What is a sacrament?

Many people were brought up to answer this question with the words of the old catechism: " A sacrament is an outward sign of inward grace, ordained by Jesus Christ, by which grace is given to the soul".
This answer contains several elements. An outward sign implies that there is something to look at, to touch, see, smell or feel. The Church has lots of different ingredients in its recipe for sacraments. These include water, bread, wine, perfumed oil, gestures, words, songs, rings, incense, vestments etc.

But the phrase inward grace causes us to go beyond these ordinary everyday signs to seek a deeper reality. We don't pour water over a baby because he or she needs cleaning. We pour water over a child to signify that something special is happening to them. He or she is becoming cleansed of humanity's original attachment to sin and is being offered the refreshing water of faith in the living God within the community of believers. The water symbolises that the child is being incorporated into the assembly of believers, the family of God that is the Church.

Ordained by Jesus Christ is a broad phrase. We cannot trawl through the scriptures looking for precise moments when Jesus instituted the individual sacraments. Rather it is the Church's reflection on the message of Jesus that has caused it to see the sacraments as rooted in Christ's will for men and women. The sacraments are celebrations of how Christ is present to us in the key moments of life.

Yet the sacraments are not one-way affairs. We are told that grace is given to the soul when a sacrament is celebrated with the right dispositions. People's lives are transformed by the sacraments but they are not merely recipients or participators. They are celebrants along with the minister and the community of the way in which God continues to enrich the lives of those who believe in him.

 How do they work?

The sacraments are not quasi-magical. There is sometimes the feeling that it is enough for an action to be performed or a word to be spoken by someone who has the "power" for the result to be achieved. But this has never been the attitude of the Church.

It is obvious, for example, that God's forgiveness in absolution cannot be effective without co-operation from the person who receives it. What is the effect on someone baptised at birth who has never afterwards been aware of this baptism? God alone knows.

The sacraments are sacraments of faith. We cannot think of them as magic and we need to recognise the place of human freedom, allowing for the action of God in the dialogue of faith. The sacraments are effective because they are of God and express our life of faith. They exist to awaken our faith,  nourish it and help it to develop and mature.This is not done instantaneously! We have to take time over the journey, just as the disciples on the journey to Emmaus needed time to realise the presence of Christ in their midst (see Luke's Gospel chapter 24).

What is this grace that they give?

In the bible, grace is a characteristic quality of God. This grace is goodness and mercy; it is the free gift that God gives to men and women; the fruit of his generosity; the blessing that he grants.

For Christians, grace is the gift that God gives when he makes us participants in his life. It is the work of the Holy Spirit, for the Spirit is the gift par excellence.

Every sacrament is a gift from God welcomed in faith. It is a part of human life illumined by the Spirit. This is the reason we speak of "sacramental grace".

How many sacraments are there?

It can be tempting to give a facile answer to this question and say that there are two or that there are seven. But that's to miss the point. Some churches speak of Baptism and Eucharist as the only sacraments. Others add Confirmation, Reconciliation, Matrimony, Ordination and Anointing of the Sick.

One way to understand this is to say that if sacraments are celebrations of God's presence to us, then all the highpoints of our Christian lives can take on a sacramental quality. Since the seven sacraments proclaim the truth of the Paschal Mystery (the fact that Jesus died and rose and is now present among us) they are celebrated at key points in our lives. The figure seven can be taken as representing completion and fulfilment.

For St Paul, the sacraments are ways of living out the Paschal Mystery in our lives. They link us with Christ's life and death, his friendship, love and self-giving in order to make us partakers in his resurrection.

For St Matthew, the sacramental rites have been given by Jesus Christ as the sign of his presence in his Church. The forgiveness of sins is associated with baptism and eucharist.

For St Luke, it is the Holy Spirit whoaccompanies the work of the Church and makes it fruitful. It is the Spirit who makes certain that the gospel is successfully proclaimed and leaves a mark on the community of believers. This working of the Holy Spirit  is experienced  in the rites of baptism, the breaking of bread (the Mass) and the laying on of hands (ordination and anointing).

For St John, baptism and the eucharist make us sharers of the true life, that of the Word who came among us to reveal the Father and lead us towards him (see John's Gospel chapter 10 verse 10).

Becoming a sacrament

In a very real sense we can say that there is only one sacrament: Jesus. By this we mean that Jesus is the revelation of who God is;  he is the active presence of God in our world and in our lives.

We can also say that if the Church exists to be the presence of Christ in our world ("Where two or three gather in my name I will be present in their midst"), then the Church is the sacrament of Christ.

