Sacramentality
Before talking about Catholic Sacraments, we need to talk about “Sacramentality” that is, the attitude Catholicism has toward creation. This perspective comes from the belief that God created all things good (Gen. 1) and among them we can find God’s footprints so to speak. Because we believe that the second Person of the Trinity, the Word, became flesh we believe that God embraced all of creation becoming part of it, creating a special union of creation with the Godhead in the flesh of Christ. John tells us in the prolog of his gospel that all things were created in the Word and without the Word there is nothing that came to be. Therefore, creation is an avenue of encounter with God. A sacrament is a sacred moment in that encounter. We have to understand this greater truth to appreciate any one of those “moments.” There is no purpose to getting into a boat unless the boat is on the water. Sacraments are instruments by which we encounter and navigate the ocean of reality. Each of the seven Sacraments identified by the Church involves an encounter with an element of nature: water, oil, human touch, bread, wine.
We speak of the big “seven” that is “sacrament” spelled with a big “S”. However, in the early church many other things were considered sacraments. During the first century, the washing of feet which the believers did for each other was considered sacramental. Reading sacred scripture was considered a sacramental encounter. St. Jerome who translated the bible into the common language from the ancient languages went so far as to say that being ignorant of the Scriptures is to be ignorant of Christ. St. Anthony of the Desert considered nature to be a sacramental book in which we encounter God. Ephrem, the fourth century poet/theologian, said that there are three harps of the Spirit: the Old Testament, the New Testament and Nature. There is strong evidence in the New Testament that sacred music and hymns were sacramental for believers. Paul quotes one of the early Christian hymns in his letter to the Philippians (2:6-11). St. Ambrose an early bishop used to take popular melodies from the local culture and put words with spiritual meaning to them creating moving liturgies for his church. Later in history St. Ignatius of Loyola had a powerful experienced the Persons of the Trinity as a musical cord of three notes. So, we can say that the number of small “s” sacraments is infinite…”google.”
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Christ the Sacrament of God
We can also understand Jesus better if we think about his humanity as The sacrament of God—in other words it is through his humanity that we encounter the Trinity. In this diagram the triqueta at the center represents the Trinity. The Chi-Rho in the center circle represents Christ and the eight pointed star represents the Church which provides us with an encounter with Christ. Each of the big seven Sacraments provides a special encounter as does creation, scripture, human touch, and music.
It is in this context of Sacramentality that we go on to speak of the seven ritual encounters which we call the Seven Sacraments. We recognize that they are not the only means of divine encounter but they are unique rituals rooted in the spirituality of the gospel which can provide special moments of encounter.
Sacraments in the Key of Three: Baptism and the Father
Baptism is an invitation, an invitation to intense intimacy with the Divine Three. Life is all about relationships—relationships with our parents, our peers, our bosses, our friends, our spouses. Relationship with others is the very fabric of our lives. It is no different with our spiritual lives—faith lived out. In fact all other relationships come into existence because of the relational nature of our God. Our God is a loving communing between Three which is so intense that They are One. One not just in affection and shared interest but One in nature. When we are baptized we are invited into intimate relationship with each of the Three Persons. We are baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. One name, three Persons. “Baptism” means immersion—immersion in these Three. Baptism is above all else an invitation to a life of intimacy with these Thee Persons. This relatedness is what characterized the life of Christ and it is the hallmark of the Christian. Baptism has been called the kiss of God, a kiss that awakens us to a special intimacy.
In Baptism the activity of the three theological virtues, faith, hope and charity is intensified within us. These virtues are gifts that stimulate our natural faculties as human beings. St Thomas of Aquinas said that grace builds upon nature. Another saint, Augustine, saw the image of the Trinity within us in the faculties we have of memory, understanding and the ability to make free choices in love. The gift of hope activates our memory–memory of what has been done for us, of Who has given us the gift of life. This memory draws us to the Father, the origin of all life. It is not only our brain cells that have memory, every cell in our bodies have memory. The memory in DNA enables our cells to continue reproducing themselves throughout our present life. Hope is the virtue that enables us to, as it were, embrace the Father and to receive the Father’s embrace in return. And in embracing the Father, we embrace the whole Trinity because the Father is the generator of all life. The Father generates the Son eternally. We are generated, given life, in time. The Spirit is the love, the embrace, between the Father and those the Father generates. It is hope that enables this embrace when hope grows in an environment of gratitude. Gratitude is the parent of all virtue because without it they all wither and die. Gratitude recognizes that all is gift and the Giver deserves response.
