HEAVEN TO EARTH, SEA TO RIVER [1]

GHOST SHIP

1.  After receiving reports of a ghost ship, the Australian navy boarded a 65-foot vessel drifting aimlessly in the Indian Ocean about 185 miles west of the fishing port of Broome. Navy personnel found everything in good working order on the long-line fishing vessel ironically named High Aim 6--but for the mysterious absence of the crew and the ships lifeboats. In the hold were three tons of rotting mackerel and tuna.^[2] 

2.  The ghost ship motif is particularly attractive to the human imagination. Few subjects of legends and literature are more gripping than the Flying Dutchman, the most famous ghost ship of all. Countless ships logs record the testimony of sailors who saw the ill-fated squared rigged, wooden-hulled ship in a raging storm bearing down on their own vessel only to veer away at the instant of collision. It was a common belief that the Flying Dutchman sailed both sea and sky.

EXISTENTIAL SYMBOLS

3.  Apart from the captivating icons of legend, we know that the existence of ghost ships is true as the report of the High Aim 6 evidences. Ghost ship stories fascinate us for reasons beyond excitement and entertainment. Serious reflection upon ghost ships is deeply disturbing to the human soul.^[3] The ghost ship motif invokes powerful existential human symbols: mystery, adventure, risk, tragedy, abandonment, emptiness, failure and many others. We perceive a ship as a microcosm of the world, a self-contained society having a claim to existence, a history and high aims of prosperity and survival.

4.  A ship has a port of origin, a charted course and destination. Whether it reaches its destination, sinks or becomes a ghost ship, each vessel sails alone and apart from all others. The water upon which a ship sails provides a rich vocabulary for human experiences and emotions--enduring rough and turbulent seas, sailing on smooth waters and drowning in grief. As well, images of water invade our dreams. Water is the universal human symbol of life, journey and spirituality. From the beginning, our Christian religion has revered the symbol of water as a powerful expression of its most deeply held beliefs. The RITE OF BAPTISM FOR CHILDREN eloquently asserts the historical unity of water and well-being of God's chosen people:  

FATHER, YOU give us grace through sacramental signs, which tell us of the wonders of your unseen power. In baptism we use your gift of water, which you have made a rich symbol of the grace you give us in this sacrament.

AT THE very dawn of creation your Spirit breathed on the waters, making them the wellspring of all holiness. The waters of the great flood you made a sign of the waters of baptism, that make an end of sin and a new beginning of goodness.

THROUGH THE waters of the Red Sea you led Israel out of slavery, to be an image of God's holy people, set free from sin by baptism. In the waters of the Jordan, your Son was baptized by John and anointed with the Spirit. Your Son willed that water and blood should flow from his side as he hung upon the cross.

AFTER HIS resurrection, he told his disciples: "Go out and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."^[4]

CEMENTED IN FEAR

5.  As well, water is sign of the convergence of human history and the divine procession of salvation. The story of water is the story of God's decisive intervention in the affairs of man to keep alive faith, hope and love. In Jesus Christ, the world knows an irrefutable example of a Saviour who pours himself out as a sacrifice and who chooses suffering for the sake of others. The wisdom of the cross teaches man to accept the good, that is to say, the things of this world that bind God and man more closely in authentic relationship. It teaches patient acceptance when good things and good people are taken away. The wisdom of the cross teaches man to reject anything that would separate him from God. The cross of Christ is foremost a sign of justice: giving to others what they are due in eyes of God.

6.  What mankind needs most, God offers lavishly: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."  [Jn 3:16]   On the dark tempestuous sea, exhausted after hours of rowing into the wind, Jesus' disciples catch sight of him walking toward them on the water. They cry out, terrified, It is a ghost!  [cf. Mark 6:45-52]  Though cemented in fear, each disciple is self-absorbed and fragmented by fear. Have courage, declares Jesus, put faith in what you have been given! The point of Mark's gospel is conspicuous: How can Jesus be anything but an apparition to persons overcome by fear?^[5] The hostile world does not want to listen to Christ. Fragmented and angry, the cynical powers of the present generation dismiss Christ as a ghost story from the past.

UNTUTORED BRUTES

7.  Despite incessant public displays of contempt, however, the worlds principalities and powers  [cf. Eph 6: 12]  privately concede the authority of the gospels. Hence, they stridently repudiate his Church as a far-flung tribe of untutored brutes. Modern Christianity, they declare, is one provocative remnant of a thousand liberation movements, a rebel's shadow long eclipsing the man that formed it. Jesus denounced such provocation during his ministry:  "This generation is an evil generation; it seeks a sign, but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of Jonah. For as Jonah became a sign to the men of Nineveh, so will the Son of man be to this generation."  [Lk 11:29-30]  

8.  Men and women in this present age are afraid. Caring little for freedom, they manipulate love. Scorning courage, they care little for sacrifice. They want to be popular and pampered. They listen only to endless public praise of dullness and mediocrity. Privately, they idolize their sensual, novel hatreds. The selfish person unwittingly tutors others to be like himself. He wants their adulation and, for a while, they will give it. Soon enough he hears only silence. His former playmates, well taught, are too absorbed in their own selfishness to care that he exists. With all this said, it is requisite that we as Christians confront decisively the indelible and compelling elements of human frailty and mortality.

DENIAL OF HUMANITY

9.  On the one hand, if we are unable or unwilling to accept the magnitude of our human incapacities--illness, aging, death and sin--we tacitly deny our own humanity. Moreover, the denial of our true human condition is a rejection of God whose precise mission in Jesus Christ is our deliverance from frailty and mortality. On the other hand, if we accept the magnitude of our human incapacities but intend to save ourselves, we make ourselves the enemies of God.^[6] For if one cannot see Christ, he is lost to himself. If he sees only himself, he is lost to Christ. You say you are Christian. Well then, Christian, you are obliged to understand and accept the powerful Christian signs of immortality.

