OF THINGS VISIBLE (Outward Signs) AND INVISIBLE (Supernatural Effects)
THE SACRAMENTAL PRINCIPLE
Of my visit to the United States in 1949-50 I have many happy memories. One of the most exciting - and one which often comes back to my mind - was a night-ride in the driving-cab of a huge Diesel locomotive. This was arranged for me by the parish priest of one of the places where I had been preaching. I had to leave his parish late one Saturday night in order to get to the next place where I was due to start on Sunday morning; and as one of his parishioners was a rather important official of a certain railroad, he managed to get for me the privilege of making my journey in the driving-cab.
We left at 10.30p.m. and for about five hours I sat with the driver and the fireman behind the great headlight of the Diesel while we pounded along through the night. I was received in most friendly fashion and treated as an honoured guest in the driving-cab. The driver explained to me everything I asked about - the dials and gauges inside, the lights and signals outside.
And, while admiring the wonderful skill wherewith the driver exerted perfect control at all times over the gigantic power-unit in which we sat, and the thundering mass of train behind us, I reflected much upon the tremendous importance of signs. Almost everything seemed to be connected with or depend upon some sign. It was a sign which told the driver to start the train on its journey. He drove at eighty miles an hour when certain signs by the track told him it was safe to do so; he reduced speed to fifty or to forty miles an hour when other signs indicated that some curve ahead required this; he went ahead confidently when some green light told him the next section was clear; he brought the train to a standstill when some red light told him he must stop.
His very control of the train was dependent on signs - for he knew exactly how fast he was going, what was the air-pressure in his braking system, what was the temperature of his lubricating system, what was the amperage in his lighting system . . . he knew all about everything to do with his engine. He knew it all from the readings of the various dials in front of him. They were there for the precise purpose of signifying all these things which he needed to know. How important are signs!
But also another thought struck me: how powerless, in themselves, are signs. They do not cause the things which they signify. It was not the greenness of the light ahead which removed all obstacles from the next section of the track. It was not the finger pointing to 80 on the dial which made the train go at eighty miles an hour. And so it was with all the other indicators and dials and signals. All of them just told something to the driver, but not one of them produced whatever it was that they told him.
That is the way of things with merely human signs. But there are just a few signs which have been arranged by God, not by men. And God's signs are, unlike Human signs, very far from being powerless. God's signs have God's power behind them. They signify something - as do human signs; but they do much more than that - they also give effect to what they signify. God has given them the power to effect in the supernatural order what they signify in the natural order.
Let us put it another way. We are not just souls - that is, merely spiritual beings. Nor are we just bodies - merely material beings. We are in fact composite beings - embodied souls. And, as I attempted to explain in Chapter III, our bodies are the instruments of our souls. If I want to do something to your soul - for instance, make your understanding consider some truth - then I have to do something to your body. Either I must make meaningful sounds reach your ears, as in preaching; or else I must make meaningful sights like this printed page be displayed before your eyes, as in writing. I can only get at your soul through your body.
Now God desires to produce certain effects in your soul; because He can do all things He does not need to use your body to "get at you". Just occasionally He does do something to somebody's soul without affecting his body at all. But this is not normal. Usually He does what He wishes by means of certain arrangements which He employs as His ordinary ways of dealing with souls, and in these He does use your body because doing it like that suits human nature better. There are things you can see or hear or touch - material things - which, by God's power, can produce effects in your soul. The effects, moreover, are not merely natural, but are supernatural - in the sense explained in Chapter II.
We call this the "sacramental principle". It means that God has attached power to certain natural signs whereby they produce supernatural effects. For example: there is a natural sign of cleansing which, by the power of God, is the cause of supernatural cleanness. There is a natural sign of feeding which, by the power of God, causes supernatural nourishment, etc.
It was Christ Our Lord who first made this arrangement. How He did it is a mystery to us: we cannot understand it fully. But this "sacramental principle" is at the very basis of our dealings with God and God's dealings with us. Hence we ought to study it and take the trouble to understand as much of it as may be within our capacity. For there are at least certain facts that we can grasp, even though we cannot comprehend quite how God causes them to be.
