Sacraments

Sacraments Introduction

Sacraments can’t be fully understood unless the person has a divine sense of humor. To have sense of humor is to say a person can see through things. This person can’t be a materialist because they don’t see the bigger picture. A sacrament combines the elements of the visible and the invisible. Some examples include spoken word, because of the audible meaning and the spiritual meaning, a handshake, because for the physical contact but it could also be a sign of friendship. When civilization was happier, churches showed sacraments on its façade. These were all the elaborate architecture that these churches had. Now the churches are just buildings with no meaning or elaborate façade. The two errors that can confuse our understanding of the world are putting God to far in everything or taking God out of everything.

The Bible is a Sacrament

The Bible is a sacrament because it has the foreground, which includes the people and their actions, and the background, which is God’s presence in everything and Him making judgments to all the nations. God was able to use material things as a symbol of trust or faith in him as seen in the brazen serpent miracle. The brazen serpent also represents what was going to happen to Jesus in the future. A thing without sin is seen as having sin but whoever looks toward him shall be saved. Sacrament in Greek means mystery. Christ can be seen as a mystery because he was divine but human. He was so great but in his human form he seemed ordinary. Jesus was a sign of God and the sacraments became the signs of God’s grace. Man too is a sacrament because we have a soul and spiritual destiny.

Sacraments and man

Sacraments bring divine life or grace. Man lost his higher divine life but Christ came back to bring that life back to man. Man may live at three levels. The first is the sensate. This level is the first floor and they deny any other reality except the pleasures of the flesh. They don’t like being told able higher levels and might deny their existence. The second level is the intellectual. This person has brought all the powers of human reason and will to a peak. This level believes in a closed universe and they desire a higher form of life. The third level is the level of grace. The human heart has the power of love in it and gives peace that can’t be found in other levels. God gave us Himself so that we would be one with him. Christ coming to save us can be found in the sacraments through the Church or His Mystical Body. When He was on earth he used material things as signs and symbols and after he ascended he uses other things an instruments for the divine life. Christ earthly life he had two types of contact, visible or through touch, and invisible, which includes miracles that happened at a distance.   

Conditions of life

The physical or natural life requires seven conditions. Five of them refer to the person as an individual and the other two refer to people as a member of society. Individual life includes being born, being nourishes, growing to maturity, healed wounds, and diseases must be driven out. Societal life includes living under the government and justice and being called to propagate the human species. The seven conditions of leading a personal Christ-life are the sacraments: Baptism, Eucharist, Confirmation, Penance, Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders, and Matrimony. Every sacrament has a visible sign and spiritual significance. Three things required for having a sacrament are its institution by Christ, an outward sign, and the power of conferring the grace or divine life of Christ.

The sacraments get their power from Christ’s Life. Life is in the blood but so is sin, therefore to get rid of sin blood must be shed to empty sin. Blood is the best symbol of sacrifice because blood is the life of man. Christ’s blood had infinite value because of his divine nature.

Calvary is a reservoir of divine life and grace. Seven different kinds of sanctification flow from different stages in a man’s spiritual existence. Each of these channels has a sacrament by which Christ’s risen power is bestowed on souls by spiritual and effective contact. The difference is the application of the sacraments. Each one applies differently to each of us.