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What about transformation?

 

If you open the Book of Common Prayer to page 544, you will find ’The Catechism: An Instruction to be Learned by Every Person Before He (She) be Brought to be Confirmed by the Bishop’

 

This title echoes a theologian named Tertullian, who lived A.D. 160-225, quoted as saying, “Christians are made, not born,” emphasizing that we need to break from a life of not following Christ, through knowledge and learning about Christ and then pursuing the life we are expected to lead under Him.

 

The Catechism (or “Instruction”) goes through the Baptismal Covenant, the Apostles’ Creed, the Ten Commandments, Prayer, the Sacraments, and then delves into ‘A Supplementary Instruction’ which I’d like to dive into this during the next few weeks.

 

Quoting page 553 of the Book of Common Prayer:

 

Question. What do we say about the Church in the Nicene Creed?   Answer. I believe One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.
Question. Why is it called One? Answer. Because it has one Lord, one faith, and one baptism.
Question. Why is it called Holy? Answer. Because the Holy Spirit dwells in it, sanctifying all its members and endowing them with gifts of grace.

“Sanctifying” — what does that mean?

 

To “sanctify” something is to make it holy or purify it.  As members of our church, we have one Lord, Jesus the Christ.  As a member of the church, Christ is working in you through the power of the Holy Spirit to purify you, to make you holy, acceptable to God our Father as a living sacrifice into His presence.

 

As a member of the church, you are part of the exodus from the evils of this world into the Holiness of God’s Kingdom — and as a member of the church, you are being made into part of the holiness that God will embrace within His kingdom. 

 

As Paul wrote in his second letter to the Corinthians: "And we all, with unveiled faces reflecting the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, which is from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”

 

Moment by moment, as a member of the church, you are being transformed into the image of Christ.

 

Pretty neat, eh?

 

+David