The Sacraments: Visible Signs of Christ's Work in the Church
Introduction:
The Sacraments of the Catholic Church are means by which the Church expresses the intimate relationship with Christ. In these seven acts of making holy the Church acts as a sacrament of Christ. This dynamic of the Church is possible because Christ, who is the Primal and Fundamental Sacrament of the Father desired to leave His Bride to act for him, not only as an ambassador of the King of Kings, but as his own body.
1. Christ as Sacrament.
To see Jesus Christ as a Sacrament is not something new in the life of the Church. It is rooted in the New Testament in a profound way. The words and actions of Jesus Christ as they are recorded in Scripture reveal Jesus as the True Image of God. His compassion towards the poor and the sick, his healing miracles, the way in which he called his disciples and over all his willingness to die for the sins of all, reveal to us not only the historical presence of the Son of God, but also the Will of the Father to have a close relationship with his children. Jesus, in short, is a “making visible” of the presence of God in our human history.
We may say, with Father Lynn, that “the humanity of Christ is surely the most perfect sacrament since it is the material reality which the eternal Son of God has taken to himself as his own substance, though which his Divine person is revealed and acts visibly in the world” (Lynn 27).
Augustine Scmied said that Jesus as the Christ attracted to himself the powers of primal human symbols. For example, Scripture says that Jesus is, the shepherd, the light, the bread, the door, the wellspring, etc.
St. Paul used a similar understanding of Jesus as Sacrament. “The unbelievers whose minds have been blinded by the god of this world…cannot see shining the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Cor. 4:4). The coming of Christ, for St. Paul, is the coming of the Son of God, who came to bring God into the world. “He is the image of the unseen God, the First Born of all creation, for in him were created all things in heaven and on earth” (Col. 1:15-16). Christ is the visible epiphany, that is the visible revelation of God’ plan for salvation.
The Letter to the Hebrews gives us a similar insight. “God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets; but in our time, the final days, he has spoken to us in the person of his Son…[Jesus] is the reflection of God’s glory and bears the impress of God’s own being” (Heb 1:1-3). It is from these words of Scriptures that The Chritological Dogma of Chalcedon (451) came about to give more insight in our understanding of Jesus as a Sacrament.
The council of Chalcedon help us to see, as Vorgrimler states, “The most intimate closeness of God and receptive human nature as its real symbol (effective sign) are present in Jesus Christ, unseparated and without confusion” (Vorgrimler 31). The Reality of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as the Incarnate Word by which the universe was created, tells us that he is God and Man. Thus he becomes not only a sacrament of God to humanity, but also a sacrament of humanity itself. To say that Jesus is a sacrament means that in his humanity he reveals (is sign of) the Father, because of his part in the Trinitarian Nature of God and Because of His humanity. Though Jesus Christ, God acts in the world for our salvation; thus he is not only a sign, but also an effective sign of God’s grace.
The view of Jesus as Sacrament comes from the New Testament understanding of the word mysterion. St. Paul’s use of the word mysterion should not be confused with our understanding of sacrament (as in the seven sacraments). St. Paul’s use of the word refers “to God’s saving intent as revealed and realized in the course of the divine oikonomia” (Vorgrimler 31). Accordingly, Jesus Christ is the first realization of God’s plan for salvation. “He has let us know the mystery of his purpose, according to his good pleasure which he determined beforehand in Christ, for him to act upon when the times had run their course” (Eph. 1:9-10). God sent his Son, “to reconcile all things to him, everything in heaven and everything on earth, by making peace through His death on the cross” (Col. 1:20). The message that God gave hie people in Jesus Christ “was a mystery hidden for generations and centuries” (Col. 1:26). Jesus Christ is the Mystery revealed by the Father (cf. Rom 16:25-26).
Because of St. Paul's understanding of Christ as a mystery we hear many Church Fathers calling Jesus a mystery. St. Augustine refers to him as Mysterium Dei (Vorgrimler 31). In the Vulgate the word mysterion was translated into sacramentum. Giving Jesus the title Sacramentum Dei. Thomas Aquinas believed that Jesus Christ is, “The fundamental sacrament, insofar as his human nature, as the instrument of divinity effects salvation” (SCG IV a. 41). Edward Schillebeeckx believed that Jesus is the sacrament of the encounter with God. “He saw the humanity of Jesus Christ as the primordial sacrament, wince it was in his humanity that there occurs the twofold movement consisting of the inbreaking of grace from above and the cultus of love of God from below” (Vorgrimler 32).
