The 7 sacraments of the church

These seven sacraments have brought spirituality into our homes and hearts. They have given us a sample of the love and mercy of God. They have helped the sacred become reality. They have given us a taste of heaven on earth. They have made Christ real. They cannot be isolated from God’s mercy and love. All seven Sacraments are interlinked, intimately connected with the suffering and resurrection of Christ. From Tertullian, to St Augustine, to St Thomas, these themes have been repeated. The Sacraments for centuries have been ingredients of spirituality. Through the centuries, the Sacraments have been seven signs leading the followers of Christ to the kingdom of God. All the seven Sacraments derive their powers from Christ. The Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, extends the work of Christ through the Sacraments.

The Sacraments (literally “mysteries”) are essential experiences that initiate and maintain our communion with God. Material means are used (example: water, oil, bread, wine) to manifest a greater spiritual reality that imparts divine grace to the people of God. As Jesus Christ is present in the Sacraments, believers are united to him through living a sacramental life. God’s grace is not, however, limited to only these seven, for, in fact, all the life of the Church and her believers is mystical/sacramental. Our faith and experience is shared. We join, as the creeds say, “one Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.” Over and over, the Bible reveals the corporate life of God’s people and nowhere within its pages will you find it advocating a solitary faith..

Holy Eucharist

Holy Eucharist is the Sacrament in which the believer partakes of the spiritual Body and Blood of Christ - the eternal Passover Lamb - in the semblance of bread and wine. The changing of common matter through the action of the Holy Spirit is a mystical occurrence, the understanding of which is known fully only to God. When the Apostles and early Christians gathered to “give thanks,” the word they used for the occasion, “Thanksgiving”, is a literal translation from the Greek word Eucharist. Thus from the earliest days the celebration of the Eucharist became the central act of Christian Worship. It is through the Eucharist that we become sanctified, and solidify ourselves as children of God the Father, recipients of Christ’s grace and filled with the Communion of the Holy Spirit.

In the Eucharist, God physically embraces us. Indeed that is what all sacraments are: God’s physical embrace. Words, as we know, have only a relative power. In critical situations they often fail us. Jesus knew this and acted on it. For most of His ministry He used words and through those words He brought and still brings God’s consolation, challenge and strength to the world. His words stirred hearts, healed people, gave life, and effected conversions. Powerful as they were, He knew that something more was needed. So on the night of His betrayal, having exhausted what He could do with words, Jesus went beyond them. He gave us the Eucharist, His physical embrace, a rite within which He holds us to His heart.

Every Christian Sacrament has some very tangible physical element to it - a laying on of hands, a consuming of bread and wine, an immersion into water, an anointing with oil. A Sacrament needs to be physical as well as something to be imagined. During the Eucharist, the Priest, on our behalf, copies the four actions that Jesus did at the last supper when He took, blessed, broke and then gave the bread.

The early Church broke bread together every day, believing that this is what Jesus meant by “give us this day our daily bread” During the Eucharist, Christ is present with us in a very real way, strengthening and healing our spirit, that is why it is good for us to receive communion as often as possible.

Baptism

Baptism is that Sacrament which initiates a person’s life to be in union with Christ and His Church and opens the doors to the Kingdom of God. (see John 3:3-6 ) Baptism is the individual’s participation and sharing in Christ’s death (i.e. death of sin) and resurrection (i.e. new life). This understanding is based on the Apostle Paul’s words:

“Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism to death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4)

Confirmation

Confirmation - is that Sacrament which completes the initiation of Baptism, giving us the opportunity to make our Godparents’ promises our own. Confirmation gives us entry to the sacramental life of the Church i.e. Eucharist.

Anointing

Anointing - is that Sacrament whereby the grace of the Holy Spirit is imparted for the healing of soul and body through prayers and anointing with specially blessed oil. Healing of the soul is of primary importance as such leads to eternal life. In cases where physical healing from bodily illness results, such is viewed as a providential gift to bring about greater spiritual fulfillment in this life.

