A Traditional Mothering Sunday

And off to church, I go

Being on the steward’s rota today, I left for church early having checked if the weather, though cold, would also be affected by rain. The prognosticators and readers of the tea leaves had surmised that the times to expect rain would coincide with when I was fully sheltered at church, however, it being Manchester, you should always be prepared.

As I walked to church, I took the opportunity to conduct a video conversation with Brian and we pleasantly bantered until I was about to step through the south door main entrance to the cathedral.

It being Mothering Sunday and I have much of an affinity to the traditional than the emerging trend of Mother’s Day, it was one or the other part, I needed to fulfil. Essentially, Mothering Sunday is the Sunday you go to worship in the church wherein you were baptised, failing which you make a beeline to attend the cathedral or mother church of the diocese.

The baptisms of note

Now, I was first baptised the Anglican way with the sprinkling of water at a baptismal font just 3 weeks short of 49 years ago at St. Luke’s (Anglican) Church in Jos. Suffice it to say, that is a long way from here and quite a distant past in my memory, I was just over 8 years old and it was an activity initiated by my parents than one I understood the significance of. Apart from the certificate of baptism preserved and intact from that long ago, I recall nothing more.

12 years later, there was a river, and I was among charismatic Christians. Then I had a better understanding of what the purpose of a baptism was apart from being fully persuaded of the significance of it. I was fully immersed in water as I pinched my nose, then pulled up out of the water in a symbolic demonstration of Romans 6:4 “Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”

Whilst the new birth is instantaneous in terms of whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved Romans 10:13, the realisation of walking in the newness of life is a process of learning, failing, relearning, appreciating human frailty and the preponderance of grace, along with jettisoning the bondage to the law through moving from works to receiving and accepting the free gift of life-affirming grace. It has been harder for me than the words seem to state, the mercifulness and lovingkindness of God assures me, it is possible.

In the second instance of my baptism without contemning the purpose of the first, we had a gathering of believers without a building in the traditional sense of a church as we are in school. Unlike in the Anglican Communion or the Established Church, Mothering Sunday in terms of revisiting a church where one was baptised is impossible. It was contemporaneously attached to time, manner, and place, the rest is recalled from memory.

On duty and then discussion

Welcoming worshippers into the cathedral, I handed out the service pamphlets before taking my seat at the start of the processional hymn and then at the offertory hymn, I took up my assigned aisle to take the collection. Later, I ushered the congregants to receive the communion and my duties were completed after I helped an old lady who had some issues with tickets, she thought she had purchased, but could not find evidence of the transaction being completed.

The weekly Lenten talks started soon after the social gathering to have tea and coffee with biscuits. The gathering allows us to meet people we know and new attendees with all the general conversation that ensues.

We are using the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent Book 2024, titled Tarry Awhile by Dr Selina Stone which comes in book, Kindle (electronic book), and Audible (audio book) format. It is a study of black spirituality that inspires quite engaging conversation and discussion in the Lenten talks group.

I have read and listened to some challenging and insightful bits of perspective and theological discourse that I cannot adequately cover in this blog. If you can get the book, you will be mightily blessed by what you learn in the process.

The Village Church

Getting home, I did not have more than 90 minutes to spare before heading out for the bimonthly Village Church around the corner from mine that takes place on the second and fourth Sunday of the month. Even though I felt like I should get on my bed and snuggle under my duvet, this community service that attends to the spiritual needs of the LGBTQ++ cohort under the auspices of the Church of England and supported by our bishops is a wonderfully enriching experience with an intimate feel that allows me the participation in the Holy Communion, twice on Sunday.

If anything, it is better recognised by the church that has in the past persecuted and castigated minority groups that Jesus Christ died for all and the purpose of the church is to give everyone access and facility to exercise their Christianity and spirituality without condemnation or judgement, and in particular, those that had before been hurt by traditions, denominations, churches, or the modern-day equivalent of the Pharisaic class. 

Mothering Sunday, of Mothers and Baptism

Calling mother today

This Mothering Sunday was quite unusual, though it is commonly known as Mother’s Day, it is in fact supposed to be the Sunday when people visit their Mother church, usually, where you were baptised and it could be your local church. The extension to this is the opportunity to celebrate and honour one’s mother. [Mothering Sunday – Wikipedia]

These Coronavirus pandemic times have placed limitations on this celebration as the need for strict social distancing has closed places of worship and our mothers being more vulnerable members of society need to be protected from contracting the virus. It has meant keeping a distance from them. A friend posted visiting his mother where their social interaction happened in the front garden.