Because we are generated in the image of God, we are called to be like God. We also are called to be generators of life, to allow the Spirit of the Creator to lead us into creativity bringing life, energizing the life of others and of all of creation. We share the nature of the Father as generators and protectors of life. We develop intimacy with the Father in prayer and in activity that is generative, creative, of life.
There is a delightful story in the book of Genesis about the patriarch Jacob who laid down one night to sleep while he was on a journey. He dreamed he saw angels ascending and descending from where he was. When he awoke he said: “God is in the place and I did not know it!” For the Jewish people where God was held great importance especially since they believed that God came to dwell with them in the Temple in Jerusalem when it was built. Christians realized that it is within us that God dwells. In John’s gospel Jesus says that he and the Father and the Spirit would make Their dwelling within us. This is truly awesome! Some people stand in amazement in a grand cathedral with its wonderful architecture, arches, stained glass, yet within us there is still something more marvelous –the dwelling of God. Before we are baptized we are already deeply loved by God who loves everything God creates, but by Christian baptism God comes to make a special dwelling within us. It is our life’s work to become aware of that presence, to awaken to it and come to understand what it means. We have heaven, the dwelling of God within us and when we realize that awesome truth and are awake to it we are ready to encounter face to face the God who has been our loving guest.
To summarize, Baptism initiates us into intimacy with the Persons of the Trinity who come to dwell within us in a special way. The virtue of hope stimulates our memory which, in gratitude, embraces the Father and we become like the Father the more we are creative, generative of life around ourselves. Awareness, gratitude, hope, creativity, these are key to Intimacy with the Father. Next we will consider intimacy with the Son.
Baptism Part II—Intimacy with the Son, the Word of God
Falling in love with someone involves first of all and encounter with that person, after the encounter, our minds, our reasoning capacities begin to analyze the encounter and here is where we need faith. If we do not believe in the person we have encountered, the relationship will wither and die. It is the virtue of faith in our intellect that enables us to embrace and develop a relationship with the Son of God, God’s Word. Faith is the virtue that enables us to hold paradoxes in creative tension in our minds and see beyond them. Faith does not suppress reason, we cannot be true to ourselves and do that, but faith transcends reason inviting us to reach out beyond ourselves to accept intellectually what instinct teaches us about God. Faith enables us to believe that Jesus is both God and man, that there are Three Persons in the Trinity. That word Trinity does not occur in scripture it is the term of endearment that Christians came to give to the gospel experience of the Three Persons in God when they reflected upon it after the gospel encounter.
St. Paul says that we “put on Christ” when we are baptized. There are four ways in which we identify with Christ: Priest, Prophet, King and Lover. When we identify with Christ as priest, we ourselves enter into the role of priests, we make our lives a purposeful sacrifice for the sake of others. We commit to set aside our selfish drives in order to make the desires of Christ our own.
When we identify with Christ as Prophet, we take on the role of building up the community of faith. This is no easy task as we have to both build up and tear down in rejecting the demands of the popular culture that we seek wealth and personal advancement. Society is often blind and we have to ask people to be awake to the gospel message.
When we identify with Christ as King we commit ourselves to a pursuit of justice for that is the role of sovereigns to attend to justice for everyone. We commit ourselves to search out just ways and stand up for them in the face of injustice.
When we identify with Christ as Lover we enter into his relatedness with both the Father and with humankind. The Word lives eternally in a face to face dynamic of love with the Father. Christ, the Word, becomes the face of God for all of creation, a face of mercy and compassion. As lovers ourselves we become Christ reaching out to others.
Christ is identified as mother by saints like Julian of Norwich and John Chrysostom because of the way he nurtures us in grace. Paul also compares himself to a mother breastfeeding her infant and St. John Chrysostom points out that as a mother nourishes her child with both her blood and her milk, so Christ nurtures us in the Eucharist with himself.
As the first born of all creation and the one in whom we are all created, Christ is both our mother and our brother. With this realization not only humans but all creation becomes sacred. Our relatedness to Christ must lead us to reverence this totality of who Christ is. In him came to be all that exists and without him there came to be nothing that is (Jn. 1:3). Every quark and lepton, every grain of sand and blade of grass is sacred because it was created in the Word! To have a full and deep intimacy with the Word, with Christ, we must reverence this truth.
John the Baptist gives Jesus the title of Bridegroom and Jesus is in fact the Bridegroom of every one of us. His language at the last supper is that of a bridegroom of the time who would visit the home of the bride to be, make the covenant, give her wine and then promise to return to take her to his father’s house where he was preparing a place for her.
It is in Christ’s resurrection which rescues us from death that we most rejoice in him as our savior. Because he rose from the dead, all of creation is destined to survive after death.
