Lawyer's Week 9 Blog

In reading Nathan Mitchell’s writing on the topic of sacrament, I was not far into the reading when I began to find what I conclude to be an overreaching or over blown perception of term sacrament. With all due respect to the writer and full acknowledgement of his scholarly status, I do not agree with expanding the limited meaningfulness of sacrament as more of a ceremonial practice with the triune identity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Nathan Mitchell reached this conclusion in the first paragraph relying on comments from Richard P. McBrien. This seemed to set the tone and was more like a preview of what to expect in the writing. And, sure enough, as I continued reading further, the writer continued in a pattern of attempting to convey the meaningfulness of the term “Sacrament”. Another instance where this becomes quite obvious is when the writer refers to “Prayer” as an intertwining facet of sacrament. I was really lost on this point. I do not see the relating comparison between “Prayer” and “Sacrament. It does not stop there. I always thought of prayer as something which comes from the heart and is more of a spontaneous expression of what an individual needs to say to God in his or her own behalf at certain specific times in daily life. The writer reached back to the 17^th century to make reference to a prayer preserved by Queen Christina of Sweden to validate and emphasize his misinterpreted importance of the relationship between “Sacraments” and prayer. I do not get it. I definitely have an appreciation for deep thinking but this guy went too far. According to the dictionary, the term sacrament limited to ceremonial and ritualistic practices. Maybe the why I do not agree with the content of the article is because I do not believe in making something simple appear to be so complicated. I also think this article represents a clear example of over-intellectualizing a subject matter. Unfortunately, the habit of doing so is fairly common in Christian writings. The additional drawback falls on the minds of those seeking guidance or the readers who hope to attain insights; they can be either confused, misled, or just starving for the simple truth.