The Sacraments: Direct, Intimate Encounters with the Living God

"The sacraments confer the grace that they signify. They are efficacious because in them Christ himself is at work: it is he who baptizes, he who acts in his sacraments in order to communicate the grace that each sacrament signifies. . . . " (CCC No. 1127).

GLADE PARK, CO (Catholic Online) - Each of us, as a human person created by God, has a "sacramental yearning" inserted into the depths of our being for something infinitely greater than ourselves. Whether acknowledged or not, a flame of unceasing thirst burns within our hearts which only the Creator, the source of life, can satisfy. The Catechism of the Catholic Church succinctly explains the reason behind this ever-present thirst: "The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself" (No. 27).

Thus along with the Psalmist we cry out: "As the deer longs for streams of water, so my soul longs for you, O God. My being thirsts for God, the living God. When can I go and see the face of God?" (42:2-3).

Flowers constantly seek the face of the sun: their whole life is a process of absorbing its life-sustaining nourishment. The sun is their beginning and end; for through its life-giving rays, seeds that had previously lay dormant germinate; those same rays of warmth feed the seedlings on their journey into maturity, transforming barren fields of winter into multicolored carpets that shine forth in aromatic splendor; and, as summer draws to a close, it is the sun's rays that again work a transformation on the flowers of the earth as they wither in meadows of change.

So it is with us. The quest for our Alpha and Omega is not simply a part of our life, rather it is the central focus of our entire existence since our earliest days. We are a sacramental people whose life is drawn toward an encounter with our Creator, the Life-Principle of Love whose soft yet unremitting whisper calls us toward an embrace with Love Itself. True it is that we often go off on the wrong path, believing we hear what is not there, thinking happiness is found in the fleeting material objects of the world; yet, both at the end of such a path as well as along its way, we encounter the reality of our existence: God alone satisfies our thirst.

Knowing that God has created us in such a way, drawn toward him as a flower is to the sun, infused as we are with an incurable desire for love, should the Beloved deny his embrace, remaining distant and unreachable, we should have no hope of ever attaining happiness. Indeed, an unremitting winter would plague our hearts. Yet in the Cross we see that God's love shatters every limit and exceeds every hope, nearly blinding us with astonishment as we look upon Christ crucified, for in his Passion we are met face-to-face with an indescribable act of infinite love. Given the span of history from beginning to end, men could never have imagined such an incomparable wonder.

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This presents us with what seems a paradox. On the one hand, we are faced with God as Creator, the omnipotent Being whose will is capable of exerting unimaginable forces upon all of creation; on the other, we are struck by the radically compassionate, self-giving and tender love of that same God. Thus the paradox exists in the fact that God who is in need of nothing outside of himself should thirst to pour himself out upon weak and sinful humankind precisely as our Lord did from the unyielding, harsh wood of the cross.

As we gaze upon the Cross in humble prayer, divine light burns through the mist: we see that God has provided a way in which the billions of unique and precious flowers he has created may be penetrated to the depths of their being by his warmth and love. The fullness of this encounter with God occurs in our heavenly homeland, as we are caught up in the Beatific Vision. Yet how do we encounter God in the present? For it was our Lord Jesus Christ who began his preaching with these words: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Mt 4:17).

The Sacraments: Heavenly Gifts of Heavenly Life

Some insist that we encounter God through prayer alone. It is true that we communicate with God through prayer, that we enter into an intimate, personal relationship with him which is far beyond any relationship we might hope to experience in the present with another human being. Yet as indispensable, magnificent and fulfilling as prayer is, we must not think that we encounter God through prayer only. As is God's habit throughout history, he continues to surpass the limitations that men would set with finite minds. From the Virgin's womb to the cross, the entire mystery of Christ's life makes clear the fact that God desires to give of himself in ways beyond what prayer can provide. 

The love of God is infinite: such a divine Love thirstily seeks out a way in which to draw humankind to Itself. It is a Love that desires an intimacy beyond not only all our hopes, but beyond whatever we might imagine. This Love freely gives us the means to share in his divine life, to taste heaven even now, and he does so through the sacraments: heavenly gifts of life to the soul.

Then Cardinal Ratzinger, in his book God Is Near Us, writes, "The Lord's opened side is the source from which spring forth both the Church and the sacraments that build up the Church" (p. 43). The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that "Sacraments are powers that comes forth from the Body of Christ, which is ever-living and life-giving. They are actions of the Holy Spirit at work in his Body, the Church. They are 'the masterworks of God' in the new and everlasting covenant" (No. 1116).

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The sacred purpose of these "masterworks of God," priceless, undeserved gifts which make us sharers in the divine life of the Trinity, "is to sanctify men, to build up the Body of Christ and, finally, to give worship to God" (CCC No. 1123). Through the sacraments we are incorporated into Christ, enter into the Paschal Mystery of his life, death and resurrection, and are formed into his one Mystical Body, the Church. Far from simply symbols, the sacraments are the ordinary means by which grace is efficaciously conferred upon the recipient: through the sacraments we experience a direct encounter with God: man meets his Creator and is swept up into the life of the Trinity.

"The sacraments confer the grace that they signify. They are efficacious because in them Christ himself is at work: it is he who baptizes, he who acts in his sacraments in order to communicate the grace that each sacrament signifies. . . . As fire transforms into itself everything it touches, so the Holy Spirit transforms into the divine life whatever is subjected to his power" (CCC No. 1127).

Through The Sacraments We Are "Re-Created"

Our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI observed that in the sacraments a "grace-filled encounter with the Risen Lord" occurs (see Sacramentum Caritatis, 6). This is true for every sacrament since it is Christ himself who acts in them. Yet it is especially true for Eucharist -- the "greatest of sacraments," as St. Thomas Aquinas noted -- in which we receive the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ, the "superabundant fulfillment of God's promises," and thus "God's whole life encounters us and is sacramentally shared with us" (SC, 8). "The Eucharist, as a mystery to be 'lived,' meets each of us as we are, and makes our concrete existence the place where we experience daily the radical newness of the Christian life" (SC, 79).

During his meeting in Rome before the Twenty-First World Youth Day, Pope Benedict XVI touched on the adventure of living the Christian life with this question: "What does the Lord want of me?" "Of course," continued the Holy Father, "this is always a great adventure, but life can be successful only if we have the courage to be adventurous, trusting that the Lord will never leave me alone, that the Lord will go with me and help me."

Indeed, the Lord goes with me and helps me! Who could imagine the many wonders and gifts our Lord Jesus Christ would bestow on us? From his pierced side on the cross our Savior poured forth a superabundance of grace in the sacraments, gifts of life in which Christ himself "re-creates" us, grants us a share in his divine life, and bestows on us a radical "newness" in which we are drawn beyond ourselves into an intimate relationship with God. Yet, perhaps above all, the sacraments are gifts in which Christ rescues us from ourselves:

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"Christ is 'the hand' of God stretched out to humanity, to rescue it from the quicksands of illness and death so that it can stand on the firm rock of divine love." -- Pope Benedict XVI, Angelus address, 12 February, 2006.

"In the sacraments of Christ the Church already receives the guarantee of her inheritance and even now shares in everlasting life, while awaiting our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Christ Jesus. The Spirit and the Bride say, 'Come . . . Come, Lord Jesus!'" (CCC No. 1130).

"My lover put his hand through the opening;
my heart trembled within me,
and I grew faint when he spoke" -- Song of Songs 5:4

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F. K. Bartels is a Catholic writer who knows his Catholic faith is one of the greatest treasures a man could ever have. He is editor of catholicpathways.com, and a contributing writer for Catholic Online.

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