In a word, we enter into relationship with the Second Person of the Trinity when emulate or imitate Christ as priest, offering ourselves to God’s designs; when we imitate Christ as Prophet by sharing the good news of the gospel; when we imitate Christ as King standing up for justice; when we emulate Christ as Lover as we reach out to others in mercy and compassion. We further our relationship with the second Person by recognizing that we are children being breastfed at the Eucharist, we are sisters and brothers of the first born of creation in the resurrection and we are the bride for whom the Bridegroom longs. Each of these relationships is portrayed in the scriptures and St. Jerome tells us that to be ignorant of the scripture is to be ignorant of Christ. We can deepen our relationship with the Second Person of the Trinity by indwelling in these stories.
Faith in our intellect awakes us to mercy, compassion, and love for others as the ways to come to intimacy with the Second Person of the Trinity, the Word.
Baptism Part III, The Holy Spirit
We have to have some knowledge of the personality of another person or creature in order to enter into a relationship with them. As regards the Holy Spirit, we learn something from titles Jesus used to describe this Person of the Spirit. But we learn even more from observing the activity of the Spirit in the life of Jesus and of the Church.
Jesus names the Spirit as Advocate, Teacher, Comforter and Witness to Truth. An Advocate protects, defends us and is always with us; a teacher opens up new vistas of knowledge; a Comforter consoles us in hardship and difficulties; a witness of Truth convicts us of ultimate truths.
So dynamic is the activity of the Spirit that it is compared to wind, water and fire. We could use the title “Animator” for the Spirit or even better “passionate Animator”. Wind, fire, and water, symbols of the Spirit are among the most powerful forces on earth. Jesus told the disciples to pray and wait to be spiritually empowered by the Spirit.
The Spirit is associated with our faculty of free will (choice) because this is the essence of love—to freely choose to bestow something of your own essence upon another, to embrace the other as an ultimate good. There is a particular sweetness associated with this divine Person who becomes our guest. When we surrender ourselves with Jesus to the First Person in the embrace of Baptism, this One, the Spirit, becomes the indwelling power (you will receive power from on high) which enables our transformation into Christ and our surrender with Christ to the First Person. Our participation in intimacy with the divine is not something we can bring about by ourselves or our good will. It is the Spirit who transforms us, who empowers us. Just as the Spirit came upon Mary when she conceived Christ, so the Spirit is the power that conceives the life of God within us then nurtures it and guides it.
There is nothing sweeter than love. So also there is nothing more powerful than love. The symbols of the Spirit are fire, water and wind—the most powerful forces we know in nature. If we think of the sun, we know it is a fiery sphere. A similar fire in the core of our planet is what molds and shapes the land masses of earth. The Spirit is the Fire of Love within the Trinity and also the fire within each of us Who molds and shapes our spirituality. The Spirit appeared as tongues of fire descending upon the disciples at Pentecost. We pray often “come Holy Spirit…enkindle in us the fire of your love.”
Wind controls the environment. Cosmic and solar winds shape everything in the cosmic world from the spacing of the stars and planets to the weather on earth. The Spirit is the driving force of our lives even as the Spirit was the driving force for Jesus. The Spirit was the power by which Mary conceived Christ, the Spirit came upon him in baptism, the Spirit drove him into the desert, through the Spirit he preached liberation and worked wonders. His first act after the resurrection was to breathe the Spirit on the disciples. Jesus compares the Spirit to wind: “ The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (Jn: 3:8).
Water is not only a very powerful force, it is critical for life. In baptism we are not simply “washed of sin,” we are given a spring of life. John says: “Jesus said this of the Spirit which those who believe in him would receive” (Jn. 7:39). That is: the Spirit becomes a gushing fountain within them. It is in water that life begins.
While the Spirit may be manifest in the fire and wind of Pentecost, the Spirit can only be appreciated when we can also hear that divine voice as a soft whisper. In the first book of Kings we have stories of the prophet Elijah. When he fled to the mountain of God away from those who sought his life, he experienced an earthquake, a tornado and a fire but did not recognize God until he heard a gentle breeze. Then he hid his face recognizing the divine (1 Kings 19). Power is perfect in gentleness. And we must be gentle in heart to recognize it.
We need self-surrender, attentiveness, gentleness to enable our relationship with the Holy Spirit. Baptism is an invitation to enter into intimacy with each of the Persons of the Trinity—the Father through hope in our memory; The Son through faith enabling our understanding to embrace the mysteries of the Trinity and the God/man; the Spirit through love as our free wills surrender to the guidance of the Spirit. When Jesus submitted to the Jewish ritual of baptism, he revealed to us his own relatedness to the Father and the Spirit. Our Sacrament of Baptism is different from that Jewish ritual. The Sacrament of Baptism takes on what we saw in Jesus: relatedness to each of the Persons of the Trinity.
