What Sacraments and Sacramentality Are All About
N I G H T II
Last night we began to consider
what sacraments and sacramentality are all about.
I suggested that the short definition
that many of us learned in childhood,
was a little too crimped, a little too ‘little,’
to capture all that the Church claims about sacraments.
I quoted Pope Leo the Great, who wrote
that ‘the Christ whom the apostles knew and followed
has ‘passed over’ now, into the sacraments.’
And then I suggested that anything in this world ---
anything in the universe that reveals God to us ---
anything that inspires awe in us, or evokes reverence from us,
can be considered ‘sacramental.’
And then, much of last night, I spent offering some examples
of what those ‘natural sacraments,’ or ‘sacraments from creation,’
look like.
But we Christians claim that the ‘primordial sacrament’ ---
theultimate revelation to the world
of who God is, and what God does…
…is Christ.
Tonight I’d like to spend some time exploring the implications of that.
Do any of you remember
what we used to call ‘the Last Gospel?’
It was a part of the pre-Vatican II Mass
--- and so I know that I’m excluding some of you,
but it’ll only be for a minute ---
Does anyone --- roughly my age or older ---
remember what ‘the Last Gospel’ was,
and when it was used?
It was the Prologue of the Gospel of John,
meaning that it was an ‘invariable text’ ---
proclaimed by the priest at nearly every Sunday Mass across the year,
after the final blessing and dismissal.
The Council was right, of course, in eliminating it.
It hadn’t been added to the Mass
until more than a thousand years after Christ,
and it had never been integrated
into all of the rest of the liturgy that happened before it.
It was simply an ‘addendum,’ which, in a way, made light of it.
For some Catholics, I’m afraid, it became tedious,
hearing the same passage nearly every Sunday of the year.
It may have encouraged the bad habit of leaving Mass early.
But in just one regard, it was a loss.
Please let me read it for you again.
In the beginning was the Word;
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
He was present with God in the beginning.
Through him
all things came to be,
and apart from him, nothing came to be.
Whatever came to be in him, found life ---
life for the light of men.
The light shines on in the darkness,
and the darkness did not overcome it.
…And the Word became flesh
and made his dwelling place among us;
and we have seen his glory ---
the glory of an only Son
coming from the Father,
filled with enduring love.
Reading it out loud,
one can understand why some Catholics
might have had trouble warming up to it.
It contains St. John’s typically dense poetry at its most abstract.
But it also sums up, in only six verses,
the essence of Christianity --- the essence of the Gospel.
God in human flesh…..
God’s voice in human flesh…..
God’s mercy and love in human flesh…..
Divinity one with humanity…..
Heaven one with earth….
In Christ.
I sometimes wonder
how many Catholics appreciate
how many years of study, and prayer, and scholarship,
went into the preparations for Vatican II.
Largely out of sight of the broader Church ---
and more importantly, largely out of the sight of Rome ---
scores of priests and monks, and some sisters,
in universities and monasteries across Europe,
but mostly in Germany, France and Belgium,
and beginning in the second half of the eighteenth century,
began to apply the tools of modern scholarship,
first, to the scriptures, but then, soon after,
to the writings of the first few centuries of Christian history,
including the most ancient texts of the liturgy.
It became obvious very early on
that much of the Mass, as well as the other rituals of the Church
bore very little resemblance
to the Mass and rituals of the first few centuries.
Priests doing this work, could also report from their parish work,
that nearly no Catholics understood Latin anymore,
and so, for pastoral reasons ---
not to mention, for the good of the Church ---
the vernacular was becoming a necessity.
Reading now, some of their works,
thezeal of these scholars is inspiring.
But not zeal for the task itself,
and not even zeal for the abstract good of the Church,
but zeal for Christ.
The dominant feeling slowly became
that the liturgy was not only failing to make Christ known,
it was actually obstructing that from happening.
How could Catholics grow in their knowledge of Christ
when they were hearing his words in a foreign tongue,
and celebrating his sacraments according to rituals from another time?
This scholarship didn’t really arrive in the United States until the 1920’s
and then, only in a few German Benedictine monasteries.
But our own Mundelein Seminary deserves special mention,
due to its wise --- and very young --- rector at the time,
Fr. Reinhold Hillenbrand.
He helped to inspire a generation of priests ---
the last of them having died over these last ten years ---
who took the liturgy and the gospel to heart, and ---
ThisisChicago and Fr. Hillenbrand’s unique contribution ---
applied the gospel to social needs
and the actual lives of their parishioners.
The term, ‘the social gospel,’ may have been born elsewhere,
but the Church in Chicago first created its program.
Chicago priests and sisters were to be seen on picket lines,
supporting striking-workers’ insistence on a living wage.
