the201 - wk4 - lect2

The Sacraments

(the 7 sacraments) and types of sacraments.

rituals are important obviously. Protestant critics would say that Catholics are ritualistic in the pejorative sense.

There is the idea that sacraments are like magic: what are the words of consecration? "This is my body" Hoc. There have been lots of cruel things said about Catholics through the ages, and one of the first terms in the polemic between Protestants and Catholics was HOCus pocus. So taht is a derogatory term about what Catholics do at mass.

There can be no dichotomy between word and sacrament.

Scientism itself has not answered all the quandaries of human existence.

A culture that is 'in your face' with no regard for the divine sacraments. No subtlety, nothing left to the imagination.

The sacraments enable us to know and encounter the god who is transcendent, they provide a mediation which allows us to have a capacity to understand Him. The sacraments aren't added on to our nature, they don't replace our nature, they are something which in God's providence that was always going to be given to us. The Catechism, 11:49, 52, the Church sancitifies, purifies, elevates and integrates human things. The sacraments are not a reminder or mere representation of an absent God. They are the work of God who makes himself available to his people. They are not things we do to remind ourselves of God. They are God's work.

The sacramental principle: That God's presence is given to us through mediation of events. Jesus knew that the only worth being concerned about was the salvation of one's soul - but he used images to (Matt:25 - fishing nets, coins, gates, sheep) to convey this message, they point to some hidden reality, some inner truth. We see in Jesus' ministry the importance of touch. He left us the greatest sign of all, the cross, which was to become the sign of humanity. And he ordered his apostles to be baptised, which uses water.

There is a sense in which we can, talk about 'creation', in which God created himself through universal reality.

Old testament sacraments: Circumcision, the offering of the pascal lamb at the pass-over, a way of experiencing, in some way, the reality of what had happened before.

Christ being the primordial sacrament. The Church being a sacrament.

In another sense, sacramental is deeper than symbolic. It's ambivalent. You feel two things. Sacraments are polyvalent. Signs of divine love, cross-roads between heaven and earth. And also, they give you, particular things, the effects of the sacrament which enable you to continue your pilgrimage.

Sacraments are like food and water along a huge run... they keep you going on the straight road.