Marriage

Marriage - is that Sacrament in which a Christian man and woman through the blessings and prayers of the Church, ask Christ to transform their human love into a divine eternal love. Therefore, the Church admonishes Christians not to enter into marriage with only worldly motives or with the idea that it is only a secular legal contract that can be easily broken.

Holy Orders

Holy Orders - is that Sacrament which assures the Apostolic continuity of the Church. Bishops, Priests, and Deacons are ordained into their sacred office by the grace of the Holy Spirit through prayer and the laying on of the Bishop’s hands. These Holy Orders manifest Christ’s presence in the Church - both local and worldwide. Christ Himself is the head of the Body of the Church and He works through the ministry of His one Priesthood that He calls specific men and women through ordination to share.

Absolution

Absolution - is the Sacrament of repentance in which believers seeks forgiveness of sins from Christ Himself, through His Holy Church. Jesus directed and gave His disciples (and thus their successors) the authority to forgive sins. (see John 20:23). By confessing to Christ’s Church, through the Bishop or Priest, one receives the pronouncement of forgiveness. Confession is not considered a punitive act, but a therapeutic act that leads to spiritual healing. Through a heartfelt sincere Confession, one is restored to that life which was received at Baptism.

The Jewish background to the Christian Eucharist

The Eucharistic Sacrament of the Christian Church originated 2,000 years ago at a celebration of the most important and most ancient of the Jewish festivals. It originated in the guest room of a house in Jerusalem where a Jewish rabbi and his Jewish disciples had assembled to celebrate the Passover. During this ritual the rabbi, Jesus, took the two elements of the Passover meal, namely bread and wine, and offered them to his disciples with new words of explanation thus giving these elements a new significance. His purpose in doing this and the meaning of his words can only be fully understood in their Jewish setting and against the background of the Passover that Jesus celebrated with his disciples in the last hours before his arrest and crucifixion. Later Christian interpretations and developments, if they are true to the intention and meaning of Jesus, must go back to that Passover celebrated in the upper room in Jerusalem.

In order to understand the meaning of the Eucharist we must in the first instance look at the Jewish Passover. When we do, we can see how key elements of the Jewish festival have passed into the Christian Sacrament.

We perhaps should mention that there are some problems regarding the identification of the Last Supper, due to the discrepancy between the synoptic gospels and the fourth Gospel. The synoptic gospels seem to regard the Last Supper as the Passover meal itself (known as the Seder). There are details in their accounts that fit in with the Passover, although other details we would expect to find are missing, e.g. references to the roasted lamb, bitter herbs, etc. These apparent omissions are not difficult to account for when we remember that the main purpose of the evangelists was not to give a detailed description of the last meal Jesus shared with the disciples but rather to describe the institution of the Eucharist. We must remember too that by the time the gospels appeared the Eucharistic practice of the church had acquired its own form and was already a daily or weekly celebration as opposed to the annual celebration of the Passover. There can also be little doubt that the church’s own liturgical practice has influenced the redaction of the texts of the institution.

Contrary to the dating of the Last Supper in the Synoptic gospels, St John’s gospel implies that it took place a day earlier and that Jesus was crucified when the paschal lambs were being sacrificed in the temple, i.e. before the Passover meal took place, “they (the Jews) went not into the judgment hall, lest they should be defiled; but that they might eat the Passover” (John 18:28 - see also John 19:14). The tradition behind the fourth gospel accents the parallel between the sacrifice of the paschal lambs and the sacrificial death of Jesus (John 19:36) “These things were done that the scripture should be fulfilled, a bone of Him shall not be broken”. The same idea is found in John 1:29 and John 1:36 where Jesus is referred to as the “Lamb of God”. For the writer of the fourth gospel, Jesus is the true paschal lamb suffering death at the time of the slaughtering of the lambs in the temple. It would seem therefore that John, for theological reasons, has ante-dated the Last Supper by 24 hours.

