Sacramental objectivity in a world of religious subjectivism

When Jesus ascended into heaven and disappeared from the sight of his apostles, he didn’t abandon them or us. His leaving made room for the Spirit he promised to send, a Spirit who would work quietly from within to preserve the unity of the church with her Lord. Jesus’ leaving was tempered, as well, because his actions remain visible in the sacraments of the church.

Pope St. Leo the Great (440-461), preaching in the century following the end of the Roman Empire’s persecution of Christians, at a moment when the empire was itself collapsing in the west, said: “Our Redeemer’s visible presence has passed into the sacraments. Our faith is nobler and stronger because sight has been replaced by a doctrine whose authority is accepted by believing hearts, enlightened from on high. This faith was increased by the Lord’s ascension and strengthened by the gift of the Spirit; it would remain unshaken by fetters and imprisonment, exile and hunger, fire and ravening beasts, and the most refined tortures ever devised by brutal persecutors. Throughout the world women no less than men, girls as well as boys, have given their life’s blood in the struggle for this faith. It is a faith that has driven out devils, healed the sick and raised the dead.”

Without faith, the sacraments are reduced to rites made up by the church; with faith, the sacraments are recognized as actions of the risen Lord, sitting now at the right hand of the Father until he returns in glory to judge the living and the dead. To judge means to separate good from bad, saved from condemned. Christ’s judgment is not an extrinsic decision, like those made by human judges; in the light of Christ’s return in glory, all will see where they belong for eternity, the forces that shaped human history will become clear and justice will be fully one with love. We will love the Lord or hate him forever, as he is finally revealed to be the eternal sign of contradiction.

During his public ministry, Jesus made judgments. Sinners who met him and acknowledged their sinfulness were welcomed with mercy and given his friendship. Those who disagreed with what he preached and who rejected him and his mission were condemned in no uncertain terms, with a regret and sorrow born of love. The church is as inclusive as Jesus, teaching what he preached and taking up, with his authority, the mission he confided to the apostles when he ascended to the Father. The New Testament letters of Ss. Peter and Paul, of James and John, are filled with judgments, with both encouragement and condemnation.

A religion founded on divine revelation has the capacity and the obligation to judge both actions and people, as Jesus did. A religion dependent only on subjective experience has no objective criteria for judging. Much of the tension between church teaching and subjective experience in Catholicism today is gathered around moral issues; but some is also found in disagreement about the nature of the sacraments. If the sacraments are actions of the risen Lord, then their essential nature is given and cannot be changed, not even by priests and bishops.

Christ forgives and sanctifies when someone is baptized; but the church understands that Christ acts only when the church acts as he intends, when water is poured with the formula of faith he left us. If I or another minister of baptism should pour wine or rose petals rather than water over the head of a catechumen, Christ doesn’t act; nothing sacramental happens. If I would speak the words of eucharistic consecration over a rice cake or corn meal rather than wheat bread, Christ doesn’t consecrate the matter; nothing sacramental happens. For the social sacraments, people matter. A marriage is possible only between a man and a woman; a priestly ordination takes place only if the designated priest is a man. These are not liturgical or ecclesiastical regulations; they are conditions for sacramentality, for the action of the risen Lord. To change them is to betray the Lord.

The church does make her own rules governing ritual actions in order to protect the nature of the sacraments. To genuflect or bow before the Blessed Sacrament presupposes belief in the real presence of Christ in the consecrated bread and wine. Without such common external actions, our personal faith can be weakened or eroded. Similarly, rules to preserve the nature of the Eucharist as a sacrament of unity preclude using the reception of Holy Communion as a moment for public protest. The Rainbow Sash organization tried to manipulate the Eucharist for its own purposes some years ago and might try to do so again. Even granting subjective good intentions, as was the case with those who interrupted the Easter Mass two years ago in order to protest against the Iraqi-Afghanistan war, such actions run counter to the nature of the sacrament and deserve to be condemned.

Those who died for the Catholic faith over the centuries did not sacrifice themselves for their own subjective ideas or causes. They died because, in the church, they had truly met a Lord who converted them to his ways and had given them a peace so profound that no threat could dispel it. Seventeen hundred years after the Roman persecutions, faithful Catholics should be able to worship God in peace, with respect for the nature of the sacraments and for “the faith that comes to us from the apostles” (Eucharistic Canon I). The personal ability to hold the objective truths of faith is a gift from the Holy Spirit, for whose coming in power upon ourselves and others we pray this week. God bless you.