AUGUSTINIAN SACRAMENTUM | 7 Sacraments | Systematic Theology - St. Augustine & LIFETeen for me
- The Great Light Media, inc.
- Dec 28, 2017
- 23 min read
A sacrament is a gift or blessing, a grace from God given to the world or people, lest rather one would say His Church which benefits them and brings them a taste, so to speak, of God’s mercy and love towards them. “St Augustine, in the 5th century described a sacrament as ‘an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace.’ It sounds like a very simple answer. However, to understand the depth of what that means, we need to probe rather more deeply“ (rcdow.org/uk). The sacraments are free gifts and grace from the Church about the Divine Personhood of the Son of the God through Jesus biblically in His parables, miracles, and actions and interactions with his disciples and also reflect his sacrifice, death, burial, and resurrection. Through these sacraments, we may inherit a "state of grace" from God through the Church, which brings us towards holiness and God's perfection for His glory in our lives.
So, let's Explore the 7 Sacraments.
Baptism
Confirmation or Chrismation
The Eucharist
Penance or Reconciliation/Confession
Anointing of the Sick
Holy Orders
Matrimony
Baptism is the first rite of the Catholic Church initiating a sacrament or “state of grace” to infants, children, or adults willing to profess their faith in Jesus Christ as a sign of following Him as a disciple of Christ. Parents baptize children in the hopes of “raising them up in the admonition and teachings of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4b). This is a general notion. It is also deuteronomical in the Old Tetstament. The Augustinian [G1] Synthesis says, "on the other hand the New Testament context for references to baptism and Eucharist [G2] is the relevance of Jesus for the life of the church. (Systematic Theology Volume II, Fiorenza and Galvin, p. 192). Jesus was even baptized by John the Baptist before he started his ministry at 30 years of age:
Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. John tried to prevent him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and yet you are coming to me?” Jesus said to him in reply, “Allow it now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he allowed him. After Jesus was baptized he came up from the water and behold, the heavens were opened [for him], and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove [and] come upon him. And a voice came from the heavens, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:13-17)
Therefore baptism remains the first rite of passage as Catholic and for children and adults alike, a sign of the Spirit of God being upon his people as Christians from the start of their Catholic journey and salvific process to be made holy as Augustine would say. Fiorenza affirms the “New Testament church’s sacramental celebrations always clarified the paschal mystery of Christ’s dying and rising and enables it to enter more readily into that mystery” (Systematic Theology, Fiorenza, and Galvin, p.192). The mystery is the symbolic act of professing faith in Christ, death, burial, and resurrection and us as Catholic’s following that example. I was baptized near 1 1/2 years old. Later I will tell you about being confirmed. Mind you, I had numerous other "baptism" 'experiences' with other Protestant brothers in Christ. For this letter, those experiences can be held within my heart & w/the memories of participants.
The second sacrament is Confirmation of Chrismation. 30 for me. The rite of Christian initiation or first communion and confirmation involves these sacraments. 27-30 for me. A 3 year journey historically and truthfully in my case. This is a series of acts of grace, many rituals, usually at an early age of 7 when children begin to develop the sense to understand who God is, or even when people revert or convert to Catholicism as adults. I am a cradle catholic come home. Not a revet. Also, some wait until their teenage years before graduation to be confirmed because of the ultimate question always…Who is God to me? What does Jesus mean to me? How can I live for God? What can I do for God’s church?
This Divinae consortium naturae (sacrament of RCIA) and Paul VI apostolically constitutes why RCIA stretches out their lessons for a year or more before one is given confirmation as the gift of the Holy Spirit by a bishop. Catechesis does not stop with RCIA. There is new catechesis all the time, or teachings of the church. In 1745-55; the Late Latin Greek katḗchēsis is oral teaching, equivalent to katēchē- a variant stem of katēcheîn to teach by word of mouth” (dictionary.com). It’s an ongoing process that all clergy, religious, and those in ministry and leadership go through together to reveal God’s word to the masses, laity, and to the Church as a grace of God of knowledge, wisdom, and discernment through all of these cultural changes in modern and contemporary times.
