religion. Why bother praying when you have Amazon Alexa to

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PHOTOGRAPH BY BRUCE M. WHITE, 2019

CHAPTER 4

WHO IS JESUS?

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4A He came to bring life to the world

I

f you go to Galilee in the north of Israel, you can visit the excavations they have done at the village of Capernaum, on the shore of the great lake there. This was where Jesus based himself for the three years of his public ministry.

You can see the ruins of the house of St Peter, where Jesus probably stayed. You can see the walls of the local synagogue, still standing, where he went to worship and teach. I wish there were a time machine, that could take us back to that very place, so we could witness things for ourselves.

The nearest we get to a time machine is the four Gospels in the Bible. These are historical accounts of the life of Jesus, written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They are based on eye-witness testimonies.

The Gospels tell the same story, but emphasise different things. They connect us with what took place in Capernaum and further afield. You see Jesus touching the lives of people in extraordinary ways.

In the village of Bethsaida, he touched the eyes of a man who was completely blind, and healed him. In the town of Nain, when he saw a woman grieving for her dead son, he touched 54

CHAPTER 6

THE BIBLE

81

6A What is the Bible?

M

y first book: Where the Wild Things Are. I wanted to be little Max, racing through the forest, and sailing across the magical sea. My first trip to the cinema: Disney’s Fantasia when I was four. I was terrified by the Sorcerer’s Apprentice scene, when the enchanted broomsticks pick up their buckets and flood the castle. My first concert: Queen, 1982, the Hot Space Tour at the Milton Keynes Bowl. That’s a good one to have ticked off the bucket list…

Books, films, music. These are some of the things that form you over the years. It’s more than just entertainment. It’s the culture in which you live. You learn a whole way of seeing the world. It shapes your heart and mind.

The book that has probably had the biggest influence on the history of the world is almost certainly the Christian Bible. It has touched individuals and societies in so many different ways. It has been a source of fascination even for those without faith.

But what exactly is the Bible?

Well, it looks like a book. You can pick it up, you can hold it in your hands. It’s got a title page and a table of contents, a big section at the front, usually called the Old Testament; and a shorter section at the back, usually called the New Testament.

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CHAPTER 8

PRAYER

109

8A What is prayer?

W

henever someone does a survey about faith and religion, they very often discover an unusual fact. The number of people who say they pray is nearly always higher than the number of people who say they believe in God. In other words, there are lots of people who have no faith but still feel drawn to pray.

It sounds odd. But maybe it’s not. I think that prayer is like a human instinct. We have an instinct that we are not alone; an intuition that there is something greater behind the universe.

It’s natural that we want to reach out to God, even if we are not one hundred per cent sure that he’s there.

A traditional definition of prayer goes like this: Prayer is “raising up the mind and the heart to God.” We need to reach out to God, to look up and to look beyond. This is part of prayer. But you could also say that prayer is “opening the mind and the heart to God”, because he is not just “up there”, he is present with us here, whether we are praying or not.

There are so many different ways of praying. Prayer can be informal and spontaneous: I often pray while sitting on the bus or walking to the shops. Prayer can be formal and solemn: if you go, for example, to a beautiful Choral Evensong in an Anglican cathedral.

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CHAPTER 9

FINDING TRUE FREEDOM

123

9A Is there such a thing as right and wrong?

I

saw an old film by the Coen brothers recently called No Country for Old Men. There is a gunfight in the desert when a drug deal goes wrong. The next day, a local guy played by Josh Brolin is out hunting, and he finds two million dollars in a suitcase at the scene. He thinks hard, then puts it in the back of his truck, and takes it home. He spends the rest of the film running from hit man played by Javier Bardem, one of the most terrifying characters ever to grace the screens.

So Brolin finds the very thing he has been searching for all his life: a tonne of cash. But in the process (spoiler alert) he loses everything else that has been important to him: his home, his work, his wife, his freedom, and eventually his very life.

The film is a classic morality tale. It raises all the big questions: What are you searching for? What would you do to get it? Is it really worth it? Are there any moral boundaries?

If you speak about morality today, you get a fascinating mix of views. On the one hand, we don’t like to judge or interfere.

We value diversity. In Britain there is a great emphasis on the virtue of tolerance. Live and let live. We want to respect people’s freedom.

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CHAPTER 15

THE HOLY EUCHARIST

209

15A The meaning of the Mass

W

hen I was sixteen, some Catholic friends invited me to go to Mass with them one Sunday evening. Now I wasn’t used to going to church, and I felt a bit out of place, and confused by what was happening. People were standing and sitting and kneeling at random times. The prayers didn’t mean anything to me. And no one seemed very interested in me being there!

But there was a moment in the middle of the service when I saw the priest hold up a small white disc above the altar.

And I noticed that everyone else was completely focussed on what was taking place. I could almost feel their faith. There was an unusual stillness in the church. I knew that something important was happening, even though I didn’t understand what it really meant.

The celebration of the Eucharist is the centre of Christian worship. Catholics in the Western tradition often refer to it as “the Mass”, and the Eastern Churches speak about it as “the Divine Liturgy”.

People come together as a Christian family at their local church. There is something very simple and natural about this.

We belong to each other. No one can live their faith alone.

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CHAPTER 20

THE HOPE OF HEAVEN

289

20B Holiness, the saints, and our hope for heaven

T

here’s a church in Lourdes in the south of France called the Underground Basilica. Hanging from the pillars, there are dozens and dozens of huge images, pictures of the saints.

Some of them are reproductions of famous paintings, some of them authentic photographs.

When I stand in the centre of the building, I’m overwhelmed by a sense of the family of the Church: that we are not alone, that we belong to this great family of faith that stretches back to Jesus Christ and up to heaven.

In the Bible a “vocation” is a calling, a purpose. The fundamental human vocation is to live a life of holiness, to be a saint. Not just to be a saint in heaven, but also to become a saint on this earth.

Jesus Christ gave his life for us in order to save us and to sanctify the Church. He gives us the Holy Spirit so that we can become holy as he is holy.

The saints are not just heroic people who live in history books.

They are ordinary Christians who tried to live their faith without holding anything back, to love God with their whole hearts, to love those around them without counting the cost, 293