Significance of the Liturgy and Sacraments

Mass – or liturgy – can sometimes be a real chore to commit to every week. I am saying this as a Catholic who makes every effort to go to mass and continually grow in my faith in Christ and in others. It’s tough to wake up each Sunday morning – or commit to an evening when I am busy – to make it to mass. However, we do it because each week we are called to hear the Word of God and join together in communion with other Christians. Taft writes near the beginning that “liturgy is the salvific relationship between God and us” because of the sacredness of the liturgy, starting from when Christ consecrated His body and blood at the Last Supper (Taft 195). While he prefaces that what he said was incredibly bold, he writes later that the early Church’s liturgical gatherings of hearing the Word and breaking bread were incredibly special moments with Our Father and Savior (Taft 197). It is through Christ giving of Himself that we have been saved. And it is through His Eucharist that we receive a visible and physical gift of Himself each week to help us, to nourish us. Mitchell writes that it is because Christ gave of His whole Self on the Cross, because the Word and Spirit were sent to us, because He evangelized to us first, that we now have a Sacramental form of Christ (Mitchell 354). I think about each Sacrament in this case – most of these Sacraments require a Liturgy (i.e. Matrimony, Holy Orders, Confirmation) in which they are given. Again, this starts with Christ when He gave of Himself to save us. Now we can be saved each week at Mass, and in prayer, and in service.

In order to understand anything, or explain, it is part of my nature as a teacher to categorize or divide each part of my notes to simplify for my students. It is no different than what many writers – including Mitchell with his ten rules do – in order categorize how to better understand Christ and the Church. This blog would be too long if I went through each rule so I’ll focus on a few. I love Mitchell’s first Rule about how Christ - the main content, our Salvation – is present in each Sacrament. He also does not define a Sacrament merely within the ones we know, but also states that it could be other scared practices such as washing and anointing. These are used in Baptism, in which now we are part of Christ’s body once we are baptized (Mitchell 355-356). As I read Rule #5, I realized that this Body we learn about, that we are part of, is also the system, which contains the Seven Sacraments. No one Sacrament is by itself. He uses the example of Baptism and Eucharist: when we are baptized, we are not only being cleansed of our Original Sin, but we are reborn as members of Christ’s family. In the Eucharist, Christ died, and then rose again, and His body and blood live as the consecrated bread and wine we consume at the liturgies (Mitchell 358). Finally Rule #7 states that the Word and Sacraments must be together. This starts when God gives the Word, and then sends the Word into flesh as Jesus Christ; the Sacraments are only the “highest human and ecclesial expression of the word spoken in Church” (Mitchell 360-361).  This is essential because through the Sacraments we can be on our way to attaining everlasting Grace as given by Jesus Christ. All of this starts starts with the Liturgy – it is at the Liturgy we receive the Sacraments. It is at the Liturgy that we have the opportunity to be saved, reborn, as Disciples and Members of the Body of Christ.