For me, I for the first time called my mother to wish her a wonderful Mother’s Day, I was taken aback at the sense of happiness, joy, and gratitude for calling her on this occasion. Then we talked about many other things as we do, between jest, banter, and seriousness. Obligatory prayers and advice, I felt good about it.

Memories of the Mother Church

Before I called, I dug up my Certificate of Baptism, I was baptised 45 years ago at the St Luke’s Anglican Church, Jos on the 31^st of March 1975. The Venerable E. A. Oyetade conducted the baptism and the witnesses, long forgotten now, but friends of my parents and members of the church then were Mrs. C. M. Obasoro, Alfred Olu Amanerimi who my mother said was from the Delta region of Nigeria, and Joseph Ajibade Kehinde.

My Certificate of Baptism with redactions.

Then, the church was in the Diocese of Northern Nigeria, until it was split off into the Anglican Diocese of Jos in 1980. This would be my mother church. It is however different from the church where I was confirmed some 6 years later at St Jude’s Anglican Church, Ijesha-Ijebu. [Anglican Diocese of Jos – Wikipedia]

I can only wonder about what has become of all these named people, whether the venerable rose up the church hierarchy to an archdeaconry or bishopric, I cannot seem to find any other information about him apart from what is on my certificate.

In the faith of my childhood

It is interesting that he wrote in my date of birth rather than my age as required by the column heading. The same can be said of the sponsors, they all have become part of my recorded history, faint memories in the minds of my parents of encounters in their son’s development of faith. People they trusted to stand as witnesses to my acceptance into the communion of the Anglican church.

Obviously, my acquaintance with other strands of Christian faith has led me to accept another baptism with full immersion in a river rather than the sprinkling of water at a font in the church building. To me, both are significant, I see the first like a baptism by John the Baptist and the second in Pentecostal circles as a baptism by the disciples of Jesus Christ, as Jesus himself did not baptise people, according to a narrative in the gospels. [BibleHub – John 4:2]

As I have written before, my wanderings in faith has led me back to the faith of my childhood in the Anglican Church. It is where I belong and find fulfilment.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Sitting here in limbo

After death, then what?

I am no expert in paedo-theology, the religiosity of the unborn or the spirituality of the foetus, but a document released by the Vatican International Theological Commission brings this topic into new focus.

Obviously, there are dogmatic differences between Christian denominations on the matter of infant baptism and the issues of salvation before or after death, the posthumous expectations do matter a lot to those still living.

In contemporary terms, we view limbo as a place of undecided and unresolved situations, Catholic Theology has viewed it as a place not in heaven and definitely not in hell, but an almost there place in view of salvation but not entering into the presence of the Almighty.

The doctrine of the dead child

The Catholics have also agonised about the spiritual status of the aborted unborn child or children who die before they are baptised - this has varied from outright damnation to an almost heaven place.

The study now aims to redefine limbo in terms of the more comfortable green room but never getting to meet the host, though there is hope.

Suffer the children

Whilst I would not deign to challenge the authority of the Pope, I would recall that his boss Jesus Christ made such an issue of asking children to His company and blessing them whilst admonishing the learned adults that flocked Him that except they, the adults became like children they would not enter the Kingdom of God.

Other preachers listeners to repent and be baptised - whilst this is no exegesis of religious dogma, a few points are clear from these issues - children exhibit innocence and dependencies of trust that are necessary to establish a strong relationship with God and baptism accompanies repentance, indicating the person who is baptised be accountable, that person cannot be an infant.

Jesus was never ambiguous about children belonging in the presence of God and this is at variance with extant Catholic teaching.

Hope of salvation

However, in what is looking like trying to bolster the social views against abortion and committing a child to a religious association they do not understand; parents in those unfortunate circumstances of worrying about the loss or the possible loss of a child now have serious indulgence-like obligations to distress the child with a baptism service lest they have to regret leaving the child in a state of near damnation but with one eye of God on the child.

What I would hate to happen is a new doctrine that emerges on the conclusions of this one suggesting that the child can be prayed out of limbo into the arms of God through the much reviled indulgences of old, thus, playing on the hopes of the vulnerable parents.

Let me say we have the makings of a new Protestant reformation brewing whilst I am sitting here in limbo.