Friday thought with Fr Chris Ferguson

Billy Connolly, remarked, you know you’re getting older when you start making noises when you move and you find yourself shouting at the TV. Already, I’m guilty as charged. However, I love birthdays, which should come as no surprise, as I’ve never really grown up. Of course, when someone forgets your birthday, there is no surer way for a Derry man to indulge in his victim complex, by feeling sorry for himself. Maybe, you have been there, moping about with your face downcast and creating a dark cloud, which signals to everyone your feeling hurt, in other words your huffing. Of course, you can’t wait until someone asks ‘what’s wrong?’ And what do you and I, reply ‘there’s nothing’s wrong.’ And so, the game goes on until enough drama has been created and eventually someone eventually twigs on, it’s your birthday. To my shame, I missed my mother’s birthday one year. I happened to be living in Belfast at the time, and back in the Stone Age, there was no mobile phones, tablets, Facebook or Instagram. You can imagine my next phone call home, and when I asked my mother what was wrong, she answered ‘nothing’s wrong’. The following year, I didn’t make the same mistake twice, instead I made a different mistake. I was so keen to make amends, I actually ordered flowers for my mother’s birthday and had them delivered.

There was one problem, in my enthusiasm, I had the flowers sent one month early. You can picture the next phone call home, when wishing my mother happy birthday there was an awkward silence. Asking my mother, ‘what’s wrong?’ again only to be told ‘nothing’s wrong’. Although, I’m reliable informed, whatever about birthdays, forgetting an anniversary, is a new level of pain. Birthdays and anniversaries, are normally occasions of great joy, marking a significant event in the lives of our families and relationships. These celebrations are so significant, we make a point of remembering the important dates. Recently, I have begun the celebration of baptisms by asking the gathered family, to think about the date of their own baptism. If I was to ask you, do you know the date of your own baptism, could you answer the question. I used to ask children preparing for First Communion the date of their baptism. Again, most of the girls and boys didn’t know the date they were christened on. I used to stand at the front of the class, all smug, feeling self-important.

Until one little girl at the back of one the classes raised her hand and asked, what date I was baptised on. In truth, I hadn’t a clue what date I was baptised on, but I made sure to find out afterwards. Once a child is baptised, generally we move swiftly on and consign the celebration to a memory on Facebook, accompanied by a collage of photos.

The reality, highlights, how little we value this basic and fundamental sacrament. In baptism, an eternity of significance is celebrated, a journey starts, a relationship begins to be formed. We inhabit a culture overshadowed by a crisis when confronted by the reality of death. As a Christian, you entered a promise on the day of your baptism, a promise and a hope which declared that death would not have the final say. Being baptised, you become a child of God, a sister or brother of Jesus Christ. The saints are those people who not only took seriously these promises, but witnessed to their very real relationship with God. In a world where you might be tempted to feel, alone, isolated and forgotten, remember, you have been baptised. You are a member of an eternal family, of countless generations, who have dared to step out into relationship with God. Celebrating the Feast of All Saints, we cherish those people, who witnessed to hope, by taking seriously their baptismal call, to be a presence of Christ’s mercy and healing.

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