The Family Rites Of Passage Rooted Sacred Time And Space

8.5—The Family Rites of Passage Rooted Sacred Time and Space The mediated middle path for religious man was rooted and grounded in the sacred center where every transition was a dying to the old and a re-birth into a new all in the context of coherent meaning. All the rites of pas-sage from birth to death happened within the church as the sacred source of all new beginnings. When the bells of the church ring, it could be the birth, marriage of death within a family. All of these rites of passage have the back drop of eternity with stain glass windows and art of Christ, Mary and 2,000 years of saints. The sacred time of the church repeats the sacred dra-mas of Christmas and Easter as eternal returns. Memories from previous Christmas

For years I had my counseling office in-side a church as if this were a normal place of business or expanded home. Repeatedly I would look outside my door hearing a baby cry to see a baptism about to start. At another time, I would hear anticipatory excitement to see a bridal party processing past my office to the altar of the church. Most distressing, I would look just outside my door to see the coffin of a dead person surrounded by grieving mourners. I would also notice the dramatic decorative changes from the festive decorations of Christmas to the sparsity of Lent and then the spring flowers of Easter

The family context of our lifespan was given both supernatural value and power by its consecra-tion to God in the same sacred space where the entire lifespan from birth to death was celebrated as a part of a whole. In Baptism, we die to the our old nature and are born anew into God’s path pursuing goodness. In Marriage, self-centered is decreased to allow the increase of loving service for spouse and children. Dying is supposedly a new baptism where our mortal body is traded in for an immortal one. This hope would just be a fantasy were it not the ancient cosmic truths that are enacted in ritual theatre in keeping with the revelations of sacred texts. The sacred center is where time can be reversed to live again in the power of Christ as the victor over death and sin experienced in present time through the unbroken cycles of ritual sacrifices over a course of 2,000 years from the power of the sacred beginnings. The ritual of the Mass with its sacred readings on supernatural realities would bring the birth of the baby, marriage, and death into the time transcendent womb of the church as a mother. The church was a sacred center that could speak both to the heights of an eternal kingdom on high and the depths of the dead ancestors. The vulnerability of birth, marriage and dying would receive supernatural power and love through rituals that