Orthodoxy,
keeping right faith, is truly a balancing act. There are so many paradoxes; if
any one thought is emphasized too much, then the faith becomes unorthodox and
diseased rapidly. Soon, a slew of cancerous lies is filling the soul of the individual
or group of believers who ran with one side of the story. By God’s will, he has kept the gates of
Hell from prevailing against his Church and led her into all truth, as he
promised. Some outside the Church, though, have claimed she has fallen into
disease by worshiping the creation instead of the Creator. What then? Should we
be pagan, or Puritan? The Catholic Church has taken the ancient way, though,
and done neither. She has kept to reason and truth, to worship God and
receiving his grace by seeing creation as a sacramental reality.
“Ever
since the creation of the world [God’s] eternal power and divine nature,
invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he
has made,” St. Paul wrote in Romans 1:20 (NRSVCE). Holy Scripture clearly tells
us that God’s creation was meant to be a sign and an instrument of God himself.
St. Paul continues in the passage about how some, though, instead of
recognizing the God to whom the creation points, have made their own gods and
worshipped their own passions. They have “worshipped and served the creature
rather than the Creator. (Rom. 1:25)”
Throughout
the history of the Church, there have been times at which those who have wanted
to keep orthodox have attempted to debase and to rid the “creature” in an
attempt to put distance between God and his creation, so as to worship him
alone. They rid themselves of all objects like icons, relics, candles, incense,
and liturgical garments. They rejected the art the Church has guarded, whether
in the Sistine Chapel or in the Eucharistic monstrance of the local parishes.
They rid themselves, finally, of all Sacraments of the Church. In doing so,
they rid themselves of many created things that God has willed to use in order
communicate himself, his love and his grace to draw us to himself.
A
sacrament is any thing (person, place, action, object) that communicates a
hidden reality. Both the Greek and the Latin words for “mystery” are from where
we get our English word “sacrament.” A sacrament is a mystery because the
obvious and visible of the thing itself give way to the invisible reality of
God and his goodness. Some sacraments are stronger in degree of communicating
hidden realities. A few sacraments are so strong that they communicate God
himself.
Both
the Canticle of Daniel and Psalm 148 are clear examples in Holy Scripture of
what a sacrament in creation looks like. “Bless the Lord, all you works of the
Lord. Praise and exalt him above all forever. Angels of the Lord, bless the
Lord. You heavens, bless the Lord. […] Sun and moon […] Stars of heaven […]
Every shower and dew […] you winds […] Fire and heat […] Cold and chill, bless
the Lord. (Dan. 3:57-88 NAB) All created things point in praise of the Creator.
Psalm 36:6 praises God’s “righteousness like the mighty mountains, and [his]
judgments are like the great deep [oceans].”
The
pinnacle of creation, though, is humankind. We are made in his image, both male
and female (Gen. 1:27). In us existed the perfect image of God prior to the
entrance of sin. We were meant to be the perfect icon of the Creator, and
through us, we were to draw up the whole creation in worship of him. Though we
fell from grace, we did, however, retain part of that image of God even after
having sinned. As St. Thérèse pointed
out in her autobiography, The Story of a
Soul, even a hard-hearted sinner like Pharaoh can be an instrument of God
to be a kind of sacrament: “For the scripture says to Pharaoh, ‘I have raised
you up for the very purpose of showing my power in you, so that my name may be
proclaimed in all the earth.’ (Rom. 9:27 NRSVCE)”
And,
yet, through all of the muck and mess that we’ve made of the world, there is
still a greater Sacrament in creation – the greatest Sacrament of all. It is
not all of the great signs and wonders that God did for Israel, though they be
sacramental in nature: the Arc of the Covenant, Moses’ staff, the tablets of
the Commandments, the priestly sarifices, the pillar of fire, the burning bush.
These were all great instruments of God’s power, his grace, his mercy and his
presence. Even Israel, the nation
itself, was a kind of sacrament of God in the world, being an instrument of
God’s holiness and salvation.
The
greatest sacrament of all is the Word made Flesh. Jesus Christ “is the image of
the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. (Col. 1:15 NRSVCE)” It is he
who communicates to us all of God, perfectly and without fault. He it is who
communicates all life, all holiness. In his image, his own flesh and blood, he
gives us all of God and his complete salvation, all fullness of grace. “O happy
fault, that gained for us so great, so glorious a Redeemer!” is the praise we
cry in the Easter Exsultet each year. He is the one who redeemed and restored
the image of God to humankind. In him, and through him, we can become like God.
He is the only Sacrament in complete totality, to communicate (the Word) the
reality, the truths, of God and his mysteries.
Next
to him stands his bride, the Church. She is the body of Christ, as he is the
head. She stands firm as another sacrament, to give life, and to be the
presence of Christ to the world. She alone has been given his authority, his
glory, his holiness, and his reign. She carries within her his fullness: “And
[God] has put all things under his feet and has made [Christ] the head over all
things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who
fills all in all. (Eph. 1:22-23 NRSVCE)”
The
Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us, “The Church both contains and
communicates the invisible grace she signifies. It is in this analogical way
that the Church is called a sacrament. (774)” Later, in paragraphs 1118 and on,
we read that, in the Church, the seven sacraments instituted by Christ himself (Baptism,
Communion, Confirmation, Marriage, Holy Orders and Anointing of the Sick) are the
gifts of Christ to his Church “for her” and “by her.” In these sacraments of
the Church, performed by her, she is an instrument of the very grace that God
gives to her. The Church is a sacrament, because she is an instrument of that
grace that she signifies as the bride of Christ, as his Body; she is an
instrument of Christ’s very action.
Through
the Sacraments of the Church, Christ is the one who acts. They are the signs
and the instruments of his saving grace; they are the works of his hands. It is
he who baptizes, he who washes clean, he who forgives, he who feeds us, he who
binds us in matrimony and love, he who heals us, he who gives us the gifts of
the Spirit and the authority of his priesthood (CCC, 1127). In instituting these
Sacraments, he has given us perfect means of witnessing and receiving the act
of God, through signs of invisible realities. These Sacraments give to us the
Way, the Truth, and the Life. We should never disregard them as mere symbols,
mere religious acts of piety or as empty rituals. They are the saving power of
God, who has chosen the things of this world to bring about his salvation.
Now,
because of the Redemption won for us and the whole creation by Christ, the True
Sacrament, we are able to return all created things to right order and to a
right relationship with God. Romans 8:28-33 tells us that the whole of creation
is eagerly awaiting the final redemption of humankind in the Resurrection, and
is waiting for freedom from the corruption it was subjected to by our sin. By
our “royal priesthood,” and as the Church, the body of Christ, we too are
eagerly awaiting that day, and now work towards it by being instruments of
God’s salvation and redemption.
Here
and now, we can help to bring all things to right relationship toward him, in
love. In this, every created thing can become a sacramental of God, whether it
be our Rosaries, our holy water, our candles, icons, medals, relics or crucifixes. They are all meant to be tools of God to draw us to him, and to
even bring his healing, his graces to our lives. Simpler things can even become
sacramental in nature, though: even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched
St. Paul were used to heal the sick and possessed (Acts 19:12).
There is nothing left behind in
God’s work of redemption. Our whole lives and all of creation can be lifted up
to God and can be an instrument of God for whatever purpose he wills, to put
right the love relationship between his creation and himself. Let us love him with all that
we have. And let us remember the highest gifts he has given to us, his Church,
in her seven Sacraments to initiate and continue this work of redemption and
healing. For without them, all other sacramentals would be lost, because they
are the very work of the Word of God, Christ Jesus our Lord.
No comments:
Post a Comment