In Chicago parishes, YCS --- Young Christian Students ---
CFM --- Catholic Family Movement --- and other worthy offshoots,
took the faith out of the sanctuary and into the neighborhood,
and into living rooms.
But inspiring it all
was the aim of making Christ more truly known,
and of making the Church more Christ-like.
For awhile, these early followers of the Liturgical Movement
favored a neologism, that I’m sorry never caught on.
They said that the mission of the Church should be
to more effectively cultivate the ‘Christ-Life’ among its members,
and out into the world.
“The Christ-Life….”
Admittedly, it sounds a little clunky,
but it does have the virtue
of cramming a lot of meaning into one, hyphenated word.
The Christ-Life…
It means, first of all, I think, living in Christ;
that is, cultivating in all of us,
an ever-deepening friendship with Christ,
through prayer, and reading and meditating on his gospel.
One of the fruits of Vatican II
is the tens of thousands of Bible study-groups
that meet every week in parishes across the world.
Secondly, the Christ-Life means living from Christ;
that is, cultivating a more robust application of Christ’s mercy
to our interactions with each other
and with the least of our sisters and brothers.
St. Vincent DePaul Societies in parishes around the world
were the precursors and models
for much of this apostolic, charitable work;
now there are countless other Catholic groups and societies
who see it as part of their duty to Christ
tobe a little bit of Christ for others.
Finally, I think, the Christ-Life means living for Christ;
that is, bearing witness to Christ in our daily interactions,
by the virtue of our way of life ---
--- by the Christ-like virtues of our way of life,
and only secondarily by our words.
You’ve heard the advice of St. Francis of Assisi before ---
‘preach the gospel at all times --- use words…..if you must.’
Living for Christ always begins as a spiritual journey,
of prayer, and not a little bit of struggle,
and this is, for many, the daily shape that the cross takes in their lives.
Being Christ-like is hard;
But as St. Theresa of Calcutta used to say,
“if we’re going to claim to be Christians,
we ought to be Christ-like.”
Living for Christ, means in the end, striving toward saintliness,
in imitation of him.
I read an essay, more than twenty years ago,
in the Jesuit’s America magazine.
Maybe some of you read it too.
It was written by a young man --- as I recall, he was nineteen ---
who reported that he had been baptized and raised a Catholic.
His parents had been faithful in attending Sunday Mass,
and had been faithful
in bringing himself and his sisters to Sunday Mass.
And he had felt comfortable and loved there.
But he was writing to report --- with great sadness ---
that he now felt compelled to leave the Catholic Church,
because he had come to realize
that he had become…..a stranger to Christ…..a stranger to Christ.
He reported that months had gone by
during which he had not heard a priest
so much as mention Christ in a homily.
They saw it as their job, he said, to make people laugh.
I’m not naïve.
I know that there are plenty of priests out there
who aren’t very compelling preachers.
I know because I taught some of them.
Some of these priests know it about themselves
and are embarrassed by it,
and try to compensate for it
by their kindness and attentiveness to their flocks.
But still, when I read this young man’s words,
I felt simultaneously shocked, and saddened,
and chastened by association.
I guess I’d believed
that Catholics who had become strangers to Christ
must have done so for their own failure to attend Sunday Mass,
or as a result of their disillusionment over Church scandals.
It shocked me to read that attending Mass had actually caused it.
I pray for him sometimes, though I’ve forgotten his name,
hoping he’ll find his way back.
But this is serious business.
Because it is the conviction that fuels this entire mission,
not to mention the conviction that undergirds our entire faith,
that Christ is the ‘primordial sacrament,’ who reveals,
by his very presence in our world,
and by his words and deeds,
and ultimately, by his cross and resurrection,
whoGodis, and what Goddoes.
I fear the possibility,
that when I approach God’s judgment seat,
that the most damning thing of which I’ll be accused,
will be that, by myneglect, any of God’s sons or daughters
will have become ‘strangers’ to Christ.
And so for a little while tonight
I’d like to share with you my own convictions
about who Christ is, and what Christ means,
asI have come to know him…..as I have come to love him.
Obviously, you will have heard me say much of what follows…
before.
But I hope it bears repeating.
Ultimately, of course, all of us have to answer for ourselves
Christ’s own question --- “Who do you say that I am?”
It’s a consequential question;
and more importantly, I think,
each of our answers will bear much consequence.
So.
Allow me to share my own personal convictions
about who Christ is, and what Christ does.
⨁
Within and across the gospels, as I read them,
Christ mission and ministry ---Christ’s presence in the world ---
was identified by four “marks,” four virtues,
that identify him as ‘Christ’ ---
as the Redeemer, both human and divine,
whom God sent to reveal to us, who he is.
