Foundation and Understanding of the Sacraments

Sacraments are sacred components of Catholic Church. Without Them, we cannot live as devoted Catholics. As I read Chapter 1, I was reminded of what my Religion class talked about when we were studying Sacraments. As I had taught and read, there are three groups of Sacraments: Initiation (Baptism, Eucharist, Confirmation), Healing (Reconciliation, Anointing of the Sick), and Service of Communion (Matrimony, Holy Orders). Council of Florence excellently details how these Sacraments were grouped. In Initiation Sacraments, we are reborn in Christ, strengthened in faith and grace, and nourished by Jesus’s Body and Blood. With Healing Sacraments, we become healthy spiritually in Reconciliation, and healthy physically in Anointing of the Sick. In Matrimony and Holy Orders we serve the Church by growing the Church physically or governing the Church (Johnson 11-12). Through these Sacraments we grow closer to God, and our Church is able to flourish and continue. In this blog I am going to focus on the early foundations and opinions of the Sacraments, ending with Luther and Calvin.

If the priest who is giving Sacraments is wicked – are those Sacrament still valid for us? St. Augustine answers when discussing Baptism. He writes that the Baptism is inherently holy despite the wickedness of the minister or the recipient. The recipient receives “the holiness of the mystery…(and) the remission of sins” if he is in good standing with the Church (Johnson 3). No matter what, as long as the recipient is holy, he is still reborn. St. Thomas Aquinas writes that if an evil minister administers the Sacrament, it is still holy because power of the Sacrament comes from God, and it is God who confers the Sacrament (Johnson 10).  As I understand, these Sacraments come from Jesus Christ, who acts in the person of the priest.

I know several Protestants who don’t believe in Reconciliation because they feel that we should only need to confess our sins to God. Therefore I found it intriguing that Martin Luther –Leader of the Reformation and a Founder of Protestants –included Penance (Reconciliation) as one of three Sacraments he found valid. He felt Penance valid because of the evidence he found in the Scriptures, he did not consider the other Sacraments true because of the lack of spiritual evidence (Johnson 14). Luther sets the foundation for a future Reformation leader in John Calvin, who wrote that Sacraments could only fulfill their role if Spirit was moved inside of us. If we did not feel God’s power and love through the Sacraments, then the Sacraments “accomplish nothing more in our eyes than the splendor of the sun shining upon our eyes, or a voice sounding in deaf ears” (Johnson 18).  In fact, in most cases, the Sacraments do little for the believers (Johnson 19). Essentially, the Sacraments do not matter if we do not take them seriously.

I wrote about foundation of the Sacraments because to understand how Catholics view the Sacraments we must understand the foundation. It was fascinating to read the beliefs of St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin. As I’ve taught my students, we must be aware of God’s presence in the Sacraments. Through prayer – whether it is the Liturgy of the Hours or Rosary – we grow in our faith. When we grow in our faith, we can fully receive the Sacraments, thereby fully understanding God and Jesus’s role. When we understand God’s role and His calling for us, we can be saved.

Joy and Happiness and Perseverance

Joy of the Gospel 1 - Words to Describe this Church

Jesus's Resurrection and Ascension - A True Moment of Joy

I loved reading through Pope Francis’s Joy of the Gospel because what we have here is a message that we should really take time to read and reflect on, especially during this Lenten season. He writes this in a way that is clear and easy for the average Catholic to fully understand, as well as a profound way, which still leaves a deep impact on us. Pope Francis opens up with how when we accept the Gospel and we accept Christ in our hearts, our lives will be of boundless joy and no longer be filled with loneliness (Evangeli Gaudium 4).  I love this opening because when I have been teaching my students Morality this quarter, we talked about how by accepting Christ’s love we encounter true happiness. Sometimes we try to find this happiness through other means, whether it’s through the “pursuit of frivolous pleasures” such as constant video games or drinking, or just other interests that are not very God-centered. As a result, we listen less to God’s voice and more to other aspects of a conscience that is not well-formed (5).  When we take time to form a good conscience through prayer and time with Christ, we are more able to pursue the interests and will that God calls us to pursue.