For Karl Rahner takes from the above mentioned views of Jesus and comes up with the two aspects of Jesus Sacramentality: Cognitive and Effective. The Cognitive Aspects is the humanity of Jesus becomes the most perfect sacrament since it is material reality which the eternal Son of God has taken to himself and his own substance, through which his divine person is revealed and acts visibly in the world” (Lynn 28). The Humanity of Christ is, therefore, the perfect revelation of the Father to humanity. The Effective Aspect is that of divine grace communicated through Christ’s humanity. “Because the humanity of Christ is hypostetically united to the divine, the incarnate Word is able to effect divine actions through human words and gestures” (Lynn, 28).
The documents of Vatican II reflect Rahner’s point when they say that, “In the very revelation of the mystery of the Father and of his love, fully reveals man to himself and brings about to light his most high calling” (GS #22). Jesus Christ is thus not only a sacrament or image of the invisible God, but also a sacrament of humanity to ourselves. He is the image of the invisible God and he is the primal form of human existence. He shows us what it means to be human.
Rahner says that, “Christ is the historically real and actual presence of the eschatologically victorious mercy of God. The incarnation is not merely the constituting of a subject who…can intercedes for sinful humankind…Rather did God by the incarnation take the world fundamentally and once for all into his mercy…Consequently the whole humankind is in principle already accepted for salvation in this member and head who irrevocably united with God in unity of person” (Lynn, 29, as it appears).
2. The Church as a Fundamental Sacrament
After what was mentioned before it may seem that to call the Church a sacrament would complicate our understanding since Jesus, as seen above, is the primal sacrament of salvation. One would think that only Christ could be called a sacrament. The fact that Christ is the Primal Sacrament does not deny the possibility for the Church having a role in God's plan to open the mystery to the world. According to Kasper, Rahner holds that the saving mystery of Christ really comes into the world when it is accepted in faith and publicly professed. From this point of view, the Church, the fellowship of believers, is essential for the implementation of God' will of salvation. Kasper says it in the following way: "The Church is simultaneously the fruit of salvation and the means of salvation; for it is both an actualizing sign of God's salvation in Jesus Christ, and a sacramental instrument for passing on this eschatological salvation to all human beings"(Kasper, 121).
The Church does not come to "take over" the mission given to Jesus by the Father in heaven. The Church recognizes her complete dependence on Jesus, as she is being form through history by the Holy Spirit into a "useful instrument of the continuing presence of Jesus Christ" (Vorgrimler 33). The Church is the body of Christ. Since his ascension into Heaven, Christ is no longer visibly in the world. As the body of Christ the Church continues being visibly present, "not in an absolute identification… but in mystical communion" (Lynn 30).
The application of the word sacrament to the Church defines the relationship that exists between the visible side of the Church and the invisible one. The word sacrament places the Church in the realm of the mystery of salvation. She, as we have seen in ecclesiology, is the realization of the Kingdom that is here and also a visible sign of the invisible presence of the Kingdom we are to see in Heaven.
The Church is not an end in the process of salvation. In order to understand this better we need to see the inner and external dimensions of the Church's Sacramentality.
The Inner Dimension consists in that, "Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit, makes [the Church] His sign and instrument which he uses in order to carry out his work of renewing and reshaping humanity, to the glory of His Father" (Vorgrimler 34).
The External Dimension of the Church is the human community. We, as a community of believers, "cannot even hope and pray of [our] own initiative…unless hope and prayer are given by the divine Spirit" (34).
Because the Church is so closely connected to Christ, as His body in the world she is the visible sign of His presence and the visible means by which He sanctifies humanity. In the Church there is a unity between the sign and the thing that is signified. The Church is Christ's visible existence. Her institutional existence, is so closely linked to the testimony of Christ's mystery which she presents that, in the process of preaching the Gospel entrusted to her, she becomes "sacramentalized" (a means of making holy) and thus signifies Christ, as she gives witness of him. It is from this principle that the Church is also infallible in her essential teaching. Now, the doctrine of Opus Operantum follows these statements in that the seven sacraments mediate salvation by virtue of Christ's objective operation on through the sacraments. Because the Church is so close to the Lord of All, she is the means by which Christ continues to carry out his saving work in a visible, tangible way, not out of merit, but out of the testimony she offers to the world. Thus the sacraments are effective by her actions and not by her merits as Church.
The Church is both, a cognitive and effective sign of grace. "She is a cognitive sign of grace inasmuch as by her preaching, liturgy, pastoral case, and works of mercy, she points to God's loving design and offer of grace to humankind" (Lynn 32).
"She is an effective sign of grace because her sacramental acts are visible signs of God's absolute promise of grace, a promise that cannot remain unfulfilled for those who receive them with faith" (Lynn 32).
The Documents of Vatican II highlight this reality: "Christ lifted up from the earth, has drawn all men to himself (cf. Jn. 12.32). Rising from the dead (cf. Rom.6: 9) he sent his life-giving Spirit upon his disciples and though him set up his Body which is the Church as the universal sacrament of salvation" (LG #48).
