A Reflection on the Sacrament of Christ

I was doing some house cleaning on my hard drive when I came across this essay I had written a few years ago for a distance class I took at the Franciscan University of Steubenville.  I really enjoyed the 2 classes I took, but prayerfully decided not to continue as time becomes very limited once kids enter into the picture - which is probably the best reason to keep the priesthood celibate.  Not sure if it's worth sharing, but nonetheless here it is:


      My experience in Dr. Martin’s Theology of the Church class has been both instructional and life changing.  As a somewhat recent convert to Catholicism, I am continually reminded that Catholicism and Evangelicalism differ not only in a grouping of data or facts.  One cannot simply list a number of doctrines on a chart detailing the Evangelical understanding versus the Catholic understanding and expect to fully comprehend the true differences.  Likewise, one cannot move from Evangelicalism to Catholicism simply by intellectually accepting all the Catholic doctrines.  My venture into Catholicism continually forces me to step back and look at the bigger picture.  The foundations are quite different.  It is a different mind set and requires a total paradigm shift.  One of the most remarkable manifestations of these differences is the concept of sacrament.  The Catholic understanding of sacrament is that God interacts with our world not only in the spiritual realm, but also through real, material changes.  The sacrament is a symbol, but it is nevertheless, real.  He not only uses men as the object to be acted upon, but He also asks men to participate in performing these actions.  Certainly God is not constrained by us men.  However, God infuses his people with grace and specifically requests that we participate in His plan.  The fulfillment of His plan leads ultimately to our own salvation and can even assist in the salvation of others.  This participation takes nothing away from God's splendor or transcendence.  We offer God only ourselves, sinful as we are.  We have nothing else to offer Him.  God's grace to man is an undeserved gift even when we are asked to assist God in bringing His grace into the world.
      Many modern Christians are all too willing to turn their back on the 2000 year history of Christianity.  If we look too closely, our faces become "mud splashed with history".  At various times in history the Church has been charged with being too oppressive, too accepting, too strict, too lenient, too glorious, and too humble.  I've heard it explained that the Catholic Church generally takes a BOTH-AND approach rather than an EITHER-OR approach.  This BOTH-AND method is particularly useful in describing the Church herself.  The Church is both immaculate and fallen.  She is perfect in that she is the bride of Christ, but fallen in regards to the sinful nature of the individuals who constitute her membership.  Certainly there are less than flattering events in the history of the Church.  There were notoriously bad members of the hierarchy.  Some people may take an extremely idealistic approach and say they will either belong to an organization which has never flawed or they will not belong to any organization.  Upon this immediate error, a secondary error usually follows.  That error is to disregard the past as a mere embarrassment.  The mentality is that if our ancestors were less than perfect, then they must have nothing to teach us.  This approach is a grave disservice to all those who have fought for and defended truth.  Instead we should cherish our greater background; by doing so we will further understand ourselves.
      To understand sacrament we need not look further than Christ himself.  Christ is a scandal to the world in a similar manner as sacrament.  God, the infinite and eternal being, became a man and entered history at a particular moment in time in a specific location.  The scandal only increases throughout his life as he his despised by the world and ultimately beaten and executed as a criminal.  Blood and dirt ran down His brow as insults were hurled at Him.  How could God allow this to happen?  This is not an image of a god that mankind should look to, is it?  Even more certainly, this could not be, adopting the Jewish idea of monotheism, the one true God. The beautiful thing about Christ is that he is both fully God and fully man.  He has put on humanity and as such redeemed humanity.  Not only did Christ redeem humanity, but he redeemed the entire world. 
      The Church is the sacrament of Christ and us such is considered the mystical body of Christ.  By the definition of mystery, we cannot fully comprehend it until God chooses to reveal those aspects which are hidden. As de Lubac states, “signs are not things to be stopped at, for they are, in themselves, valueless.”  He continues, “under this aspect it is not something intermediate but something mediatory; it does not isolate, one from another, the two terms it is meant to link.  It does not put a distance between them; on the contrary, it unites them by making present that which it evokes.”  It is in this lack of total understanding that we turn to God and take the attitude of "whatsoever he saith unto you, do it".  It is not inconsistent for God to ask His people to do things that are outside the realm of their comprehension.  I wonder what was going on in the minds of the Israelites as they circled around the walls of Jericho for days.  We can attempt to defend and legitimize the Church to the world as merely a good organization that provides global social services.  There isn’t anything wrong with this approach unless it stops there.  We must view her as “the great sacrament which contains and vitalizes all the others.”
