The readings this week look at the evolution of the notion of sacraments in the Church.  . Jesus called people to” repent and believe the good news” (Mk 1:15), and he told Nicodemus that “no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit” (Jn 3:5), but we don’t hear that those who followed Jesus needed to be baptized.    Only after Jesus had ascended into heaven and the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the disciples do we hear Peter call people to “Repent and be baptized, every one of you” (Acts2:38).  So baptism comes after Jesus’ life on earth has ended.   As Leo I said, “What was visible in our Redeemer when on earth has become operative in sacramental signs” (Johnson 4).

As far as the Eucharist is concerned, Vondey makes it clear throughout People of Bread that “the sharing of bead is the purest form of companionship” (195).  At the Last Supper, Jesus gave the breaking of bread a whole new dimension, “a new form of unity between God and humankind,” which “forms the heart of its sacramental nature in the world” (195).

I don’t know when the Church began using the term “sacrament,” but St. Augustine speaks of it as some sort of physical element which, combined with the words proper to it spoken in faith, will cleanse the soul (Johnson 2). In the passages cited from Augustine, he says nothing about the number of the sacraments” James F. White notes that Augustine called almost anything a sacrament (Johnson 4, 30-31).

Peter Lombard (12^th century) names seven sacraments.  The basis for their being included seems to be that they are practiced within the community and they contain the power which they signify.  Thomas Aquinas (13^th century) says the sacraments are necessary for salvation and are the cause of grace.  He also states that baptism, confirmation and orders imprint a perpetual character on the soul, and only God can institute a sacrament. (6-7, 9)

During the 16^th century and the Protestant Reformation, there is a radical shift.  Martin Luther denies that there are seven sacraments, and the main thrust of the reformers is to accept only two sacraments, baptism and the Lord’s Supper (12-20).

The Catholic Reformation, also in the 16^th century, is remarkable for its defensive holding on to its positions of the past, going so far as to insist that all seven sacraments were instituted by Jesus Christ, and to damn anyone who did not agree with them (21).  It made me sad to read this.

A hundred years later the Society of Friends rejects all external sacraments, believing that “All true and acceptable worship to God is offered in the inward and immediate moving and drawing of his own Spirit…”  (23).  They believe that both baptism and communion of the Body and Blood of Christ are inward and spiritual.

In the modern period, there are exciting developments.  Edward Schillebeeckx, in Christ, the Sacrament of the Encounter with God, sees sacraments as “not things, but encounters of men on earth with the glorified man Jesus by way of a visible form…. They are the visible and tangible embodiment of the heavenly saving action of Christ”  (Johnson 26-27). 

Karl Rahner sees the Church as “the primal sacrament,” and says that sacraments are not always based on a definite, preserved statement spoken by Jesus himself.  There can be many sacraments:  “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” (Johnson 29).

James F. White, a Protestant theologian, has developed a classification of the sacraments: 

 Dominical – instituted by Christ:  Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.                                             Apostolic – continue action of the apostles: reconciliation, healing, confirmation             
 Natural – marriage and burial.

What I see in this sacramental development is:                                                                       
 First,  emergence from traditional community customs of sacred rituals following the example of Jesus;  development of other sacred rituals based on the needs of the community and continuing the “intentions and actions of Jesus”;  development of sacred rituals to mark key moments of the human life-cycle.  None of these were rigidly structured.  All made Jesus present in their everyday lives.

Second,  analysis of the structure of these rituals and their classification.  They become more formalized and rigid.  Sometimes rules could take attention away from their purpose.

Third,  return to the roots; realization that some of the structures meant to facilitate an encounter with God were hindering it.  Work to ‘enlarge the tent’ so that God can break through everywhere, including through feminist, liberation, Asian, African, and other local theologies, even in the prison.