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I am a Roman Catholic convert from Protestantism. My wonderful wife Tenille and I live in Louisville, Ky., with our daughter Esther, and two sons, William and Ezra. We attend Mass at the beautiful St. Martin of Tours Catholic Church on Broadway Street.

Monday, August 1, 2011

"And The Word Was Made Flesh...." Part 1

The idea of sacraments seems strange to many people. The notion that a material substance, such as oil or water, can convey to us spiritual graces has often been decried as superstitious or pagan. Many Christians throughout history have objected to the material nature of the Seven Sacraments, preferring a more pure and spiritual approach to God and sanctity. Yet countless millions, in an unbroken procession of two thousand years, have devoutly believed and firmly insisted that God Himself is the Author of the Sacraments. Catholic and Orthodox Christians especially have long stated that Christ personally instituted the Seven Sacraments, and that these material channels of Grace are not "unspiritual" or beneath the dignity of God, but are rather God-ordained "helps" that draw us into an ever closer communion with the Blessed Trinity.

Opposition to the Sacraments occurred early in Church history, and had its roots in Greek Gnosticism. Members of the various Gnostic sects (which plagued the early church with heresy) considered matter and spirit to be unreconcilable. The body to them was evil, a prison enslaving the soul of man. Many went so far as to state that the God of the Old Testament, Who created the material universe, was different than the God of the New Testament, and was actually evil. It is not difficult to see that such thinking, often in milder forms, still frequently enters Christian thought to this day, exhibiting itself in a dislike of matter and the body, and opposing artistic and liturgical elements of Christianity as "unspiritual" and pagan.

The point of these posts is not to attempt to prove the reality of the Seven Sacraments as defined by the Catholic Church. It is rather to examine the concept of Sacramentalism in the light of Sacred Scripture and human experience, and to attempt to answer the question, "Is sacramentalism beneath the dignity of God and opposed to His Mind, or is good and acceptable to God, consistent with the Scriptures and consistent with the pattern of God's work revealed in history?"

First of all, those who (unlike the Gnostics) accept the God of the Old Testament, are compelled to realize that from all eternity God planned to create the material universe, and when He did so He declared it "Good". Although the creation is infinitely less than the Creator, we must recognize at the very least that God was pleased to create, and did not find matter abhorrent to His plans.

But there is something even more profound. The Sacraments flow from, and are intrinsically bound up with one of the most central dogmas of the Christian Faith: the Incarnation. Here is their root and source, their prototype and wellspring. Here we see something of the Mind of the Eternal God, here we glimpse the archetypal pattern of the way in which God has chosen to accomplish His work among us. The Eternal Word of God, the Second Person of the most Holy and Blessed Trinity, the One through Whom all things were made, not considering matter too far beneath His dignity, took upon Himself our very flesh and blood, and was made like unto us in all things except sin. Nor did He merely clothe Himself in flesh, He truly became man, a permanent member of the human race.

Perhaps we have lost our wonder at the Incarnation of the Son of God. Have we lost that holy sense of awe that contemplates with adoration the fact that the One Whom heaven and earth could not contain slept in a stall in Bethlehem? That the blind man was touched by the Hand of God? Or that Magdalen was granted the gift of annointing the Feet of God? The disciples, listening to the Sermon on the Mount, heard the Voice of God which no mortal ear can hear; and Veronica, waiting along the Via Dolorosa, wiped the bloody Face of God.

Here, in the Incarnation, we begin to understand sacramentalism. We begin to see that God Himself chose to work His great work of salvation through matter. He brought us redemption in a human body. Through the hypostatic union, the Blood of Christ is efficacious, and with the Fiat of Mary God is given a Body. As we ponder the sacraments let us never forget that because of the Incarnation, it was truly the Almighty Who sat down to supper with His disciples; and it was no mere man, but the Eternal God Who said, "This is my body....This is my blood."

Let us then, as Christians, take time to ponder this great and central mystery of our Faith. And the next time that we are tempted to think that matter is below the dignity of its Maker, or that the Sacraments are "unspiritual" and opposed to the Will of God, let us remember the words of St. John the Divine, recorded in Sacred Scripture: "And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father's only Son, full of grace and truth." "What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we looked upon and touched with our hands concerns the Word of life-- for the life was made visible; and we have seen it...."