Lent and Easter are a time in which we can understand what true joy looks like. Joy will not always be as a form of pleasure and ease and the sense that our demands are met; sometimes true joy is a form of suffering, testing, difficulty. Other times it takes detaching ourselves from obligations and instead finding simplicity in persevering and remaining strong in our faith (7). There are several days where if I described joy as pure pleasure, then I would be miserable as a teacher and minister, constantly trying to get my students to listen while becoming easily frustrated and discouraged. Other days when I am uncertain of my calling or frustrated in my job search, I found myself asking if the suffering was worth being faithful when I was unsure about where I was meant to be called. However, I realized that though at times suffering was tough, I felt stronger in my faith because I was able to remember the joy that Jesus brings to us. Perseverance truly plays a strong role in this.

A final point brought up is on P. 8 when Pope Francis opens up with #11, stating “a renewal of preaching can offer believers, as well as the lukewarm and the non-practicing, new joy in the faith and fruitfulness in the work of evangelization.” On one hand I read this and realize how at times it’s easy for us to dismiss the heart of the message, Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection, because of how many times we have heard it. It’s nothing new. However, the problem with that mindset is that we do not grow and become closed-minded. Instead, we need to hear it more, especially so that way we can become firm in our faith. We then are able to evangelize, or spread the good news, to those who do not believe in Christ or rejected Him in the past (9). Christ died to save us, He gave his whole life up because He loved us, and He wants us to spread this message of love and hope and even suffering to everyone. By spreading this message and understanding the suffering, we an attain true joy and happiness. We can become Fishers of Men (and women).

Comfortable Christianity

As I was reading chapter five of Lumen Gentium, I was stuck by this passage, “Since Jesus, the Son of God, manifested His charity by laying down His life for us, so too no one has greater love that he who lays down his life for Christ and His brothers” (42).  Continuing on just a few sentences later I read, “The Church, then, considers martyrdom as an exceptional gift and as the fullest proof of love…Though few are presented such and opportunity, nevertheless all must be prepared to confess Christ before men” (42).   

My mind suddenly raced back to the recent news of the 21 Coptic Christians killed by Islamic militants in Libya http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2015/02/17/pope-francis-hails-murdered-coptic-christians-as-martyrs/.  I guess it was close to my mind because of our church's decision to keep their families in our prayers each Sunday as we finally woke up to the fact that there are Christians who live out their faith on a daily basis not from the comfort of a church pew, but from the excruciating awareness that their Christian faith may very well be the cause of their untimely deaths.

This got me to thinking, are we too comfortable in our Christian faith?  With evangelist preachers proclaiming prosperity theology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology, have we gone too far away from the gospel message of Matthew 10:38-39, “Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me.  Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.”  Have we forgotten martyrs like Perpetua and Felicity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetua_and_Felicity?  Do we have the same sincerity of faith that Christians who live in persecuted places have?

I wondered to myself, do we take our church communities seriously enough?  Do we take those who we sit shoulder to shoulder with each Sunday for granted?  Do we choose to care more for those that we have relationships with or have more in common with than the people in our congregations who don’t look like us, smell like us, or act like us? 

Our Christian faith is eschatological.  As it is Paul writes in I Thessalonians 5:1-2, “Now, brothers and sisters, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.”  If we proclaim a faith that’s eschatological, do we treat our daily lives in such a way?  Do we live a life of humble service to the Lord daily?  Has the expanse of two thousand years sent us to our couches in a safe slumber?

I like many other Christians often take my faith for granted.  I often take the ability to profess my faith freely for granted.  I believe I am just as guilty as others of resting on the couch of safety and security that this country affords Christians like me and in theory, other people of other faiths as well.   

As I pray for those who are persecuted because of their faith, as I think of my Coptic and Palestinian Christian brothers and sisters, my Christian brothers and sisters in dangerous places around this world, I am reminded to take my faith seriously.  I ask myself, would I, if given the choice between life or confessing Christ as King, would I have the faith and courage to proclaim Christ is King right before having my throat cut.  I hope I would. 

 Listen to the interview by Andrew Summerson on Coptic Christians via Vatican Radio http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2015/02/18/coptic_martyrs_were_poor_but_near_to_god_/1124305