Christ Healing and Perfecting: the Sacraments in the Christian Life

Christ Healing and Perfecting: The Sacraments in the Christian Life

Fr. Dominic M. Langevin, O.P. Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception, Dominican House of Studies, Washington, DC

The Thomistic Institute at NYU: The Wisdom of St. Thomas Aquinas Series Saturday, October 14, 2017

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Talk 1: Christ Extends His Incarnation through the Sacraments

St. Thomas’s compact definition of the sacraments: “certain sensible signs of invisible things by which a man is sanctified” (ST, III, q. 61, a. 3).

The Catechism of the Catholic Church’s summary definition of a sacrament: - “The sacraments are efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us. The visible rites by which the sacraments are celebrated signify and make present the graces proper to each sacrament. They bear fruit in those who receive them with the required dispositions.” (CCC 1131)

Sacraments and the ultimate Catholic “toolbox”

How God gives sacramental grace to a human recipient: The Thomistic chain of perfective sacramental causality God (as divine)

Christ (in His humanity)

A sacramental minister

A sacramental rite

A sacramental recipient

Talk 2: How a Sacrament Is Done

A sacrament effects what it signifies (ST, III, q. 62, a. 1, ad 1).

A “recipe” for a sacramental rite (the sacramentum tantum) - Sacramental hylomorphism o The form of a sacrament + the matter of a sacrament o Plus, a further reality: the essence or substance of a sacrament - The relative weights and strength of the “ingredients” o Moving from bigger to smaller: from more significatory (and thus more sacramentally profound and important) to less significatory (and thus less sacramentally profound and important):

Matter of this sacrament

Form of this sacrament

Essence / substance of this sacrament

Essence / substance of any sacrament

How a sacramental sign leads to an effect: The tripartite structure of a sacrament

Sacramentum: a sacrament in its entirety

Res tantum (Final effected grace)

Res et sacramentum (Intermediate effect & causative sign)

Sacramentum tantum (Exterior sign) From form + matter

The Structure of the Sevenfold Sacramental System1

Minister Sacramentum tantum Res et Res tantum EXTERIOR RITUAL sacramentum Matter Form ENDURING SACRAMENTAL REFERRED (gesture) (words) SACRAMENT GRACE MYSTERY (res contenta) OF CHRIST’S LIFE (res non contenta) BAPTISM 1. Priest Washing Trinitarian CHARACTER: Grace of birth CHRIST as 2. Deacon with water formula Incorporation into the life of He who has 3. Anyone into Christ Christ died and risen CONFIR- 1. Bishop Anointing Invocation of CHARACTER: Grace of CHRIST as MATION 2. Priest with sacred the Holy The ability to witnessing to the source chrism Spirit witness as a Christ and His of the Spirit through the mature teaching laying on (“adult”) of the hand Christian EUCHARIST Priest Meal of Words of REAL Grace of unity CHRIST as bread and consecration PRESENCE of with Christ & offered in wine the Body and His Church in sacrifice on Blood of Christ charity the Cross PENANCE Priest The The priest’s The penitent’s Grace of the CHRIST as penitent’s absolution deepened forgiveness of carrying and contrition, contrition one’s sins expiating confession, our sins & satisfaction ANOINTING OF Priest Anointing Priestly Incorporation Grace of CHRIST as THE SICK with the oil prayer into the healing the suffering in of the sick suffering and weakness His Flesh healing Christ caused by sin (→ possible physical healing and absolution of sins) HOLY ORDERS Bishop Laying on Consecratory CHARACTER: Grace of CHRIST as of hands preface Ministerial exercising priest and power over the ministerial servant Body of Christ powers over the Body of Christ MARRIAGE West: 1 baptized West: “Interior Grace of CHRIST as Spouses man and 1 Exchange of sacrament”: conjugal charity the East: Priest baptized consent Indissoluble Bridegroom woman, East: nuptial conjugal bond of the both free to blessing Church marry

1 A (quite) modified version of Jean-Philippe Revel, Traité des sacrements: I—Baptême et sacramentalité (Paris: Cerf, 2004–5), 2:754. 3

Sacramental devotion and relative states of holiness 1) The grace from the sacramental rite itself (ex opere operato) 2) The grace from the subjective devotion of the person doing the sacramental rite (ex opere operantis)

Further Reading Thomas Aquinas. Summa theologiae (ST), Tertia pars, questions 60–65, covering the theology of the sacraments in general. Available online at http://www.newadvent.org/summa/. The Catechism of the Catholic Church. Especially paragraphs 1076 & 1113–1162. Available online at http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM. The Council of Trent, Session 7 (1547), Decree and Canons on the Sacraments. Available online at http://www.ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/TRENT7.HTM.

Haffner, Paul. The Sacramental Mystery. 3rd ed. Leominster, Herefordshire, UK: Gracewing, 2016. Levering, Matthew, and Michael Dauphinais, eds. Rediscovering Aquinas and the Sacraments: Studies in Sacramental Theology. Chicago: Hillenbrand, 2009. Lynch, Reginald M., O.P. The Cleansing of the Heart: The Sacraments as Instrumental Causes in the Thomistic Tradition. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2017. Nutt, Roger. General Principles of Sacramental Theology. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2017. O’Neill, Colman E., O.P. Meeting Christ in the Sacraments. Rev. by Romanus Cessario, O.P. New York: Alba House, 1991. Walsh, Liam G., O.P. Sacraments of Initiation: A Theology of Rite, Word, and Life. 2nd ed. Chicago: Hillenbrand, 2011.