10.  Water, fire, chrism, bread and wine are concrete signs of the divine mysteries. They are ordinary material substances which, when offered to God, are transformed by him as visible signs of extraordinary grace. Water is the sign of purification. Fire is the sign of the Holy Spirit. The Oil of Chrism signifies Christ who is eternal Priest, Prophet and King. Bread and wine are living signs of Christ's Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. These and other signs are proofs of the divine-human encounter; they represent the exchange of great gifts between God and man. John the Baptizer, preaching a gospel of repentance, routinely employed a ritual of purification in the waters of the Jordan River.

DIVINE MYSTERY AND ADVENTURE

11.  Jesus Christ, accepting the baptism of John, transforms Johns water ritual into a sacrament of grace by which his followers receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. All that man offers to God is a sign of his invitation to an authentic relationship of love. Man offers the gift of his humble submission and receives grace from God. Man offers the gift of sorrow and repentance; God bestows purification and reconciliation. Man seeks companionship; God walks with him in prayer and worship in his Church, the tent of meeting.^[7]  Man offers God the gifts of bread and wine. God returns to man the true presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist.

12.  If you discount or ignore completely the concrete impact of mystery in your life, you narrow the realm of your existence and swell your own human importance. If you confine adventure to narrow expressions of heedless risk-taking, self-abuse, promiscuity and extravagant pleasure, you stifle the creative powers and future potential of your own humanity. You will sink like iron in a vortex of rough and turbulent waters whose vanishing point is the abyss. If you exploit tragedy as entertainment and flee from an honest confrontation with the lessons of misfortune, you shovel empty platitudes and meaningless soothsaying over death to quickly conceal its reality.

EMPTINESS OF SOUL

13.  You deny your eternal soul its proper dignity and destiny. And like the animals, you quickly depart the dead--after momentary and fragmentary whimpering--for the next meal of grass or prey. If you disregard the abandonment of others, especially the weak, the helpless and the innocent, you extend an unmistakable invitation to others to ignore your call of distress. He rejects God who first rejects himself. He abandons God who abandons others. Such a person will have meted out his own punishment:  "And the King will answer them, Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me."  [Mt 25:40] 

14.  Emptiness of soul and consistent failure to undertake the serious work of spiritual perfection are signs of one's trajectory to the deadest of the dead  [cf. 1Cor 15:12-14], the communion of lifeless things which possess no hope of regeneration. To surrender to Christ, however, means that man must fall into the abyss of faith, into the realm of possibilities over which he has no control. Our Lord's gospel is synonymous with freedom, our praise, God's great and terrible gift which our eyes have seen.  [cf. Deu 10:21]  O man, what are you thinking? Tell us, what do you see?^[8] A curiously immortalized dead man? An ecclesial tribe hopelessly outclassed in a deconstructed world? 

WHAT DO YOU HEAR?

15.  Do you see the Lord Jesus Christ who "by the will of the Father and the work of the Holy Spirit" brings life to the world?^[9] Then to which do you testify--fear or courage? Hatred or love? Testify to the name of Christ, and you proclaim the imperishable unity of the Church. Testify to the love of God, and you witness to Christ's nuptial love for his Church. Testify to courage, and you honor the sacrifices of the martyrs. Tell us, what do you hear? Do you hear Christ speaking to you? "Take heart, it is I," says the Lord, "have no fear."  [Mk 6:50]  Know that the Lord Jesus Christ entrusted his Spirit and Gospel to the visible Church. Only she can proclaim fully his Word.

16.  Her children gather to share the Lord's redemptive Word and Eucharist, to hear the proclamation of the Lamb of God and to experience his solemn Eucharistic presence. We celebrate the auctoritas and veritas (Lat. authority and truth) of these saving mysteries. For mystery counsels mystery: "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God"  [Heb 10:31] and again,"This I command you, to love one another. If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you."  [Jn 15:17-19] 

SAIL CONFIDENTLY

17.  We testify to the splendor of Christ before a skeptical, even hostile techno-driven world that cannot stomach the table fellowship of the gathered Church and knows nothing of redemptive sacrifice. Examine yourself carefully, Christian, for ours is a troubled generation. Are you aiming high enough? Do not succumb to death-dealing mediocrity! Discern whether the Saviour's story has become your story, whether or not the venerable gospel remains young, refreshing and provocative in your heart. Have you enfleshed Christ to the full in your flesh? Is his Word your word? Is his Body and Blood your body and blood? In short, is his divine life your life? Take care that you do not depose the Son of God from your heart nor render him a mere ghost before your eyes.

18.  Do not chart a course for sin; such itineraries have only the abyss of evil as their destination. Enough, then, of fear and cynicism! Book passage on the Barque of Peter while there is still time! Set sail confidently on the Christian journey, because the Lord Jesus cleanses you  "...from sin in a new birth to innocence by water and the Spirit".^[10] At the end of the day, we want to take passage on Peter's barque, that is, to secure a berth on the fisherman's boat. It is the Church, you see, whose bow cleaves the vicissitudes of time and space, and whose brilliant wake leaves an enduring record of its one-way voyage to the heavenly Jerusalem, a Sacred Tradition that never disappears into the agitated foam of an unremembered era. 

YOUR CAPTAIN

19.  Jesus Christ, your captain, has charted a passage for you from earth's oceans to heaven's "water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb".  [Rev 22:1]  Accept the divine mystery and adventure of salvation in Jesus Christ! Though you may be rejected by men, he will not abandon you. Though you may suffer for men, he will not let you fail. "And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, to know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life!"  [1Jn 5:20]