It follows that the individual members of the Church are called to be "sacraments" of God's saving love and presence in our world. That is why we strive to live out this sacramental presence in our married days, our priestly vocations, our reconciling lives and so on.

We are called not only to celebrate the sacraments but also to become sacraments.

God Still Speaks

Has it all been said?

One of the traps that Christians can easily fall into is to think that God spoke his message to the world centuries ago and that now he has said it all and stopped talking. This would be to think of the message of God as something static and finished rather than something active and dynamic. In fact, God continues to speak in fresh ways to each generation, guiding and leading us, warning and cautioning us, consoling and encouraging us.

Of course, there is a deposit of God's word that is found in scripture, a body of writing, prophecy, maxims, laws, stories and parables. This cannot change and God has no intention of going back on his word. But what God had to say in times gone by is today addressed to us in our contemporary circumstances. This means that we have to read the scriptures if we want to hear the message.

Frightened of the Bible?

Lots of people are frightened of opening the Bible and so it remains a closed book for them. They consider it too complicated and so remain ignorant of much of it. Sometimes the version of the Bible that they are reading does not really help. If the language is archaic it may well sound beautiful but not necessarily be understood. So it's always worth making sure you have a modern version of the Bible, preferably with some helpful notes and commentary.

The study of the Bible is for one purpose, however. So that, praying with Scripture, we may be better able to hear what God is saying to us here and now. The writers of scripture were inspired by the Holy Spirit. But it is equally true that the scriptures themselves are inspired. The Holy Spirit has been "breathed into them" and resides within their words. When we approach the scriptures prayerfully, aided by the same Spirit who dwells in them, reading scripture becomes an experience of being filled and empowered by God's Spirit, and we are changed.

"Ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ!" insisted St. Jerome, a 5th century Father and Doctor of the Church. Because of this, every liturgical service of the Church is full of scripture. Take Sunday Eucharist for instance. First there are significant chunks of scripture read aloud, just as we see in Nehemiah 8 or in Luke 4 when Jesus serves as lector at the synagogue of Capernaum. But don't forget the prayers and acclamations that are full of scripture like the Holy Holy (a combination of Is 6 and Ps 118:26), the Our Father (Mt 6:9), and the Gloria (Lk 2:14).

Sometimes the words of scripture are encouraging, like when 1 Cor: 12 tells us that no matter how insignificant we may feel, we each have an essential role to play as members of the Body of Christ. But other times scripture holds a mirror up to our face and we don't like what we see. In Nehemiah 8, the people wept at the reading of the word, because it made them realize their sin. The word is truth, and sometimes the truth is painful. But so is antiseptic on a wound. Scripture challenges us only to heal us and call us to growth. No pain, no gain.

Hearing the Word

For most people, their principal opportunity to hear what God is trying to say to them takes place at the weekly Sunday Eucharist. So is hearing scripture on Sunday enough? Not by a long shot. Scripture, says the Church, is "food for the soul." Who eats just once a week? To survive and thrive, you need daily nourishment. You can have a steady diet of Scripture by attending Mass daily, participating in the liturgy of the hours with its daily readings and psalms, or reading scripture in daily personal prayer. Actually, all three make an unbeatable combination.

But it's not enough for scripture to be read from the lectern. We have to learn how to listen to it. We have to long to hear it and yearn to meet Christ present in his word. The presence of Christ in the reading of the scriptures is an active and personal presence. In fact, we can speak of the "real presence" of Christ in the reading of the scriptures in much the same way that some Christian traditions speak of Christ's real presence in holy communion.

The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) says, "Christ is present in his word since it is he himself who speaks when the holy scriptures are read in the church." Elsewhere it says, "In the liturgy God speaks to his people and Christ is still proclaiming his Gospel".
Can we afford to let it pass us by?

Praying the Scriptures

The Holy Spirit energises our prayers and we must allow him to make the word of God a reality in our heart. Our spirit will become one with God's word, and we will start to believe like God believes and speak like God speaks when we give the Holy Spirit access to our hearts and minds. The word of God will shape our lives and the lives of others through us. The world is hungry for truth and if the word of God is deep within you, you can give it to those around you.

Come Holy Spirit and open my earsthat I may hear the word of Godand my life may be enriched.Enlighten my mindso that I may see the glory of Godpresent in the beauty of creation.Loosen my tonguethat I may sing the praises of Godand tell of his wonders by the quality of my life.Feed me with God's wordthat I may long for the promisesthat Jesus has made to those who believe in him.Make me a "person of the word"that I may be a living copy of the gospelfor all those who meet me.