However, whether the Last Supper was the Passover Meal or not, paschal ideas were bound to have been present in the mind of Jesus and His disciples, owing to the proximity of the Passover feast. There are clear indications that the crucifixion took place at the Passover season and so inevitably the New Testament texts connect the death and resurrection of Jesus with this Jewish festival.

The Passover is the oldest of the Jewish festivals and the first national commemoration. It commemorates the great event when God redeemed the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and recalls the birth of Israel’s nationhood. The Passover and the Exodus from Egypt are remembered as the foundation stone of the Jewish people. It is thus a national feast celebrating the liberation and birth of a people, but it is also a religious festival for the event is remembered as the act of God, who is man’s redeemer. In the light of this redemption both past and future are to be understood. God saw the wretched plight of Israel in Egypt, intervened and delivered them. But this was not to be a single isolated act, by so delivering them, God pledged himself to continue to do so throughout history. Note how the liberation of the people was followed by the covenant at Sinai when the Israelites pledged themselves to live according to God’s law, the Torah, and God promised that they would be His special people.

The deliverance from Egypt was primarily the expression of God’s love for His chosen people, but it required a reciprocal action on their part, viz obedience to His law. To remember the Exodus is a commandment in Judaism. Four times in the Torah the obligation is laid on every father to tell his children of God’s great act of delivery. This command Israel obeys to this day in the annual celebration of the Passover. God’s great act is also remembered every Sabbath for mention of it stands at the beginning of the Ten Commandments, “I am the Lord the God, which have brought thee out of the Land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.”

The Passover is a Jewish festival of history in which the story of what happened long ago is recounted, but God’s salvation and the covenant made with Him is also experienced by the participants through the ritual cf. Deuteronomy 53 “The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day”. There is a strong emphasis on personal involvement in the Passover ritual. The story is lived by those who tell it. When the youngest child asks during the Passover meal, “what mean ye by this service?” the answer is given in the first person, cf. Exodus 138 “This is done because of that which the Lord did unto me when I came forth from Egypt.” Also Exodus 1314 “By strength of hand the Lord brought us out from Egypt. We should note too the liturgy or order of service of Passover, is known as Haggadah. The word Haggadah means “telling” and refers to that fact that the reason for celebrating Passover is to tell the story of the Exodus in obedience to God’s command.

In each generation, every man is bound to envisage himself as though he personally took part in the Exodus from Egypt; as we read in the Torah: you shall tell your son on that day, saying “It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came forth from Egypt.” “It was not only our forefathers that the Holy One, blessed be He, redeemed, He redeemed us, the living, together with them.”

We see then that the Passover was more than just a celebration of a past event. Each participant in the ceremony was expected to identify himself with the purpose of the celebration and to behave in a manner which indicated that he himself, personally had come forth from Egypt.

This was the atmosphere at the Last Passover Jesus celebrated with His disciples at which the Eucharist was instituted. In obedience to the command “this do in remembrance of me” we re-enact the ritual of bread and wine at each celebration of the Eucharist, and the element of personal involvement has passed into the Christian Sacrament. When we celebrate the Eucharist we not only remember the greatest act of deliverance brought about by the death and resurrection of Jesus but we personally experience in our lives the salvation wrought by Christ’s sacrifice. So, like the Passover, the Eucharist is not only a commemoration of a past act of salvation, the salvation is on-going and participation in the sacrament is personal and present involvement in an act of communion with Christ when we experience His saving grace in our lives. We experience this anew each time we celebrate the Eucharist.