"Every benefit the people of God can confer on mankind during its earthy pilgrimage is rooted in the Church's being the "universal sacrament of salvation," (cf. LG, #48) at once manifested and actualizing the mystery of God's love for men" (GS #45).
It was Karl Rahner who inspired these documents. "By the very fact of being is that way the enduring presence of Christ in the world, the Church is truly the fundamental sacrament, the well-spring of sacraments in the strict sense" (Rahner, as it appears in Lynn 32). The Church cannot become a meaningless symbol in the world. Even if the world would like her to be meaningless, because, "The Church is the sign of the grace of God definitely triumphant in the world in Christ" (Rahner, as it appears in Lynn 32).
The Church is the eschatological sign of God because as Vatican II points out, the Church will not complete her service of bringing Christ into the world "until there be realized new heavens and a new earth in which justice dwells the pilgrim Church, in its sacraments and institutions, which belong to this present age, carries the mark of this world which will pass, and she herself takes her place among the creatures which groan and travail yet and await the revelation of the sons of God" (LG 48). When the eschaton comes, God alone remains both the author of salvation and the one who accomplish it to the full.
The "incarnation" of Christ in his mystical body, the Church, gives meaning to God's plan for salvation in the context of human history. In this sense we may say that the Church's effectiveness as a sign is not just for Catholics, but for the whole of humanity. Because of Christ's personal involvement in the Church we cannot say that the Church and her sacraments are just a medicinal interventions of God from outside of human history. She is in the world and for the world. The Church and her activities as Church are manifestations of what the world and human history really are.
However, we should not over emphasis the Church's role in the plan of salvation. Karl Rahner made this mistake. He tried to give too much emphasis to the Church as sacrament that he made her almost comparable to Christ as sacrament of salvation. He said, "God, Jesus and the Church --all three consider, in a sense, as one acting subject -present a sign, a gesture that not only expresses the grace filled relationship of human beings receiving this gesture to God, but also brings about that grace-filled relationship" (Karl Rahner, as it appears in Vorgrimler 39).
3. Individual Sacraments as Actualization of the Fundamental Sacrament
Vatican II states that, "The liturgy is the summit towards which the activity of the Church is directed; it is also the fount from which all her power flows" (SC #10). These words of the Council will bring us to our third view of sacraments. We have seen that the Church is a sacrament; she is a means to make holy. The question that comes to our minds might be, how is this sacrament realized?
It is because the Church is a sacrament of Christ that her seven most important activities are called sacraments. We may say that the seven sacraments of the Church are such inasmuch as the Church acts her sacramental role of making the world holy.
Karl Rahner believed that the Church, "in her official capacity…as the source of redemptive grace meets the individual in the actual ultimate accomplishment of her nature, there we have [the seven] sacraments in the proper sense" (Rahner as it appears in Lynn 33). If we ask what then is a sacrament, we may say that it is, "A fundamental act of the Church in an individual's regard, in situations that are decisive for him, an act which truly involves the nature of the Church as the historical, eschatological presence of redemptive grace is ipso facto a sacrament" (Rahner, as it appears in Lynn 33).
The Second Vatican Council states that, "The purpose of the sacraments is to sanctify men, to build up the body of Christ, and, finally, to give worship to God" (SC #59). The Church has the authority to give grace by the very fact that she is so intimately connected with Christ, as seen above. "Christ, indeed, always associated the Church with himself in this great work [of worship] in which God is perfectly glorified and men are sanctified. The Church is His beloved Bride who calls to her Lord, and through him offers worship to the eternal Father" (SC #7).
4. Conclusion
To view the Church as the Universal Sacrament of Salvation does not only bring light into our heart regarding the nature of Christ's visible Body, it also challenges us to see our involvement in the sacramental life of the Church in a deeper calling. The Church, that is those who profess and give testimony of Christ in the world, is a visible sign of Christ and of God's plan of salvation. To say that God is not in the Church's actions and that God is not effecting graces through her, is like saying that God lied to us and that he abandoned his people. Since we know that God does not lie and that he promised to be with us "until the end of time" we know that God effectively communicates His grace through the Church's celebration of the sacraments.
Let us live like visible signs of the Mystery of God. Let us remember that whenever we act as Christ we are being Christ and bring the Graces that he gave us from the Cross and that he will still gives us in his resurrection. When we share the sacraments, we are proclaiming his death until he comes.
© Juan Carlos Aguirre-Borchardt
Bibliography
Kasper, Walter; Theology and Church; New York: Crossroad, 1992.
Lynn, William, Sacraments I: Class notes, Columbus: PCJ, 1997.
Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post-Conciliar Documents; ed. Austin Flannary; Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1984.
Vorgrimler, Herbert; Sacramental Thology; Tran. Linda M. Maloney; Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1992.