Holy Spirit Quotes
The First Testament
In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth,
the earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty breath swept over the chaos (Gen. 1:1)
The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him:
a spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
A spirit of counsel and of strength,
a spirit of knowledge and of fear of the Lord,
and his delight shall be reverence of the Lord.
Not by appearance shall he judge,
nor by hearsay shall he decide, (Is. 11:2,3
The spirit of the Lord will rush upon you, and you will join them in their prophetic state and will be changed into another man. As Saul turned to leave Samuel, God gave him another heart. That very day all these signs came to pass. 1 Sam. 10:6
For the holy spirit of discipline flees deceit
and withdraws from senseless counsels;
and when injustice occurs it is rebuked. Wis. 1:5
For wisdom is a kindly spirit,
yet she acquits not the blasphemer of guilty lips;
Because God is the witness of our inmost self
and the sure observer of every heart
and the listener to every tongue. Wis. 1:6
For the spirit of the Lord fills the world,
is all-embracing, and knows what one says. Wis. 1:;7
The spirit of the Lord will rush upon you, and you will join them in their prophetic state and will be changed into another man. As Saul turned to leave Samuel, God gave him another heart. That very day all these signs came to pass. 1 Sam. 10:6
For the holy spirit of discipline flees deceit and withdraws from senseless counsels; and when injustice occurs it is rebuked. Wis. 1:5
For wisdom is a kindly spirit, yet she acquits not the blasphemer of guilty lips; Because God is the witness of our inmost self and the sure observer of every heart and the listener to every tongue. Wis. 1:6
For the spirit of the Lord fills the world, is all-embracing, and knows what one says. Wis. 1:;7
Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke
I am baptizing you with water, for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is mightier than I.I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the holy Spirit and fire. Mt. 3:11
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) coming upon him. Mt. 3:16
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. Mt. 4:1
“Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved in whom I delight; I shall place my spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. Mt.12:18
When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say. You will be given at that moment what you are to say. For it will not be you who speak but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. Mt. 10: 19-20
But if it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Mt. 12:28
Therefore, I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come. Mt. 12:31,32
Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit,
It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. Mt. 28:19
The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life. Jn. 6:63
‘It will come to pass in the last days,’ God says, ‘that I will pour out a portion of my spirit upon all flesh.
Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams. Indeed, upon my servants and my handmaids I will pour out a portion of my spirit in those days, and they shall prophesy. Acts 2:17-18
Paul
… and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the holy Spirit that has been given to us. Rom. 5:5
But you are not in the flesh; on the contrary, you are in the spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwells in you. Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. Rom. 8:9
If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit that dwells in you. Rom. 8:11
For those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.
For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, “Abba, Father!”
Rom. 8:14, 15
The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,
and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. Rom. 8:16,17
We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now;
and not only that, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, we also groan within ourselves as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. Rom. 8:22,23
In the same way, the Spirit too comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit itself intercedes with inexpressible groanings. And the one who searches hearts knows what is the intention of the Spirit, because it intercedes for the holy ones according to God’s will. Rom. 8:26,27
I speak the truth in Christ, I do not lie; my conscience joins with the holy Spirit in bearing me witness. Rom. 9:1
So do not let your good be reviled. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of food and drink, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the holy Spirit; whoever serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by others. Rom. 14:16-18
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the holy Spirit. Rom. 15:13
But I have written to you rather boldly in some respects to remind you, because of the grace given me by God to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in performing the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering up of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the holy Spirit. Rom. 15:15,16
For I will not dare to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to lead the Gentiles to obedience by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit (of God), so that from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum I have finished preaching the gospel of Christ. Rom. 15:18, 19
I urge you, (brothers,) by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in the struggle by your prayers to God on my behalf, Rom. 15:30
But as it is written:”What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not entered the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love him,” this God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit scrutinizes everything, even the depths of God. Among human beings, who knows what pertains to a person except the spirit of the person that is within? Similarly, no one knows what pertains to God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the things freely given us by God. And we speak about them not with words taught by human wisdom, but with words taught by the Spirit, describing spiritual realities in spiritual terms.1 Cor. 2:9-13
Now the natural person does not accept what pertains to the Spirit of God, for to him it is foolishness, and he cannot understand it, because it is judged spiritually. The spiritual person, however, can judge everything but is not subject to judgment by anyone. For “who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to counsel him?” But we have the mind of Christ. 1 Cor. 2:13-16
Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? 1 Cor. 3:16
Now in regard to spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be unaware.