Mainly, formal catechists are responsible for teaching. I am but a lowly theologian. Ecclesiastically, a person appointed to instruct catechumens in the principles of religion as a preparation for baptism is a Catechist. Catechumens are students of the conversion process.(dictionary.com) For example, though I was baptized at a year and a half's age in the Philippines by an Air Force priest on base, I started RCIA for adults at Saint Mary’s in Fort Walton Beach, Florida and was confirmed on Valentine’s day at Nativity Catholic Church in 2014 as an adult. This is because I spent most of my life running around with Protestants playing worship music and espousing to know my salvation was in Christ alone justified by faith as Luther had been explained to me. It truly has been a blessing and great honor since then to be a part of all the churches that blessed me then and after and finally sealed with Chrism oil by Bishop Robert Lynch (who by the way is a fantastic homilist) and gain more knowledge and wisdom from God and my catechists about the Catholic Church and her grace. The music never stopped either...
Now, the modern Church says one year in American Catholicism is enough to confirm someone in their faith to be made stronger. However, the nature of the catechumenate historically in the early church took much longer. Dr. Michael J. Tkacik states in Pneumatic Correctives, "What is the Spirit Saying to the Church of the 21st Century" concludes:
So central to baptism was the task of building up the community, the early church required an extensive catechetical formation process for those who would be baptized. A sponsor was assigned to the neophyte for a period of two to three years during which the catechumen’s life and conduct would be scrutinized to determine if Christian metanoia was, indeed, unfolding in her season of Lent, the entire community would intensify and participate in final instructions and preparation of the catechumen for his/her initiation into the community over Easter weekend – an elaborate ritual which included baptism, confirmation and first Eucharist celebrated by the entire community in union with their bishop. From the preparation of the candidate and the communal celebration of the ritual, we can, again, see how the early church viewed baptism as both an individual and communal phenomena. (Tkacik and McGonigle, p. 17)
Knowing all these facts shows how difficult it is to understand that Catholicism as a whole struggle to teach new members of the body of Christ what it means to be faithful to God throughout the discipleship efforts. The length it takes to properly catechize an individual and keep them faithful to stay in a local parish and attend mass regularly is a phenomenon only God takes care of each Sunday at mass and offered daily through the Eucharist by priests.
However, the truest sense of the word sacrament, when one thinks of Catholicism, is the Eucharist. This is the boldest meaning of why we attend Church. To receive, the body and blood of Jesus Christ, present in the form of the Eucharist, His true presence as he explained in the John 6 parable is the Eucharist throughout the entire whole of Catholicism:
The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever. (John 6:52-59, The Catholic Study Bible, New American Bible, p.150)
What extraordinary phenomena and miracle this is! To partake in remembrance of this just as Jesus said again in the Last Supper means that we are one with Christ through this sacramentum. Based on Augustinian Synthesis, “Not only did he translate the biblical idea of "mystery" by Sacramentum (probably already in use from the early African Latin translation of the Scriptures), but he also associated the term with the complementary notions of individual sacraments and the analogous military oath” (Systematic Theology Volume II, Fiorenza and Galvin, p. 192). So also does the Catechism of the Catholic Church affirm that within baptism and the Eucharist the mass in itself as a Sacramentum justifies us in our state of grace before God's glorious day awaiting us just by following this command. This is "to give thanks" or "Eucharist". To partake as one together, giving thanks for Jesus Christ in communion with each other not just once a week, but daily given, so much as He poured all himself out for us eternally, as Catholics in so much celebrate or can celebrate the mass together.
Listen to the beauty of the Catechism’s explanation of the Paschal mystery in the Church’s Sacraments.