One fact is that by means of this sacramental principle God can make things exist in a manner totally outside our experience or imagination. Thus, in the sacraments (those particular signs to which Christ attached effectiveness), the things which are signified actually happen, as I have stated. But there is nothing else in the whole of creation which has a real existence in signs. There are many signs - but they only signify and do not cause. These signs, however, not only signify - they also cause. It is therefore only in these signs that there is an underlying reality.
Now we seem to have run into a very tough bit of thinking. But there is no way around it. I warned you earlier that in this book you would not be getting mere "catechism stuff". I could, of course, let you off this bit of mental effort, but I can't see that it would do any good to leave you without any understanding of this sacramental principle. Easier to cut it out, certainly. But that would only leave you unequipped for any better understanding of the Mass and of the sacraments than that which you probably have now. So please bear with me a bit longer and let us see if we cannot get some clear notions of this "sacramental order of existence".
Think of Our Lord's death on the cross. Did it really happen? Of course it did: we all know that. It was a historical fact. It was a real death. Yet, at this moment, His death is in your mind because you are thinking about it. Now is that death which is in your mind, a real death of Our Lord? No! - as it exists in your mind it is only imaginary. So now you have examples of two ways in which the death of Christ can take place: in the order of history (which is a real way), and in the order of ideas (which is an imaginary way).
Now what I am trying to tell you is that since Our Lord arranged that it be so, there is a third way in which His death takes place - in the "sacramental order". And (mark this well) this sacramental order is a real way and not an imaginary way. It is just as real as the order of history. But the qualities of things in the sacramental order are utterly different from the qualities of those same things in the historical order or in the order of ideas.
Sacraments, then, are not like anything else in existence. There were no such things until Christ came to redeem us. But when He came, He created this new order of existence - the sacraments - for the purpose of using them as channels for communicating to us the fruits of His redemption. They are all part of His plan, that part which was not due to be put into effect till Our Lord came and which, as St. Paul expressed it to the Ephesians, was till then "a mystery kept hidden from the beginning of time in the all-creating mind of God" (Eph. iii, 9).
Two points should be noted about the signifying (sic) power of the sacraments: one is that it may be multiple, and the other is that it is in no way constrained by dimensions of time or space. The first means that one and the same sign may signify (and effect in the sacramental order) various realities. For example, baptism signifies cleansing, but also dying and rising with Christ.
The second point has been best expressed by St. Thomas Aquinas: "A sacrament is something ordained to signify our sanctification; and three aspects may be discerned in it, namely, the cause of our sanctification, which is the passion of Christ; the essence of our sanctification, which consists in grace and virtues; and the ultimate goal of our sanctification, which is eternal life. All these are signified by a sacrament. Hence a sacrament is not only a commemorative sign of some thing which is now past, namely, the passion of Christ; it is also a demonstrative sign of something now present and caused in us by the passion of Christ, namely, grace; further it is a prognostic or prophetic sign of something as yet in the future, namely, glory" (Summa Theologica III, q. 60, a. 3).
This teaching of St. Thomas is admirably expressed in the beautiful prayer which he himself composed in honour of the greatest of the sacraments, the Holy Eucharist: "O sacred Banquet wherein Christ is received: (1) the memory of His passion is renewed, (2) the mind is filled with grace, and (3) a pledge of future glory is given to us!"
Though it is more clear in the Holy Eucharist than in any other, the fact is that every sacrament has this triple aspect: it is a sign (something perceived by our senses) of invisible realities (imperceptible by our senses) which it causes to exist in this mysterious "sacramental order". And these realities, in their other (or temporal) mode of existence are of the past (the action whereby Christ then redeemed us), and of the present (the action whereby Christ now sanctifies us), and also of the future (the action whereby Christ will glorify us). The whole sacrament is therefore an action of Christ. And yet also, because it is something that involves the use of our bodily senses, it is an action done by us.