A second key element in the Passover is the importance given to redemption both past and future. The Passover commemorates God’s past redemptive act, but also looks forward to a re-enactment of this when God will once more redeem His people. Israel is not backward looking, there is no golden age in the past. For Israel the glory is in the future with the coming of the Messiah. There are two distinct elements in this hope for Messianic redemption, there is the desire for political salvation and the deep yearning for spiritual redemption. This Messianic expectation and the confident hope of future redemption form the

keynote of the Passover celebrations. Although there was no Haggadah in the time of Jesus, tradition would have dictated a Seder not all that different from modern ones. In its present form the liturgy is about 1,000 years old but parts are much older. So the hope expressed in Haggadah at Passover would have been there at the time of Jesus and earlier. The eschatological hope is clearly expressed “May the All Merciful cause us to inherit that day which shall be altogether Holy Day.” “May the All Merciful make us worthy of the Days of the Messiah and the life of the world to come.” Haggadah ends “May He who broke Pharoah’s yoke shatter all fetters of oppression and hasten the day when war will be no more. Soon may He bring redemption to all mankind, freed from violence and from wrong, and united in an eternal covenant of brotherhood.” The final words for those outside Israel are, “Next year in Jerusalem”, and for those in Israel, “Next year in rebuilt Jerusalem.”

So an integral part of the Passover festival is this joyful looking to the future. The deliverance from Egypt prefigures and even greater redemption to come. Joshua ben Hannah (c. AD 90) said that Passover night was the night on which “the Jews had been redeemed in the past and on which they would be redeemed in the future.” It was expected that the Messiah would come in the first month, i.e. the month of Passover; and Elijah, the forerunner of the Messiah, was expected on Passover Day. A later practice was to set a place for Elijah at the Passover meal. The Kingdom of God is itself the fulfillment of the Passover hopes because it will finally bring about the transition from bondage to freedom.

This joyful eschatological element is also found in the Eucharist. It is clear that at the last supper Jesus was aware that His death was near, but He also looks forward to a re-union with His disciples in the Kingdom of God. Cf. Mark 1425 “Verily I say unto you, I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine until that day that I drink it new in the Kingdom of God.” cf. Luke 2215 “And He said unto them ‘with desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer, for I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in the Kingdom of God.’” Note too,,,,, 1 Corinthians 1126 “for as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He come.” The account we have in

1 Corinthians is the earliest account we have of the Last Supper. Paul’s tradition has clearly preserved the eschatological thought enshrined in it. Although Jesus spoke of His approaching death the emphasis was not in the sorrow of parting but rather on the joyful expectation of the renewal of fellowship in the Kingdom of God. Jesus looked forward and would have His disciples look forward to the banquet in the Kingdom of God when all the Passover hopes and promises of joy, redemption and the glorious Messianic age would be fulfilled.

The twelve disciples chosen to continue proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom were those closest to Jesus and they would become the nucleus of a new people of God. At the Last Supper they are commanded to observe the Passover henceforth in remembrance of the salvation wrought through Him. Here we are understanding the bread and wine of the Eucharist as representing the atoning sacrifice of Christ. The disciples at the Last Supper are not to be regarded as eating symbolically the flesh of Christ in partaking of the bread, and as drinking his blood in taking the wine, but a remembering His sacrificial act.

It is possible that Jesus may have regarded the disciples as a sect or synagogue within Judaism (which the first Jewish Christians probably were.) They were to be like their fellow Jews in observing the Passover, but different from them in that their thoughts were to be set on a greater deliverance than that from Egypt. They would henceforth celebrate the Passover in remembrance of the salvation wrought through Jesus and in celebrating it would experience His spiritual presence. However, the effect of the resurrection was that the commemoration was held weekly. Instead of an annual Passover it became a weekly celebration of the Lord’s Supper where the central part was given to the bread and wine to which Jesus had attached new meaning. Thus the Church’s Eucharist is a remembrance of the death of Jesus but at the same time it is also an expectation of reunion and perfect joy with Him in the Kingdom, and this joy is already in a measure anticipated at each celebration of the Eucharist by the experience of His risen, living presence.

Parallels between the Passover and the Eucharist.

In both, a historical event of suffering and deliverance is commemorated. In the Eucharist the death and resurrection of Jesus. In the Passover the slavery and deliverance from Egypt.

Both are celebrations of praise and thanksgiving

In spite of the differences one would expect in two different faiths, in each service redemption is experienced by the participants who thereby become a community of God's people.

In both there is a looking towards the future when the definitive redemption of all men will be accomplished.