“The whole liturgical life of the Church revolves around the Eucharistic sacrifice and the sacraments” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1113). That means the bread of life we partake of each mass we attend re-aligns us with Jesus in eternity’s scope and The Church as a whole as we keep in line with its teachings, grace, peace, God’s mercy, and love towards one another. The Catechism also affirms: “…the Eucharist occupies a unique place as the ‘Sacrament of sacraments’’: ‘ all other sacraments are ordered to it as to their end” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Sth III, 65, 3, Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1211, 1374, p. 341). How great is our God who reigns in us in body and blood in communion with the saints and the angels and all of His good and Holy church through this incarnate heavenly gift to man!
Now let’s face all reality though when I say all of His good and Holy church, I do not espouse to say that every Catholic is perfect just because they go to Church on Sunday and partake of a little moscato (when and where we could now post-covid pandemic) and gluten-free (if possible) wafer after sitting, kneeling, standing, and singing some songs. That's dangerous going through the motions "fake" Catholic Christianity and poor models of behavior for any seasoned veteran Catholic. Most of us Struggle to make it to mass, say our prayers, do our readings, and more. Sleep. We are all sinners, and saints as believers, and need to confess to one another our mistakes and sins against one another, especially if they are grievous. That is why we have the sacrament of Penance, otherwise known as reconciliation or confession. Penance is probably the most misunderstood sacrament and the most abused or disrespected and even secretive or gossip. But, it is healing and brings every individual back into rightstanding with God and the church, not necessarily through the priest, but through peace.
On Saturdays, I used to walk or bike to my parish because I was without a car and really needed answers from God about my current situation at the time. It helped me clear my head. "Was I good enough to be able to play in such a great band for the Lord? Why is my patronage Michael, the Archangel, the Stormbringer and defender of the faith? Will I ever be a minister? Am I blind to my own sin? Should I leave the Church? How can I be a better son to my family? What's the point of my online music ministry if people just want to mock the words or sounds and not hear the message of the actual lyrics?" These are all serious questions that the healing power of confession helped me through and my penances all have brought me to newer life in Christ each time. Without confession I would not have graduated with Honors the same Theology program as most Deacons in the state of Florida and been 2 years ahead for seminary if that would have actually been a reality for me and Miami, unfortunately true. Without reconciliation, I wouldn't have embraced the good, the light, the dark, and ugly side of the beauties of the Catholic Church and ever had for all my priests, spiritual directors, & reverance utter respect and awe for everything they've told and hinted to me that they deal with. The answers were divine from my priests whom I remember ALL their names and appreciate gratefully as well as respect with all honor. Especially those who have passed, and those who are living life away from the public now. This is the same for those I prayed for and vice-versa through seminary, and made it to the finish, or, like me, honorably followed other vocations for God. They gave me sound words of knowledge that rang true to my every being when I could not talk to anyone, or did get to talk to many of them, many, many, many of them. I would not be the Worship Artist I am today without them.
Saint John of Vianney is one of my favorite saints and priests/pastors, and he is quoted in Pneumatic Correctives:
St. John Vianney (1768-1859), the Cure of the small French village of Ars, who often spent as many as eighteen hours a day hearing confessions and offering counsel became the model for a true pastor totally concerned about the spiritual welfare of his own parishioners and others who sought his help in trying to live authentic Christian lives in the midst of a secular society. (Tkacik and McGonigle p. 48)
How amazing is the weight of one's own conscience cleared and shoulders lifted the weight when they felt that they were not good enough Catholics. Our Savior gives us men of a caliber to be able to hear so many complaints about the world and pray for them all! This is something I adore to be able to do one day and maybe have been doing it my whole life without even realizing it. Saint John of Vianney also said, "If people would do for God what they do for the world, what a great number of Christians would go to heaven" (Laudate App). Imagine the world of Catholic Christians who went to one another asking for forgiveness from each other rather than depending on priests to take upon all their complaints in this world that brings trouble upon our souls? When everything falls apart the absolution from priests is so strong a sacrament that Dr. Scott Hahn says that their role in this is "The Healing Power of Confession." (The Healing Power of Confession, Dr. Scott Hahn, Lighthouse Ministries, Audio CD). I have overcome many struggles in my life just by being able to tell even my same age priest little things I know he prays for me in e-mail daily to this day. Priests are the "white-robed martyrs" and heads of the church that keep us sane, in union with Christ, and in union with pastoral counseling that we can expect to be kind, sincere, and loving and merciful as the Heavenly Father is such. (Te Deum prayer on Sunday and Holy Days).