      The reformers looked at the Church with disdain.  It was a forgone conclusion in their minds that the Church, corrupt as it was, was too far gone and could not be reformed. The division of the Church can be blamed on the church herself.  It was in the Church’s lack of adherence to Christ’s way of life that brought about the doubts that she was the true bride of Christ.  Once the reformers did away with the Church, they had to also do away with the things the Church conferred. One thing led to another and they ended up with a whole new system, a whole new way of understanding Christianity.  This is why Evangelicalism from a Catholic perspective and vise-versa must be taken with a whole mindset.  It is a great hope that one day the Holy Spirit will rectify what man broke apart and unite all Christian communities.  In order to further this cause we must have a true ecumenism in which doctrines must be fully exposed and not hidden or changed.  According to Martin, it is only hospitable to do so.
      If we don't adhere to a mysterious understanding of the Church then we are left with 2 options.  The first is to take a purely materialistic view of the Church and reduce her to our own understanding.  We put her under the microscope and examine her as we would any human organization.  On this point, both the atheist and the non-sacramental Christian agrees.  A church becomes nothing more than the communion of the unholy people who fill her pews.  Baptism becomes merely a symbol as does the Eucharist.  Scott Hahn parallels this attitude to the Old Testament passage of Uzzah treating the Ark of the Covenant like just a box.  On the other hand, if we go the other way and fall into superstition.  Liturgical rites are treated as magical and this magic is indifferent to the disposition of the individual.  Clericalism begins to take over because if priests are able to consecrate the Eucharist, they must be on a level higher than a typical lay person.  The sacraments, which are a means, become the end.  We must always remember that the sacrament is meant to allow us access to the ultimate, but they themselves are not the ultimate.
      The most eye opening aspect of these reflections to me personally is that what I do matters.  If God’s grace is infused into us while we still walk this earth, then we better have something to show for it.  As an evangelical I found myself falling into the trap of “if the sacrifice of Jesus simply covers my sins, then the hell w/ it.  I will do whatever I want.  It doesn’t matter.”  Admittedly, Evangelicalism has an answer to this blasphemy, but it never really struck a chord with me.  Another, more obvious, consequence of believing in Sacrament is in partaking of the Eucharist.  As I more fully comprehend what the Eucharist is, I am continually astonished by it.  The Church is both the one who distributes the Sacrament while also being sustained by the Sacrament.  The Eucharist is the sacrament that brings Christ, the life and the truth, to the world.
      Recently I began attending Eucharist adoration at a local parish.  My mind was all over the place the first time I entered the Church.  Can this really be God right here in the middle of the city?  There are construction workers outside that seem to be indifferent to the whole thing.  I didn’t have to scale a mountain to get in here.  No one checked my credentials.  In a few minutes I’ll be going back to what I was doing before I came.  How can this really be God?  All of humanity hopes to meet their maker and he is right here before me?  How can this be?  I started to look around at the stained glass windows, statues, and paintings.  As I closed my eyes and opened my heart to God, I began to understand the Christian mystery as I never had before.
      Dr. Martin’s echoing of the Second Vatican Council, the theologians, such as Henri de Lubac, building up to the council, and the entire teaching of the Church from the beginning affirm that Catholics are blessed to be in communion with the One, Holy, Apostolic Church established by Christ himself.  This Church, like the moon, is not a light source in and of itself, but is continually illuminated by another source.  The more directly the moon is allowed access to the sun, the brighter the moon’s light.  If the sun is blocked for whatever reason, the moon’s light is stamped out.  Rather than the Church getting in the way of a Christian’s access to Christ, it is in the Church that one gets closest to Christ.