The Sacraments: Celebration

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Back in the day, the Sacraments were thought of as the gifts of grace that a person received from the Churchs ministers. However, this perspective is not as prevalent anymore: nowadays, there is a different set of attitudes regarding the Sacraments. It is more solidly grounded in the Scriptures and better reflects the sacramental experiences of both the early Christians and people of the present. At the core of this set of attitudes is the broadening of the concept itself. There is no more a perception of Seven Sacraments as defined by the Catechism of the Christian Doctrine. Today, Jesus is thought of as the Sacrament of God, and the Church is deemed the Sacrament of the Risen Christ (LifeLight, 2018). This viewpoint allows the possibility of a multidimensional framework of the sacramental experience permeating the lives of all people. After having provided a new outlook on the concept of a Sacrament, LifeLight (2018) offers a look at how this concept is reflected in practice. Until recently, there was an issue of administering the sacraments; however, this approach has been extended: they are no longer administered, they are celebrated.

Nowadays, celebration as a word is frequently used when it comes to the Sacraments. For instance, in the past, the priest was saying Mass, whereas today he is often described to be celebrating the Eucharist instead. He does not marry Mister and Miss today, but officiates at the celebration of Mister and Misss wedding. LifeLight (2018) notes that such a change is not simply a result of some trends or language developments. It is indicative of a profound and significant alteration in the Churchs perception of the sacramental life and the sacramental experience.

It is perfectly natural for people to celebrate the happening of something exciting. People tend to go out, throw parties, or rejoice in any other way when, for example, they manage to get a new job, or a promotion at an old one, or a raise. This is the way for those around the person celebrating to share in their triumph and spread joy. Moreover, it might serve as a form of an encouragement for other people to make more effort in their lives to succeed and be able to glorify their achievements as well.

Evidently, this is the case with family events, too: relatives gather to celebrate births of babies, weddings, anniversaries, and special birthdays. These events are marked by people sharing family history stories, reviving shared memories, affirming each other as family members, strengthening family ties and, as a result, their identities. A celebration can be very personal, such as a private dinner on the occasion of an engagement, or extremely public, such as a grand wedding with a thousand guests. According to LifeLight (2018), celebration consolidates the occurrence to which it is connected: the occurrence is marked, put into context, granted a wholeness, and made more special, meaningful, and significant. If people do not celebrate, they miss on one of the greatest joys of living and the quality of their lives is much worse.

Similarly, when a new member of the Catholic Church is initiated, whether a newborn or an adult, it is celebrated in a succession of sacramental events: Baptism, First Holy Communion, and Confirmation. Ordination as ones commissioning to the priesthood is celebrated, as is the marriage of two people declaring their love for one another in public. When a member reconciliates with God, it is celebrated, as is the power of Gods healing in the Last Rites Sacraments. The closeness of God to His children is celebrated in the Eucharist, and the priest who officiates at it is referred to as the Celebrant. With all these celebrations, one brings meaning, significance, and integrity to these prominent events in their life.

When it comes to the connection between a particular occurrence and the celebration that marks it, there is an interesting point to make. LifeLight (2018) notes that the love in a relationship between two people had emerged long before their marriage was celebrated. Likewise, a candidate for initiation as an adult had turned to Jesus and taken the path of faith before his baptizing. A person who had fallen from grace but then repented had found his way back to God before asking for the sacrament of reconciliation. In the past, there might have been an impression that the sacred bond of marriage was established during the ceremony itself. In the same way, the conversion seemed to occur during the baptizing, and the reconciliation gained its power with the absolution words. LifeLight (2018) cites a quote that says: To believe that the grace of the sacrament begins only with the action of the priest& is too simplistic a way of considering these matters (p.11). Now is the time when people are starting to have a more rational approach to viewing the relationship between the lifes events and their sacramental celebrations.