Augustine says in His discourse on Confessions:
Accordingly, I looked for a way to gain the strength I needed to enjoy you, but I did not find it until I embraced the mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who is also God, supreme over all things and blessed forever. He called out, proclaiming I am the Way and Truth and the Life, nor had I known him as the food which, though I was not yet strong enough to eat it, he had mingled with our flesh, for the Word became flesh so that your Wisdom, through whom you created all things, might become for us the milk adapted to our infancy.
Late have I loved you, Beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved you! Lo, you were within, but I outside, seeking there for you, and upon the shapely things, you have made I rushed headlong – I, misshapen. You were with me, but I was not with you. They held me back far from you, those things which would have no being, were they not in you. You called, shouted, broke through my deafness; you flared, blazed, banished my blindness; you lavished your fragrance, I gasped; and now I pant for you; I tasted you, and now I hunger and thirst; you touched me, and I burned for your peace. (Laudate, Aug. 28th, 2015 Memorial)
We must burn for the peace of Confession, Communion, grace, mercy, and penance to be reconciled to God by his absolution and grace by having our priests be mediators for our sins.
Penance or the sacrament of Confession according to the Catechism is a little bit more complicated than just your normal Saturday afternoon 30-minute wait though. There is daily life acts of reconciliation, baptism, the Eucharist, absolution: which doesn’t dispense from reparation, actual absolution and its formula, when in danger of death or last rites, and basically of one’s sins. The Catechism states:
It is called the sacrament of confession since the disclosure or confession of sins to a priest is an essential element of this sacrament. In a profound sense, it is also a "confession"- acknowledgment and praise-of the holiness of God and of his mercy toward sinful man.
It is called the sacrament of forgiveness since by the priest's sacramental absolution God grants the penitent “pardon and peace.”
It is called the sacrament of Reconciliation, because it imparts to the sinner the love of God who reconciles: “Be reconciled to God.” He who lives by God’s merciful love is ready to respond to the Lord’s call: “Go; first be reconciled to your brother.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1424, p. 397)
Such a great approach to this sacrament is to pray the prayer before the Blessed Sacrament while waiting in line or reading the Miserere, Psalm 51, the story of David and Bathsheba. David exclaims, “Have mercy on me, God, in your goodness; in your abundant compassion blot out my offense. Wash away all my guilt; from my sin cleanse me. For I know my offense; against you and you alone have I sinned.” (Psalm 51:3-5, The New American Bible Revised Edition 1991) This perfect approach of recognizing one’s own sin puts one’s heart back in tune with seeking after the face of God and his grace and forgiveness, not just listening to the voice of a father, but The Heavenly Father. However, in the act of absolution, the response of the sinner, or rather the believer, is the act of contrition which is:
O, my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee. I detest all my sins because of your just punishments. But most of all because they offend thee, my God, who are all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of your grace to sin no more and to avoid the near occasions of sin. Amen. (New St. Joseph's Hymnal and Prayerbook)
Honestly, I'm so English, I say the "Perfect Act of Contrition", a little different. Yet, actually healing can actually happen from the spiritual graces of the sacraments too, not just in our hearts, but in our bodies. Thus, the sacrament of the anointing of the sick is next to be discussed briefly. Usually, when someone is ill or on their last breaths, a priest can give a blessing to the sick individual, Catholic or otherwise, for God’s healing and comfort to them. From The New…Saint Joseph Sunday Missal Prayerbook and Hymnal for 2015, two prayers come to mind, though many priests choose to pray personal prayers for the sick. i,e.