You know how, when you were pagans, you were constantly attracted and led away to mute idols. Therefore, I tell you that nobody speaking by the spirit of God says, “Jesus be accursed.” And no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit. 1 Cor. 12:1-3
That is what some of you used to be; but now you have had yourselves washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. 1 Cor. 6:11
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? 1 Cor. 6:19
There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; there are different forms of service but the same Lord; there are different workings but the same God who produces all of them in everyone. To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit.
To one is given through the Spirit the expression of wisdom; to another the expression of knowledge according to the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit; to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit; to another mighty deeds; to another prophecy; to another discernment of spirits; to another varieties of tongues; to another interpretation of tongues. But one and the same Spirit produces all of these, distributing them individually to each person as he wishes. 1 Cor. 12:4-11
As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit. 1 Cor. 12:12-13
For however many are the promises of God, their Yes is in him; therefore, the Amen from us also goes through him to God for glory. But the one who gives us security with you in Christ and who anointed us is God;
…he has also put his seal upon us and given the Spirit in our hearts as a first installment. 2 Cor. 1:20-22
You are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by all, shown to be a letter of Christ administered by us, written not in ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets that are hearts of flesh. 2 Cor. 3:2,3
Not that of ourselves we are qualified to take credit for anything as coming from us; rather, our qualification comes from God, who has indeed qualified us as ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter brings death, but the Spirit gives life. 2 Cor. 3:5,6
Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, was so glorious that the Israelites could not look intently at the face of Moses because of its glory that was going to fade, how much more will the ministry of the Spirit be glorious 2 Cor. 3:7,8
Now God is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. All of us, gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as from God who is the Spirit. All of us, gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Lord who is the Spirit. 2 Cor.3:17,18
Now the one who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a first installment. So we are always courageous, although we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. 2 Cor. 5:5-7
Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the holy ones greet you.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you. 2 Cor. 13:12,13
As proof that you are children, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” Gal. 4:6
In contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, 5:23 gentleness, self-control. Gal. 5:22,23
For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he may grant you in accord with the riches of his glory to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner self, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Eph. 3:14-19
I, then, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace: one body and one Spirit, as you were also called to the one hope of your call; one Lord, one faith, one baptism;
…one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. Eph. 4:1-6
And do not grieve the holy Spirit of God, with which you were sealed for the day of redemption. Eph.4:30
If there is any encouragement in Christ, any solace in love, any participation in the Spirit, any compassion and mercy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing. Phil. 1:1,2
Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophetic utterances. Test everything; retain what is good. 2 Thess. 5:16-21
John
John testified further, saying, “I saw the Spirit come down like a dove from the sky and remain upon him. I did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘On whomever you see the Spirit come down and remain, he is the one who will baptize with the holy Spirit.’ John 1:32-34
What is born of flesh is flesh and what is born of spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I told you, ‘You must be born from above. The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Jn. 3:6-8
For the one whom God sent speaks the words of God. He does not ration his gift of the Spirit. Jn. 3:34
But the hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth; and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him. God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth.” Jn. 4:23-4
On the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood up and exclaimed, “Let anyone who thirsts come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as scripture says: ‘Rivers of living water will flow from within him.'” He said this in reference to the Spirit that those who came to believe in him were to receive. There was, of course, no Spirit yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified. Jn. 7:37-39
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows it. But you know it, because it remains with you, and will be in you. Jn. 14:16-17
“I have told you this while I am with you. The Advocate, the holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name–he will teach you everything and remind you of all that (I) told you. Jn.14:25-6
“I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth. He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming. He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you. Jn. 16:13-4
Revelation
I heard a voice from heaven say, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Yes,” said the Spirit, “let them find rest from their labors, for their works accompany them.” Rev. 14:13-4
The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” Let the hearer say, “Come.” Let the one who thirsts come forward, and the one who wants it receive the gift of life-giving water. Rev. 22:17
The second Sacrament of Christian Initiation is Confirmation, even though it may be received after Eucharist. The first thing a newborn does is to take a breath on its own. So it is with those who are born again of water—they must also be born of the Spirit, the Breath of God, as they come into God’s kingdom (John 3:5).
Sometimes we get the impression that Confirmation is all about coming of age so to speak. It is a manifestation that we are old enough and knowledgeable enough to confirm what we believe before the community. But actually this Sacrament is not about our coming of age. It is about the Spirit and the Spirit’s coming to us to become an abiding presence, a lived experience in our lives.
