Boil the Hell Out

Learning how holy things are for the holy

03/18/2022

Jn 15:1-8 Jesus said to his disciples: "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and everyone that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit. You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you. Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me will be thrown out like a branch and wither; people will gather them and throw them into a fire and they will be burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you. By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples."

Do you know how to make a Christian? It is the same way you make holy water. Well, how do you make holy water? You boil the hell out of it. And there is a close connection between holy water and a new Christian because we use holy water to baptize and create a new Christian, a child of God. In other words, first you boil the hell out of the water so you can use it later to get the hell (original and actual sin) out of the newly minted Christian, who is pure gold, or better, pure grace, a saint. There is no hell in a new Christian.

In the Catholic Church there are two ways to create a Christian: the baptism of infants or babies, and the baptism of adults. Even though the baptism of babies is more common today – how you and I probably became Christians – the more ancient practice was the baptism of adults, after a long period of intense study and preparation called the “catechumenate.” Some of the most famous Catholics were actually converts to the faith. For example, Saul the Pharisee who became Paul the Apostle and was baptized in Acts 9. St. Augustine, one of the greatest doctors of the Church, was baptized around 386, when he was 33 years old. St. John Henry Newman, who was already baptized as an Anglican, but became Catholic in 1845.

More recently, Scott Hahn, became Catholic after leaving Presbyterianism, in 1986. And I personally love the story of the deathbed conversion of Judge Isaac Parker. As he lay dying, he called out to his Irish Catholic wife, Mary O’Toole, gasping, “Mary, call the priest!” Fr. Lawrence Smyth, pastor of Immaculate Conception, and my predecessor as pastor, took holy water and boiled the hell out of Isaac Parker by baptizing him. In other words, first we get the hell out of the water so that later we can get the hell out of the people by baptism.

March 18 is the annual feast of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, who lived in the 4th century. St. Cyril is the one who really put the catechumenate on the Catholic map with a series of sermons called “The Jerusalem Catecheses.” Cyril preached a total of 23 sermons (or lectures) to prepare adults for baptism and to create new Christians. St. Cyril did what our own St. Peggy Brandebura does today in the RCIA classes here at I.C. St. Cyril’s first 18 catecheses came before baptism, and the remaining 5 lectures came after the baptism. Similarly, the modern RCIA classes have lectures both before and after baptism.

Another interesting commonality between the ancient catechumenate of St. Cyril and the modern RCIA of St. Peggy is the "Mass of the Catechumens." Have you ever heard of that? The Mass of the Catechumens was the first half of the Eucharist, or the Liturgy of the Word, where we hear the Scriptures proclaimed and the sermon preached. But then the catechumens, the unbaptized, were dismissed.

As they were leaving the minister would solemnly declare: “Holy things for the holy.” In other words, only a Christian could stay for the Liturgy of the Eucharist (the second-half of the Mass) because he or she had been baptized. That is, holy water had made them holy, sort of boiled the hell out of them. Holy things for the holy: the Eucharist – the most holy Thing in heaven or on earth – was reserved only for those who are holy, who have had the hell boiled out of them by baptism.

My friends, as we go through Lent and approach the Easter sacraments, especially baptism, please pray for our RCIA candidates and catechumens. They follow in a long line of courageous Catholic converts: St. Paul, St. Augustine, St. John Newman, Scott Hahn, and Judge Isaac Parker. Pray God give them the grace to persevere through the catechetical lectures of St. Peggy and finally have the hell boiled out of them by baptism this Easter.

Then, they will understand intimately what Jesus meant when he said: “I am the vine you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.” Then, they, too, will be able to say with confidence and conviction: “Holy things for the holy.”

Praised be Jesus Christ!