Perhaps, today one is able to better appreciate some sacramental celebrations being lengthened out over several occasions. LifeLight (2018) points to the fact that, usually, adult baptism could fit into half of an hour on a Sunday. The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) program might now take up to a number of months. However, this is deemed necessary in order to make the path of faith that each candidate navigates, and the stages of that path, more meaningful. In fact, this approach is new only in the context of what people had been used to in the last hundreds of years. According to LifeLight (2018), the Sacraments of Initiation had been taking long periods of time for many centuries, and Reconciliation even took years sometimes. More recently, there was a handful of stages on ones way to ordination, including porter, lector, exorcist, acolyte, sub-deacon, deacon, and priest. Moreover, there is a suggestion that marriage preparation, too, could sometimes be sacramentally marked by gradual steps towards the ceremony.

Furthermore, when there is a conversation about celebration, there is a conversation about the rituals that accompany a particular celebration. When families come together to celebrate something or someone, they tend to use certain rituals. People shake hands, hug, kiss each others lips, cheeks, hands, or heads, all depending on how well they know one another. In some families, the gathered are expected to make a speech, a short or a long one. Someones birthday party can rarely do without Happy birthday to you, and a Christmas party without Christmas carols. There is a turkey and potato dishes on nearly every table on Thanksgiving, and at midnight on New Years Eve, people usually yell things.

Some might be reluctant to share in all that, and they will be persuaded to by the fact that these are family rituals. It means that the family always does this one thing or several things, with no exceptions, year after year. No matter how inefficient such rituals might be, how silly-looking or irrational, there is no disagreeing the fact that it is all for the best. Rituals strengthen families, keep people together and promote good communications between those who come together.

In terms of the sacramental setting, many of the features of such celebrations are the same as the ones mentioned above: there are greetings, handshaking, feasting, singing, speeches, and so on. However, according to LifeLight (2018), there is much more effort to include symbolic rituals, ones that have a special meaning in a particular context, such as water, oil, paschal candles, incense, and others. The effects that sacramental rituals have are very much like those of the regular rituals, too, except with an even more obvious effect of communing with God.

Evidently, when used in religion, the term rite means something slightly different than what it does in the regular world. It is a group action which through its use of symbol, the senses and the irrational, is designed to effect communion with the unseen (LifeLight, 2018, p.12). On the meaning of symbols, LifeLight (2018) presents the following story. When two ancient Greek cities made a pact with one other, the cities leaders broke one plate in two and entrusted each half to be safely kept by the other city. Whenever it was necessary to send a messenger to this other city, he took one half with him. Upon the messengers arrival, the plates two halves were to be brought together and serve as proof of ones identity. Bring together in Greek translates as sum-balein, which is what gave name to the procedure that became known as symbol.

Consequently, a symbol is practically that connects two things together. In the religious context, symbols might take various forms: images, material things (such as water or oil), gestures (such as the raising of hands in a prayer), and so on, but have a common goal to bring a believer closer to the unseen God. When it comes to the sacraments, they belong to the group of so-called sacred signs. According to LifeLight (2018), there are three types of signs: natural, conventional and symbolic. Natural signs appear in the nature when things take its normal course: fire creates smoke, therefore, smoke is perceived as fires natural sign. With the signifier being A and the signified being B, A comes from B in natural signs.

Conventional signs are the products of agreements, arrangements, and consensuses. The examples of conventional signs are all letters, road signs, and any point symbols. Initially, A and B have nothing to do with one another, and are combined only on the basis of a convention. Finally, there are symbolic signs, which follow symbols nature: they bring the signifier and the signified together not by convention, but by suggestion and implication. For instance, incense, by going up, becomes a symbolic sign of a prayer, and water, by washing clean and facilitating growth of baptism. A suggests B, and, therefore, sacramental signs are believed to belong to this particular category.

Reference

LifeLight. (2018). Module 5. The Sacraments. LifeLight Home Study Courses.

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The Sacraments: Celebration

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