We learn what it is like to be guided by the inner presence of the Spirit by looking at how the gifts of the Spirit were manifest in Jesus. The prophet Isaiah spoke of a sevenfold presence of the Spirit in the chosen one: a spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of knowledge, a spirit of counsel and strength, a spirit of reverence and delight in reverence (Is. 11:2). By looking at how Jesus lived in the Spirit we can learn how to open ourselves to these gifts and allow the Spirit to live and work in and through us.
Wisdom enables us to see as God sees—from the viewpoint of love. Jesus saw the sinful woman who washed his feet with tears of gratitude as someone who loved, whereas others present could only see her as someone who had broken laws. Jesus told the Pharisees, quoting prophets from the Hebrew Testament that God desires mercy not animal sacrifice. About the tax coin Jesus says: Give to God what is God’s and to Cesar what is his.” Jesus made love “his” commandment. “This is my commandment: that you love one another.” Within the newly formed church, Wisdom enabled John the Beloved to write of God as Love in his first letter. To be open to Wisdom I have to be willing to recognize that I can be trapped by my own opinions and I have to surrender those to be able to see as God sees.
Understanding enables us to penetrate deeply into the mysteries of faith. Jesus in his humanity fully and deeply understood that he and the Father are one. Understanding enabled Paul, the first Christian theologian, to recognize that Jesus was greater than the Law. To be open to the gift of Understanding, I have to have a thirst to know about my faith, to search out answers about God.
Knowledge enables us to appreciate the ways of God. The sermon on the mount is ample testimony to Jesus’ perception of the ways of God and how we need the Spirit to truly understand what God wants of us. Knowledge enabled the evangelist Luke to see that the Church and its experiences were patterned after Jesus’ own experience of the Spirit. To be open to the gift of knowledge I have to look for the patterns of the Divine in my life—how has God cared for, guided, led me, called me?
Counsel enables us to give and receive insight from and to others. Jesus has the perfect answer for the Baptist when John and his disciples have doubts: “look at the evidence of the activity of the Spirit in the miracles.” Counsel enabled Paul to give sage advice to the communities of his letters. To be open to the gift of Counsel I have to be open to seeking advice from others.
Courage enables us to cling to God in difficult circumstances and Jesus clung to the Father in the face of the hour of his suffering. In the early church, courage enabled Stephen to face those stoning him and to forgive them as Jesus forgave his executioners. To be open to the gift of Courage I have to be willing to step out of my comfort zone and take risks for my faith.
Our word “Reverence” is a more accurate concept for the gift of “Fear of the Lord.“ Paul tells us that love casts out fear. The beginning of wisdom is reverence born out of love and a desire to draw close, not fear which inhibits intimacy. Jesus threw the money changers out of the temple because their dishonest practices were an affront to the reverence due to the Father’s house. Peter in his first letter exhorts Christians who are challenged or ridiculed for their faith to respond with gentleness and reverence (respect) for the attackers. This reverence enables us to experience wonder and awe at the works of God, to revel in the beauty of nature as God’s handiwork. It enables us to allow ourselves to be surprised by God. To be open to the gift of reverence I have to allow myself to be overtaken with awe, to sincerely experience wonder at the things of God, to let God surprise me and to show quiet and reverence for and around sacred things and places.
Piety enables us to rejoice, to take delight in the things of God. Jesus rejoiced at the Father’s revelation to little ones and he rejoiced to celebrate his last meal with his own. Paul exhorted his disciples to “rejoice in the Lord always, again, I say: Rejoice!” Piety is really a gift of joy. Of knowing that God wants us to be happy and to look for that joy and fulfillment in doing things for God.
In addition to these classical gifts mentioned by the prophet Isaiah, Paul recognizes special gifts of the Spirit at work in his communities: Gifts of administration, teaching, care-giving, faith-witness and the beautiful prayer-gift of tongues. Using these gifts we work with the Spirit to build up the community.
Paul who is really the first theologian of the Spirit in Christianity, give us a check list we can use to measure ourselves for how well we are doing in our relationship with the Spirit. We can ask ourselves how much of these qualities, fruits of the Spirit are showing up in our lives: charity, peace, patience, kindness, joy, goodness, long-suffering, modesty, generosity, self-control, faithfulness (Gal. 5:22).
Finally we see in John’s gospel the most outstanding work of the Spirit. Jesus identifies it as forgiveness when he breaths on the disciples Easter evening. In the first creation God walked with humans in the garden in the cool of the evening, there was companionship, intimacy. Now in the new creation, renewed by the breath of the Spirit, there is forgiveness, not guilt. Sin and death have been conquered. God again walks with us in the evening in friendship. We are empowered to forgive others instead of blaming them as Adam and Eve blamed each other and the serpent. Where the Spirit is at work we have freedom Paul tells us (1Cor. 3:17).