First, Christ was single-minded in pursuing God the Father’swill.
Jesus’ very first recorded words, found in St. Luke’s gospel ---
“Why were you searching for me? Did you not know
that I must be about my Father’s business?” ---
reveal a young man already intent on submission to God’s designs.
Throughout the gospels,
in his parables and teachings, in his ministry and healing,
and ultimately, in the paschal mystery of his suffering and death,
Jesus acts in obedience to the Father,
making himself the instrument of the Father’s reign.
As some of you may remember, when I was studying the liturgy
my particular focus was on the prayers or ‘orations’
of the Roman Missal, and more particularly,
on the invocations of those prayers ---
the names by which we address God.
But in studying these prayers,
I also encountered some of the names or titles
with which we refer to Christ.
And at the time it startled me that,
in many of the most ancient liturgical prayers of the Church,
the texts, addressing God the Father,
describe Christ as, ‘your Servant and your Son.’
In English it’s not so shocking.
We’re accustomed to describing Christ as a servant.
But the Latin word that the translators chose
to render into English as ‘servant,’ was ‘puer.’
Any Latin scholars here?
Can anyone tell me the more common translation of ‘puer?’
It’s the Latin word for ‘boy.’
Describing Jesus as God’s ‘boy’ sounds irreverent, at least,
and given some of the racial associations
that we have with that word in English,
it sounds provocative and insulting as well.
But certainly the prayer’s composers didn’t intend that.
No, the Latin word here
is meant to convey precisely that posture of obedience
that we find in the gospels.
After the ascension,
the Church rather quickly began to worship Christ himself.
But within the gospels, Christ is always subservient to, and obedient to,
God the Father alone.
Just as his first recorded words reveal it,
so do his last --- at least as recorded by St. Luke.
“Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”
⨁
Secondly, Christ made himself --- identified himself ---
as the servant, not only of God the Father,
but also of the poor, the suffering and the rejected.
You remember, in St. Matthew’s gospel ---
“Then they will say,
‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you,
or thirsty and give you drink?
When did we see you a stranger and welcome you,
or naked and clothe you?
When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’
And he will say in reply,
‘Amen, I say to you,
whatever you did for my least brother or sister, you did for me.’”
Even two thousands year later,
many Christians are startled,
and even offended by the fact,
that the Christ whom they claim to worship,
saw fit, while he was here,
to associate with, to dine with, and to become a servant to,
people whom they themselves wouldn’t let through their front doors.
We find this ‘servant-character’ of Christ
expressed most beautifully
in the famous hymn from 1st Philippians…
Christ did not deem equality with God something to be clung to;
rather, he emptied himself and took the form of a slave,
obediently accepting even death…death on a cross…
And because of this, God highly exalted him,
and gave him the name above every other name,
so that, at Jesus’ name, every knee must bend
and every head must bow, and every tongue proclaim,
to the glory of God the Father,
that Jesus Christ is Lord!
Christ came as servant,
lived as servant,
died as a servant,
and was exaltedas ‘servant’ by his Father.
I think ‘servant’ must be included in any attempt
to answer Christ’s question, “Who do you say that I am?”
⨁
Third, Christ was identified with forgiving sinners.
Scholars seems increasingly agreed
thatthis is what led, ultimately,
to Christ’s arrest and crucifixion.
“This man carries on with sinners
and eats with them!”
It was a fair accusation.
Jesus himself admitted as much ---
“People who are healthy have no need of a doctor.
Sick people do. Go and learn the meaning of the words,
‘It is mercy I desire, and not sacrifice.’
I have come to seek out and save what was lost.”
Christ’s whole mission, according to our creed,
was the redemption of the poor human race ---
which is a fancy way of saying that Christ’s whole mission
was the forgiveness of the whole human race.
“He came,” St. John writes,
“not to condemn the world,
but that the world might have life through him.”
Over and over throughout the gospels, we see Christ forgiving sinners,
often even before they had confessed that they were sinners.
I think he saw it as his job, his duty, assigned him by God.
I wish more of we Catholics
presumed that ‘Redeemer’ identity of Christ
to be essential in answering the answer of ‘who Christ is.’
My hunch is that eventually, we’ll all find it very important.
⨁
Fourth and finally,
Christ was selfless.
In articulating the conditions of discipleship
Christ said,
“If you would be my disciple,
you must deny your very self,
take up your cross each day,
and follow in my footsteps.”
Too often in our history,
we Christian have been perceived
to be grasping, proud and self-congratulatory,
arguing, like the apostles in the gospel,
over who among them was the greatest.
Ultimately this is the mark --- the ‘sacrament’ of Christ’s presence,