“Water words,” Source and Support of Life: Fourth Week of Lent: March 18 to 24, 2012

Baptism invites us into “ecstasy.” “Ecstasy” means “standing outside of,” being “out of ourselves.” Baptism is not an “out of the body” experience, but the experience, and freedom, of being “out of” the world itself — while being deeply involved.

Because we have “died to the world” in Baptism, we are free. We depend on nothing and nobody here. We are physically walking around on earth, but we don’t depend on having the planet under our feet. “Our citizenship is not here.” We have “a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” This makes us radically free of our “culture.” Free to be different and to call others to be different.

To do this we must be disciples, students of the mind and heart ofd God. Today’s laity are the most educated congregations priests have faced since the beginning of the world. Unfortunately, that education does not always include familiarity with Scripture or with the groundlevel, reader-friendly theology available today to everyone (e.g. the sixteen documents of Vatican II). That has to be corrected. It is essential for the reform of the Church.

True, two thirds of those studying for doctorates in theology are laity. True, priests cannot assume today, as before, that they know more theology than anyone out there in the pews. But the general level of theological knowledge (and awareness, another issue) of the general Catholic population has to be raised.

It won’t just “be raised.” We have to raise it.

The water Ezekiel saw flowing from the temple was a mere “trickle” at first. It gradually deepened until it was “deep enough to swim in, a river that could not be crossed.” We find this “water" in the words of Jesus: "Those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” But we have to read his words.

Not just read them: we have to make Scripture reading a way of life. The difference between this and an occasional “Scripture study” matches the difference between sporadic dieting and a conversion to healthy eating.

Health requires consistent nourishment and exercise. Spiritual health requires both consistent reading of the word of God and consistent acting on it. When we make reading Scripture and acting on it a regular part of our lives, we will enjoy a spiritual health that will enable us to reform both the Church and the world.

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