As regards the Trinity, we experience Them in this Sacrament because the Spirit teaches us to live like Christ who is always directed to the Father.
EUCHARIST
Just as a newborn needs to breathe and the Spirit is the Breath of God for those born into Christ in Baptism, so also our hungers must be satisfied to sustain life. We have not only bodily hungers but intellectual hungers for meaning as well and hungers of the soul for affirmation. The beauty of the Eucharist is that it addresses all those hungers. The celebration addresses our need for food, for meaning, for emotional affirmation.
We can best get at the meanings this meal offers by considering the reflections/prayers of Jesus during the supper in John’s gospel. The meal is on the day before the Passover. Jesus will be sacrificed during the slaughter of the lambs in preparation for the Passover meal the next day. Jesus creates rituals at this meal which are unique to him. It begins with washing the feet, an act of profound humility and service. We always begin our Eucharist by humbling ourselves and asking for mercy.
This supper meal is also what was known to Jews at the time as a betrothal meal. The groom visits the home of the bride to arrange the marriage covenant and seals it with a cup of wine which he gives to his bride. He then leaves for his father’s house where he prepares special rooms for her. When they are ready he returns to take her to his home. Jesus has visited “his own” and set up a covenant with them. He leaves them now to go and prepare a place for them in the home of his heavenly Father.
There is another image that underlies this supper of the Lord. The image is that of Solomon dedicating the temple in Jerusalem when the building was finished. He blesses it and then offers sacrifice. At the Lord’s Supper Jesus is dedicating the new Temple of his body and the temple of his mystical body, his disciples joined together as community. Immediately after this meal he will go out to be sacrificed with the Passover lambs.
During the meal, Jesus speaks a great deal about the Spirit and how the Spirit will be present with the members of this community of his own. The Spirit will be in them as it has been in him. Here is where God dwells. At this meal we are celebrating our betrothal to Christ and the dedication of his body and body of the community of believers to be the dwelling of God. We are joining with Christ in his sacrifice so that we may also share in his resurrection.
The Eucharistic prayer itself which begins right after the Holy, Holy, Holy, is the most beautiful Trinitarian prayer the Church has. We are addressing the Father, giving thanks for all Christ is and has done for us (Eucharist means thanksgiving)—his life, death and resurrection. We are addressing the Father asking that the Father send the Spirit upon the bread and wine so that they may hold the body and of Christ just like the Spirit came upon Mary when she conceived Christ. We are asking that the Spirit open the doors of time and make the Christ event present to us as it was 2000 years ago. We all ascent to this prayer with the great “ Amen.” With Christ present physically among us under the appearances of bread and wine, all together holding hands, touching one another we “touch” the Father in the prayer Jesus taught us.
To make the sacrifice complete, the victim must be changed and so we consume this sacrificial Lamb. He asks us to both eat this body and drink his blood. In the Jewish mind the sacrifice was made complete when the lamb was eaten and the participants were blessed (sanctified) with the sprinkling of its blood. There are however other meanings for Christians in consuming the precious Blood. We testify to the Resurrection of Christ whose body and blood were separated in his sacrifice and are now united in his resurrection as we consume them. The bride drinks the cup of the espousal and our bridal covenant with the risen Christ is sealed.
For a few moments we bear Christ within ourselves as Mary bore him after the visit of the angel although it is the risen Jesus we bear. We have been given food for life’s journey, meaning for our minds seeking identity and purpose. We have been given emotional satisfaction and affirmation by the presence of the Three and of the community around us.
More than any other image, Rublev’s icon of Abraham’s angelic visitors seated at a Eucharistic table revealing their divinity speaks of what transpires at the Eucharistic Liturgy. They are seated in a circle with an open space at table inviting us to join them. We are invited to table intimacy where persons feed each other by eating together and also feed upon each other’s company for mutual stimulation.
Setting aside for a moment, readings, processions and music, the Eucharistic prayer is itself a hymn to and encounter with the Persons of the Trinity. We can only understand the Eucharist if we realize that this meal/sacrifice is a reflection of the inner life of the Trinity where eternally the Father is both surrendering his essence to his Word/Image and at the same time feeding upon the presence of the Word. Two people in love can rejoice in each other’s company because they each are also surrendering something of their essence to the other. This activity is extended to us as Jesus leads the way in surrendering himself as food in the Eucharist.
