Mystagogia described the ancient custom of spending the first week of Easter with the newly baptized helping them experience the depths of the truth they had accepted in their baptism, confirmation and Eucharist.
Mystagogia described the ancient custom of spending the first week of Easter with the newly baptized helping them experience the depts. Of the truth they had accepted in their baptism, confirmation and Eucharist.
Great painters and great musicians can study the principles of art and music, but the beauty they produce doesn’t come from being able to recite principles. Artists have to take these principles inside themselves, and also be taken by them, so that the principles live in ways that no one could put into words.
Well-prepared seven-year-olds who receive First Eucharist have much, much more to learn about what they are receiving. One would hope that the growth would last a lifetime.
The Easter season is a time of “mystagogia” for everyone – new Christians and old Christians.
The God-life given as a gift by Christ has inexhaustible and enjoyable implications.
The passage in the next post is sometimes used as the basis for the question, “Are you a ‘born again’ Christian?” This usually means, “Have you, in your adult life, had a conversion experience in which you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior?”
But that’s not exactly what today’s text says.
Jesus tells Nicodemus that a person must be “born from above”. The phrase “from above" in this sentence is a Greek word which can have two meanings: “from above” and “again”.
Nicodemus takes it to mean “again”. He asks, “How can a person once grown old be born again?” The “again” here is a different Greek word than the one on the lips of Jesus. It’s a word that always means “again”.
Jesus corrects Nicodemus by saying explicitly that he means born “from above” – that is, “of the Spirit.” In other words, the question is about baptism. John the Baptist had said that he was giving a baptism of water, whereas the one to come after him would baptize “with the holy Spirit”.