Father, your Son accepted our sufferings to teach us the virtue of patience in human illness. Hear the prayers we offer for our sick brothers and sisters. May all who suffer pain, illness or disease realize that they are joined to Christ in his suffering for the salvation of the world, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever.
The next prayer is a personal prayer for health that one can do on their own like praying to Saint Jude, the glorious apostle of all things despaired of, doctor and apostle to the sick also from the New…St. Joseph’s Hymnal and Prayerbook.
O Sacred Heart of Jesus, I come to ask for Your infinite mercy the gift of health and strength that I may serve You more faithfully and love You more sincerely than in the past. I wish to be well and strong if this is Your good pleasure and for Your greater glory. Filled with high resolves and determined to perform my tasks most perfectly for love of You, I wish to be enabled to go back to my duties.
The Catechism, Catholic Church, and all my priests say the anointing of the sick involves oil or ointment from a priest blessing the sick individual as well. It has been performed on me as a blessing for when I still needed to sing or play in the band before while still performing and worshipping in the mass instead of taking part of the Blessed Sacrament, or Eucharist, though I have also taken the Eucharist and felt its healing power as well. It’s really a wonderful Paschal Mystery. The official anointing of the sick by the Catechism says:
A preparation for the final journey. If the sacrament of anointing of the sick is given to all who suffer from serious illness and infirmity, even more rightly is it given to those at the point of departing this life; so it is also called Sacramentum exeuntium (the sacrament of those departing). The Anointing of the Sick completes our conformity to the death and Resurrection of Christ, just as Baptism began it. It completes the holy anointings that mark the whole Christian life: that of Baptism which sealed the new life in us, and that of Confirmation which strengthened us for the combat of this life. This last anointing fortifies the end of our earthly life like a solid rampart for the final struggles before entering the Father’s house. (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1523)
There have been miracles and sorrows in the Name of Christ happen recorded and seen all over the Christian Catholic realm happen with this anointing. I have seen it in person to a man at the beginning of a service I was to play at before mass started when Msgr. Cipple basically awakened an individual before the paramedics got there. It was truly amazing to see and watch.
The sixth Sacramentum is Holy Orders, or "the call". They involve a vow to leading a religious life (brotherhoods of monasteries/abbeys and sisters of convents, mendicant orders), the priesthood or deaconship (diocesan priesthood/diaconate or religious priesthood), and celibacy and chastity along with that fidelity to serving the Mother Church. The three vows are (1) poverty (2) chastity and (3) obedience where: a) the diocesan priest vows obedience to the local bishop, and b) the religious priest vows obedience to his religious Order Superior. Pneumatic Correctives implies:
Holy orders was deemed to confer sacramental character which marked the soul of the recipient with an ontological power to act in the person of Jesus on behalf of the church. A focus which derives from such an essentialistic view tends to preoccupy itself with recipients of the sacraments at the cost of the sacraments’ communal significance and import. (Tkaciik and McGonigle, 18)
So, when the congregation replies to the priest during the celebration of the mass before taking the Eucharist, "may the Lord accept the sacrifice of your hands, for the praise and glory of His Name, for our good and the good of all His Holy Church", the congregation recognizes the sacrifice the priest takes a role of His vows and implying in partaking of the sacrament He represents the Christ figure in the "breaking of the bread" (Acts 2 or John 6) in remembering our Lord's sacrifice and Word. Technically now, I have a few Superiors. As a student at Loyola, my Ignatian teachers, past and present, professors, Superior Ignatiusly and Vocations Spiritual director and Ignatian brothers who keep me in check. I also do not disobey my diocesan priestly pastors and elders, nor my brothers in servitude to the Catholic faith, fraternally, nor in charity and elsewise. We are all pilgrims together on this journey. Obviously, The Bishop is there for all of us, and trumps me always, and I have been fine with that, just knowing, I'm a special lowly theologian. Deacon Bob always told me, "Will, we never said it was going to be easy!" Thus:
“Clergy differed from the laity not only by virtue of the function they performed in the life of the community but in their very nature and essence. This distinction solidified the clergy's privileged status in the Church and their sole right to confect the Eucharist. Sacramental efficacy was dependent upon the ontologically transformed cleric empowered by his special character. The Scholastic focus was on the work (recitation of the words of institution, anamnesis, and epiclesis) of the priest (the one ontologically set apart and empowered for the task) rendering present the sacrifice (merits) and the real presence of Christ (via transubstantiation). (Tkacik and McGonigle, 46)
Again, the embodiment of Christ is represented in the character and act of those who take Holy Orders like priests. Furthermore, Contemporary Roman Catholic Theology is selective and takes great discernment for those who are called to the priesthood and the difference of laity and priesthood is distinct.