Sacrament of Forgiveness
Relationships are prone to difficulties because our egos, our individualism and our inclination to judge others constantly get in the way. We seek selfish advantage, we blame others for faults we have and we prefer ourselves over others even over God. Thus relationships are always in need of repair. Our relationship with God is no different except that it is not the Persons of the Trinity who let selfishness get in the way. It is us. The problem is usually compounded by the fact that we are blind to our own motives. We live in the terrain of denial. The Sacrament of forgiveness is a healing sacrament. Its purpose is to heal our inner woundedness and our wounded relationships.
If we are developing a relatedness with the Spirit, the Spirit will help us become aware of our motivations and the obstacles we place to relationships. We then have to take responsibility for our actions and our motives. John the Beloved tells us that if we say we do not have sin, the truth is not in us. If we acknowledge our sins, God is faithful and forgives us. (1 John 8-19)
We can say that there are two steps in this process of seeking forgiveness. The first is to look upon what we have done. The people who were bitten by the snakes in the desert while traveling with Moses to the holy land (Numbers 21: 8,9) were asked to look upon the snake that Moses placed on the top of a staff. After looking upon it they were healed. We need to look at the evil we experience to see how we have contributed to it. When something in life bites us, we need to check out why and look at it carefully because the root is often within ourselves. This is a crucial part of the healing process but it can be hard to do. The story of Nathan and David is a good example of that. David committed adultery and then arranged a killing to hide that sin. Nathan the prophet was sent to confront him. David was living in denial until Nathan told him “You are that man! —the one who has severely wronged another!” David then had to acknowledge his sin and having done so, Nathan assured him of God’s forgiveness (1 Sam. 12:13). By acknowledging our sin in the presence of another, we take responsibility for what we have done and only then can the process of healing, of receiving forgiveness begin. This is an experience of catharsis and it is so necessary to our psychological well being that millions of people now days make confessors of psychotherapists for at least an hour a week.
The Sacrament of Forgiveness is about healing. It is the second creation story that John the Beloved has in mind as he writes about Jesus first appearance to the community after his resurrection. He tells us it is evening, the time when God walked with Adam and Eve in the garden. That Genesis story ended with guilt, banishment from Eden, and no access to the tree of life. In the new creation begun at Jesus’ Resurrection, Jesus reopens Eden with the greeting Shalom; he invites his disciples to touch his hands and side— he is the new tree of life; he breathes his Spirit on the disciples like God breathed life into the first human God shaped with his hands from clay. This breath, this Spirit, brings the gift of forgiveness to the new creation. It will be a characteristic of the new creation in contrast to the old creation with its guilt and shame. The Sacrament of Forgiveness is an ongoing participation in the new creation—allowing the Father, the Potter, and the Spirit to heal and reshape us.
Originally forgiveness was about healing the relationship with the community when some Christians failed to live up to the Baptismal commitments and in the face of mortal danger denied their faith. They were accepted back into the community when they publicly repented. Forgiveness became private when Christianity was taken to Ireland where there was already a tradition of soul-friending, that is the practice of asking someone to walk with you on your spiritual quest to both encourage and challenge you, to offer spiritual hospitality. When the sacrament moved back to Europe as the Dark Ages were ending, it came as a private sacrament between penitent and a priest but the aspect of the soul-friend relationship was soon lost and without that the sacrament was stripped of the aspects of personal encounter and accountability so much so that the priest and penitent would not know or even see each other and each sacramental encounter was an isolated event. An anonymous recitation of a list of sins was greeted with a perfunctory recitation of absolution.
With the Ecumenical Council, Vatican II, in the last century and especially with the Charismatic Renewal came the effort to make the Sacramental encounter more personable and to reemphasize it as a healing experience. The reconciliation room provides for a choice of a face to face encounter. And in some Charismatic communities there began the custom of the priest and penitent clasping hands after the absolution for a few moments of celebratory thanksgiving and prayer for continual spiritual healing. In the gospels Jesus frequently grasped the hands of those he was healing. The image of healer and wounded grasping hands provided a beautiful icon of the first creation–the Father in the person of the priest takes human clay into his hands as in the first creation and remolds it in the image of the Son as the penitent, the human clay, seeks to restore/reshape his or her relationship with Christ and makes the resolve to follow Christ more closely. It is a face to face encounter like that between God and God’s Word described by John the Beloved: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was face to face with God (John 1:1). The Spirit, the Breath of God breathed into the first human, is present in the prayer, and the conversation the priest and penitent share. It is thus that the Sacrament of Forgiveness at its best once again became a mirror of the Trinity and a restoration of our Baptismal dignity. “Abba, Father, you are the potter. We are the clay, the work of your hands” (Is. 64:7). When we get misshapen we accept for you to remold us in Christ’s image, to heal the inner woundedness, the woundedness of relationships.