The advantage of Christ

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I believe nothing can happen that will outweigh the supreme

advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

Philippians 3:8

None of us was born speaking English. We learned over the first years of our lives – we developed a vocabulary, a sense of grammar, stringed sentences together, explored its peculiarities in rhyme and rhythm, nonsense words, prose and poetry and song. In time we became experts, so we could judge nuance and generality, succinctness and verbosity, sincerity and arrogance.

Our parents generally taught us the essentials about healthy eating, road safety, sun safety, good manners, how to clean up our rooms, manage our income, stand up for ourselves, share our stuff, behave at Grandma’s and a myriad of other things that enable us to be productive members of our families and communities.

And yet, there are some things that parents don’t prepare us well for at all – and often it’s not because parents deliberately avoid them, it can often be that we just don’t know that it matters. Just one of those things is religion. Religion is learned, it is passed on from generation to generation, person to person. Like language it has to be lived every day, practised – but also questioned, explored and examined so that fine details are teased out, the characters are alive, the rites and rituals make sense and link with the patterns of the lives of those around us – and all of this goes to nourish faith. I have met many people who want their children to choose their religion. That is all and well, but there can be no choosing if a child has no choice. Children cannot be presented at school because they have not been taught to speak because parents want their children to choose their language. Religion is the language of the heart and it takes many years to uncover it riches.

Does it matter? Well, yes it does. What can we do about it? There can be very practical things to do – get hold of some reading material, e.g., There are several books called, What Catholics believe – you can use your search engine to explore what it means to be Catholic, or Anglican or Prebyterian. Perhaps you’ll surprise yourself about how much you know or how little. What is it you really want to pass onto your children. Something that will be passed on for generations?

Some children know the intricacies of Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings and can talk day and night about their meaning, the analogies and metaphors, writing styles and yet disconnect from the great stories of our most powerful religious and cultural text, the Bible. St Paul’s advice is clear as a bell, learn what we will at home, school or university, but nothing can outweigh the advantage of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord.