How we worship

The Sacraments of the Catholic Church

Liturgy is the wellspring of the life of the Church.  It is the true centre and deepest mission of the Church – the adoration of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

'In the earthly liturgy we take part in a foretaste of that heavenly liturgy which is celebrated in the Holy City of Jerusalem toward which we journey as pilgrims, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, Minister of the Holies and of the true tabernacle. With all the warriors of the heavenly army we sing a hymn of glory to the Lord; venerating the memory of the saints, we hope for some part and fellowship with them; we eagerly await the Saviour, Our Lord Jesus Christ, until he our life shall appear and we too will appear with him in glory.  (Vatican II, Sacrosanctum Concilium, 8).'

Liturgy is a Basic Human Need

At the heart of liturgy is symbolic expression.  If we are aware of this or not, symbols are a fundamental and pervasive dimension of our lives.  As a union of body and spirit, the use of symbols is fundamental to our experience of existence and our self-expression as persons. For example, when a couple is in love the gift of a box of chocolates or flowers is much more than chocolates and flowers, they are transformed by the intention and actions of the lovers to become symbols of love that communicate and express love.

As the Catechism explains, as spiritual, psychological beings with rich and complex interior lives we need signs and symbols to express our innermost depths as individuals.  We need signs and symbols to communicate with others, through language, gestures and actions.

The same holds for God's relationship with us, and our response to God.  As a spiritual being God has used symbols to communicate his teaching and share his life with human beings from the beginning.

1.   Natural Symbols. 

God speaks to us through the physical universe.  Made in the image of God human beings have the natural capacity, through unaided reason, to come to knowledge of the existence of God, based on observation of the universe's order, beauty and purpose.  As St Paul puts it:

'For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.  Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made.  (Romans 1:19-20)'.

Aware of the existence of God in creation natural symbols have arisen that express the power and presence of God, such as light and darkness, wind and fire, water and earth, the tree and its fruit.

'Inasmuch as they are creatures, these perceptible realities can become means of expressing the action of God who sanctifies men, and the action of men who offer worship to God.  The same is true of signs and symbols taken from the social life of man: washing and anointing, breaking bread and sharing the cup can express the sanctifying presence of God and man's gratitude toward his Creator.'  (CCC 1148).

2.   Supernatural symbols. 

Scripture and Tradition tells us that through His free choice God has raised man to a supernatural end – that is, to share in the divine life and love of the Holy Trinity.  Therefore it is absolutely necessary that He reveal His innermost life and the means to attain it because it lies completely beyond human knowledge and experience, thereby totally transcending the understanding of the human mind.  (Dei Verbum, 6).

Throughout Salvation History God has chosen certain symbols to communicate this supernatural life to human beings, thereby giving them a sacred significance and meaning that transcends natural symbols.

'The Chosen People [Israel] received from God distinctive signs and symbols that marked its liturgical life.  These are no longer solely celebrations of cosmic cycles and social gestures, but signs of the covenant, symbols of God's mighty deeds for his people.  Among these liturgical signs from the Old Covenant are circumcision, anointing and consecration of kings and priests, laying on of hands, sacrifices, and above all the Passover.  The Church sees in these signs a prefiguring of the sacraments of the New Covenant.  (CCC 1150)'.

Jesus Christ – Symbol of God

As St John's Gospel recounts, Jesus told his apostles 'He that sees me, sees the Father' (John 14:9).  This simple phrase expresses the profoundest of mysteries – Jesus' unique union with the Father, and his essential identification with Him.  Jesus and the Father are one.  (John 10:30).

By assuming a human nature, the Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, is able to communicate in a totally unique and irreplaceable way the personal manifestation and teaching of God.  His physical presence – his body, his emotions, his tone of voice, his silences, his miracles – communicates the living truth of God.

Jesus as the sacrament of God makes visible and present the invisible God through his humanity.  Christ is, through his whole being, and especially through his death and resurrection, the pre-eminent 'real symbol' of God's grace and forgiveness.  (Dulles).  Simply put, Jesus does not represent God, in his humanity he makes God present.

'To see Jesus is to see His Father (see John 14:9).  For this reason Jesus perfected revelation by fulfilling it through his whole work of making Himself present and manifesting Himself: through His words and deeds, His signs and wonders, but especially through His death and glorious resurrection from the dead and final sending of the Spirit of truth.  Moreover He confirmed with divine testimony what revelation proclaimed, that God is with us to free us from the darkness of sin and death, and to raise us up to life eternal.  (Dei Verbum, 4)'.

The Church's sacraments continue the Incarnation of Christ

Jesus took natural symbols and supernatural symbols, transforming them into the media to communicate his presence, power and meaning.  The Church calls these transformed symbols, sacraments.

Sacraments are at the heart of the Church understanding of why Jesus Christ instituted Holy Orders, that is Bishops, Priests and Deacons. Sacraments – the sacred symbols chosen by Christ to communicate his grace – can only be received, not self-administered. The apostles received the sacraments from the Son of God, and the succession of bishops, priests and deacons received the sacraments from the apostles to dispense to the people of God.  This apostolic succession safe-guards and guarantees that we receive the sacraments bestowed on the Church by Jesus.

Liturgy is the action of the Church that uses these natural and supernatural symbols to continue to communicate the actions of Christ, the Word of God made flesh. 

The seven sacraments of the Catholic Church – Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Reconciliation, Anointing of the Sick, Marriage and Holy Orders – are the privileged ways Jesus has bestowed to the Church as the means of continuing his presence among us until the end of time. As Pope St Leo puts it, 'What was visible in our Redeemer has passed over into the mysteries [sacraments]'.

Uniquely, Jesus' human act of redemption cannot be 'merely something of the historical past' because it is the act of the eternal Son of God.  Therefore, Jesus' death on the Cross and his resurrection transcend time.  This means that when we celebrate the Mass or baptise or go to confession it is Christ who offers the sacrifice of the Mass, it is Christ who baptises, it is Christ who absolves us of our sins, for example.

The Church's sacramental symbols are only able to do this through the presence and action of the Holy Spirit, who carries on the work of our incorporation into the life of Christ, the work of making us a priestly people, a holy nation set apart for the worship of God.

'The Spirit and the Church cooperate to manifest Christ and his work of salvation in the liturgy.  Primarily in the Eucharist, and by analogy in the other sacraments, the liturgy is the memorial of the mystery of salvation.  The Holy Spirit is the Church's living memory.'  (CCC 1099).

The next point is essential to grasp: when the Catholic Church uses the word. 'memorial' it does not mean the mere recollection of a past event that remains in the remote past.

As the Catechism puts it, though other historical events happen once, then they pass away, swallowed up in the past, Christ's life, death and resurrection – his Paschal Mystery – cannot remain only in the past because all Christ is 'participates in the divine eternity, and so transcends all times while being made present in them all. (CCC 1085).

Christ's Paschal Mystery is a unique event of history which does not pass away but is really and truly present in our lives through the sacraments.

The Eucharist – Sacrament of Sacraments 

The Catholic understanding of 'memorial' is the source of the notion that the celebration of the Most Holy Mass is both the paschal sacrifice of Christ and the Eucharistic bread and wine make present sacramentally the 'real' presence of Our Lord's Sacred Body and Precious Blood.

'For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, "This is my body which is for you.  Do this in remembrance of me."

In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me' (I Corinthians 11:23-25).

Jesus took the Third Blessing of the Jewish Passover and added the command, 'Do this in remembrance of me'.

By 'remembrance' Jesus was drawing on the Jewish understanding of ritual remembrance [zikkaron] which didn't mean the mere recollection of a past event, such as the memory of a past event.  The Catechism explains the special meaning of remembrance as follows:

The Church understands that through following the Lord's command, when the priest prays the words of consecration the bread and wine, in a sacramental way, the body and blood of Christ are truly and really present. 

This does not mean that in a primitive way the bread and wine are visibly replaced by flesh and blood.

It does mean that the true body and blood of Christ exist in this sacrament, so that Christ really exists in this sacrament, but not in a way that can be apprehended by the senses, only by faith.  (St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica III, 75, 1).

The Eucharistic change is not like a natural one, but is 'altogether supernatural, effected solely by the power of God (ST III a 75, 4), founded on God's power over creation.

Jesus' word – as the Son of God – both signifies the change that has occurred and brings it about: 'This is My body', 'This is the cup of My blood'.  The great distinction between God's Word and man's word is 'that when God says something He also does it…  In Him saying and doing are one and the same thing' (Fr. Louis Bouyer).  Consequently, the sacrament of the Eucharist, as the expressions of God's Word, does exactly what it expresses.

'It is by the conversion of the bread and wine into Christ's body and blood that Christ becomes present in this sacrament.  The Church Fathers strongly affirmed the faith of the Church in the efficacy of the Word of Christ and of the action of the Holy Spirit to bring about this conversion.

Thus St. John Chrysostom declares:

'It is not man that causes the things offered to become the Body and Blood of Christ, but he who was crucified for us, Christ himself.  The priest, in the role of Christ, pronounces these words, but their power and grace are God's.  This is my body, he says.  This word transforms the things offered. (CCC 1375)'.

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If you would like to learn more about the faith of the Catholic Church, we invite you to enrol on the Diocese of Lancaster's online Catholic Certificate in Religious Studies, http://vle.dles.lancsngfl.ac.uk/ which uses the Catechism of the Catholic Church

Contact the Diocesan Education Centre to get details about how to enrol on 01524 841190 or educationservice@lancasterrcdiocese.org.uk

Written by Deacon Nick Donnelly