Some continue to emphasize the particular call of the priest and take the essential difference between laity and priest as the key element in a theology of order…the idea of the priest as representatives of Christ in the community and particularly in the sacraments. Recognition of the service of the laity is subordinated to this or is placed in another category, particularly that of apostolate in the world. (Fiorenza and Galvin, p. 301)
One cannot simply go to a seminarian retreat and decide to be a priest or brother of their own accord. They must go through the discernment trials and question to themselves…"Am I ready to be an apostle of Christ wherever I go?" The answer lies in answering as the prophet Isaiah spoke in chapter 6, verse 8, “Here am I, send me” (Catholic Study Bible). After that one must continually devote themselves to the church and ministry training. I could say more about that, but as Fr. Victor Amaros taught me moons ago, "It's a deceptively difficult thing to explain, the priesthood". He soon later let me borrow His Roman Missal before I bought my own. He's one of the best.
Marriage is the seventh sacramentum. Matrimony is not to be taken lightly. It involves courting, engagement, ceremony, and finally fidelity. Looking to the idea of marriage I would like to refer to a song sung by the Lifeteen Band I played with and for from one past Sunday sung by Twila Paris and written by Ann Wilson which relates the embodiment of the idea of marriage and the similarities it has to pertain of the bride and bridegroom representing the Church and Jesus. The words go as following:
How beautiful the hands that served The wine and the bread and the sons of the earth How beautiful the feet that walked The long dusty roads and the hill to the cross
How beautiful, how beautiful How beautiful is the body of Christ
How beautiful the heart that bled That took all my sin and bore it instead How beautiful the tender eyes That chose to forgive and never despise
How beautiful, how beautiful How beautiful is the body of Christ
And as He laid down His life We offer this sacrifice That we will live just as he died Willing to pay the price Willing to pay the price
How beautiful the radiant bride Who waits for her groom with His light in her eyes How beautiful when humble hearts give The fruit of pure lives so that others may live
How beautiful, how beautiful How beautiful is the body of Christ
How beautiful the feet that bring The sound of good news and the love of the King How beautiful the hands that serve The wine and the bread and the sons of the earth
How beautiful, how beautiful How beautiful is the body of Christ? (Metrolyrics)
Scripture tells us from Saint Paul to the Church of Ephesus what this means:
Brothers and sisters: Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is head of his wife just as Christ is head of the church, he himself the savior of the body. As the church, he himself the savior of the body. As the church is subordinate to Christ, so wives should be subordinate to their husbands in everything. Live in love as Christ loved us. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and handed himself over for her to sanctify her, cleansing her by the bath of water with the word, that he might present to himself the church in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. So also husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself for no one hates his own flesh but rather nourishes and cherishes
For this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak in reference to Christ and the church. (Ephesians 5:21-32 or 5:2a. 25-32)
To me, if I were to ever get married, (in which I do not plan on it ever because I have seen atrocities happen in the name of marriage) I understand these two passages along with the song together so beautifully that it brought me to tears on that particular Sunday while trying to play along when I realized my calling during communion. It was bittersweet but mostly sweet and beautiful. The song calls us to the understand of all wedded men and women to be faithful to each other as we are called to be faithful to the Church, no matter clergy or laity. Especially for the laity to not break those vows and to treat their spouses as bride and bridegroom otherwise but always in love, commitment, honor, and respect. Basically, no Ashley Madison accounts. No Tindr. Etc. One man and one woman together is the utmost highest meaning of life together as a human can attain as a state of grace, not the most important, but in the stages of the sacrament in life looked at as the perfect union of the Church's Sacramentum stages.
