When I was very young, I had a moment in time when I was afraid of ghosts. My grandmother was concerned about this, for multiple reasons. Her way of helping me deal with this fear wasn't to mark it as irrational, but to give me a comic book: a collection of stories from Casper the Friendly Ghost. The lesson she was trying to impart to me was that ghosts weren't just something that are necessarily scary. There could be some that were friendly even. This isn't to say that ghosts (aside from the Holy Ghost) are real. What she was trying to do is a version of what we've heard previously in Gospel according to Superheroes, Neil Gaiman's paraphrase of the great theologian G.K. Chesterton: Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten. Ultimately I didn't need to be afraid of ghosts because of what Psalm 23 reminds us, that even in the "valley of the shadow of death" God is with us. Being able to see that my fears maybe weren't that scary was a first step.
What my grandmother did had another consequence that wasn't her initial intension, but was, as I would quote from Genesis 50:20, "God meant it for good." Receiving that Casper book gave me a lifelong love for comics. That love has given me a way in which to continue to find and share the message of the Gospel of our Lord in even the most unlikely of places. That is a gift I have been grateful for, and I hope you are too.
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Please note, Sky: Children of the Light is rated 9+. The final realm in Sky, Eden, is one of darkness. This is what the whole game builds up to. That darkness is so powerful that in the Season of Shattering its influence descends upon all the realms of Sky. Yet even here there is hope. Even as your player character tries to restore light in the midst of the darkness of the Eye of Eden, and even as your character falls into darkness at the end of this trial, there is light at the end. There is, in fact, a whole kingdom on light (including an appearance by the Giant Manatee) afterwards. This is a reminder of the hope we have of entering the Kingdom of God after this life is over. That is the very hope at the center of our Faith. Through Christ Jesus, we are given new life, one that will restore us to full relationship with God in the next. This is mirrored in the journey through Eden into the Kingdom of Life behind it and in our restoration to Sky afterwards. It also serves as a hope to us in this world. Even if it seems like there is darkness all around us, God’s light is still there, even if it is behind the surface. No matter how dark things get, God is still there no matter what. That is enough to help us make our way through. Please note, Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne is rated T. Previously, we saw Batman’s final showdown with Darkseid when he was hit with the Omega Sanction. The result was Batman’s journey through time while his friends and Batfamily all thought he was dead. As Batman has travelled from the past to the future to the present, he built up radiation from Darkseid’s Omega Sanction that threatens to destroy the world. As a result, if the world is to live, “Batman must die”, as Diana Prince puts it.
As seen in the previous post, the Justice League does this by freezing Batman to a clinically dead state. They literally put him in water to enact a sort of death. This is very similar to Baptism. While Baptism itself is all about our joining the Body of Christ, part of that initiation is renouncing the ways of evil, the world, and our own selfish desires before talking on the responsibilities of following Jesus. In Baptism too, we go down into the water as if drowning or dying to sin. We then rise up as if to new life in the Resurrection of Christ Jesus. Batman does something similar here. He is placed in the water to the point of death. In that death he is purged of the evil that comes from Darkseid. He rises again to new life taking on the mantel of the bat once again. Yet Batman already had an initiation of sorts into his life combating evil. Grant Morrison reminds us of Batman’s beginning often in Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne. This is a new sort of beginning then. We have something similar in the church. While we can only be baptized once, we all find ourselves in need of renewal of our Faith. Holy Eucharist serves as a weekly reminder of our Baptism, our continued need for growth, and the everlasting love and gift of God’s Presence that our Lord offers to us. However, there may be times, like the Prodigal Son in Luke, where we find ourselves in need of a special service of renewal. This is where Reaffirmation comes in. The service of Reaffirmation grants us the opportunity to rededicate ourselves to our Baptismal Vows. This is not a necessary service for all. As the old adage goes, “All may, some should.” Yet it should give us hope that this service is there if we ever feel that we need it. At the end of his journey fighting the greatest evil of his world, Batman rededicates himself as a crime fighter and superhero. He is reinitiated and reborn. There may be times when we need to do the same, and we are able to do so, just as Batman did. |
Please note, there maybe Spoilers in the Posts below!
The Rev. Trey KennedyHere is my take on how Superheroes and other characters can help us know God better. Categories
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