What wonderful things are the sacraments! How fully they deserve the title of "the Mysteries of Christ". It is in and through the sacraments that He comes to us - they embody His redemptive actions. And yet, precisely because the sacraments are our actions also it follows that the redemptive actions of Christ are our actions. He has "made them over to us", for they are all there in the sacraments. "What was visible in the life of Christ has passed over into the sacraments," said St. Leo the Great (Sermon 74, 2). When it was visible, it was a historic reality. Now that it is signified, it is a sacramental reality. But all Christ's work of salvation and sanctification is no less real now as a signified reality of the sacramental order, than it once was as a visible reality of the historic order.
There are, of course, differences. The obvious difference is that then His redemptive work was visible, whereas now it is not visible but signified. Another difference, of vast importance to us, is the fact that He was then acting alone, through the instrumentality of His physical body; and we had no share in His actions. But now He is acting through the instrumentality of His Mystical Body; and we do share in His action because it is sacramental, and it is we who "do" these sacraments. As the Pope points out in the encyclical Mediator Dei:
"Although Christ, universally speaking, has reconciled the whole human race to the Father by His death, yet He has willed that men should come and be brought to His Cross by means of the sacraments and the Mass, and so take possession of the fruits which through the Cross He has won for them. By this active and personal co-operation the members become ever more and more like their Head, and at the same time the salvation that flows from the Head is imparted to the members themselves; so that each of us can repeat the words of St. Paul, 'With Christ I hang upon the Cross; and yet I am alive; or rather, not I; it is Christ that lives in me' " (n. 82).
In becoming thus participators sacramentally in the very redemptive works of Christ we are, of course, sanctified. And this redounds to God's glory. Not only does God come to us through the sacraments, but also through them we go to God. The sacraments are the most important way in which, during this life, we have dealings with God. It is chiefly through these sacramental signs that we adore Him. As we shall see later on, our greatest act of adoration is the Mass.
This statement is literally true only because the Mass is a sacramental action. If it were not a sacramental action, then either it would not be perfect worship (because it would be merely our act and not Christ's); or else it would not be our act (though it would then be perfect worship because an act of Christ). But because it is sacramental it is our act of worship; and because it is sacramental it is also Christ's act of worship, and hence perfect. Wherefore we can do an act of worship which is perfect worship. We do it "through Him and with Him and in Him". We must never think of the Mass as something separate from the sacraments, for it is, in fact, the greatest of them all. The Mass is the Eucharist offered; and Holy Communion is the Eucharist received. Both are the same sacrament under different aspects.
That the Mass draws its power from Calvary is a thing that everybody knows. But we must realise also that all the other sacraments too draw their power from the same source. The whole lot of them are the making present, in the sacramental order of existence, of the redemptive work of Christ; and they make that work our work because we are agents in the production or reception of these wonderful signs which He instituted for the very purpose of making His redemptive acts our own.
The Mass, the sacraments and the Divine Office are the principal elements of what is called "Liturgy". In Mediator Dei the Pope tells us:
"The priestly life which the Divine Redeemer had begun in His mortal body by His prayers and sacrifice was not finished. He willed it to continue unceasingly through the ages in His Mystical Body, which is the Church" (n. 2).
"Accordingly the Church continues the priestly office of Jesus Christ, especially in the liturgy. This she does first and chiefly at the altar . . . secondly by means of the sacraments . . . thirdly by the tribute of praise which is daily offered to Almighty God" (n. 3).
If, then, the liturgy is the continued worship of Christ the High-priest, how vitally important it is that we should make the liturgy our worship also! It is so important that Blessed Pius X wrote:
"Active participation in the Holy Mysteries is the primary and indispensable source of the true Christian spirit" (Motu Proprio, 1903).
Finally, think over the definition given by Pope Pius XII in Mediator Dei: "The sacred liturgy is the public worship which our Redeemer, the Head of the Church, renders to the heavenly Father, and which the society of Christ's faithful renders to its founder and, through Him, to the eternal Father. To put it briefly, it is the integral public worship of the Mystical Body of Christ, Head and Members" (n. 20).