Lastly let’s discuss the epistemological standpoint of the sacraments and the Church as a sacrament back in Augustinian terminology. Back in the early church there were some technical heresies said and done in the name of symbolic thinking on behalf of the sacraments. According to Fiorenza and Galvin in Systematic Theology Volume II, “to respond to the Donatist and Pelagian heresies and to deal with the difficult pastoral situation of the post-Constantinian church in a unique North African situation" was very difficult. (Fiorenza and Galvin, p. 193) The contextualized meaning of the ecclesial problems of Augustine's time was two-fold. He "gave philosophical descriptions of a sacrament, he usually noted that (1) physical realities serve as a doorway to spiritual ones and (2) that there must be some connection between the sign and what is signified." (Fiorenza and Galvin p. 193) Dualism was ruling with its Neo-Platonic influence and that blocked the mindset of the modern church back then. Pragmatically, there needed to be a different intellectual factor majority wise in the formation of thought towards sacramentum.
Augustine’s conversion “marked awareness of the eschatological thrust of all time and creation. These two contradictory influences were the basis of a new synthesis of a symbol in which "sign" is grounded in God's creation and has an eschatological task to perform. (Fiorenza and Galvin, p. 193)
Systematic Theology also says much about how signs of the sacramental grace are the reality of God’s grace to us on earth as human beings. Once again:
Augustine spoke of a sacrament as a “sacred sign” and “visible words,” he presumed and also transcended this philosophical background. Unlike others signs, sacraments encompass God’s mystery and its saving purposes. Sacramental “reality” (res) is, then, the paschal mystery dynamically bridging the distance between ourselves and God. (Fiorenza and Galvin, p. 193)
We see that Augustine got it right when he saw a way of transcending the meaning of the sacraments in actual synthesis, not just symbolism of Sacramentum as a reality of God's mercy and grace towards a man.
These sacred signs of grace, these symbols of God’s mercy and love towards us are freely given to us by the Church and as such the world views the Church as a sacrament in and of itself because within it’s holy walls, rites, rituals, traditions, and purposes are for us a salvific love of God represented in baptism, Christian confirmation, the communion with The Blessed Sacrament as the Eucharist, forgiveness through reconciliation and confession, a calling in our lives, healing of the sick, and perhaps even marriage to fulfill God’s wishes of creating more life, love, and grace for generations to come. May we always truly know these truths to be self-evident in our daily participation in the mass, or every Sunday, at home with our families and in our vocations or times when we need to seek forgiveness and healing, and especially when we partake of the Eucharist in person, or spiritually on our own and even on livestreams. That too, is now acceptable, just, right, and holy.
Be spiritually communed with Him. He is always seeking your heart. Not the other way around.
Works Cited
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Catechism of the Catholic Church. 1997. New York: Image, 1995. Print.
Web. 28 Aug. 2015. <http://rcdow.org.uk/att/files/faith/catechesis/baptism/
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Systematic Theology. Fiorenza and McGonigle. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991. Print. Vol. 1 of Systematic Theology. 2 vols.
Systematic Theology. Fiorenza and McGonigle. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991. Print. Vol.
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