Sacramental Theology

History shows that a commitment to solus Christus is based upon Scripture and the earliest Christian documents. Commitment to this doctrine was lost, though, after extra-biblical and traditional elements entered the church and became authoritative. The Reformers, on the other hand, understood that these traditions were simply the traditions of men. A commitment to the authority of Scripture for faith and practice resulted in a commitment to salvation mediated by Christ alone. The result is that God receives all of the glory for salvation since it is sought solely through His Son.

Careful attention to the biblical text and to St Maximus inspire human beings to revalue creation, their home and not long for its destruction but for its redemption alongside the redemption of the children of God. It is only through the contemplation of the Logos that humans can discern the creation as a sacramental means through which humans can encounter the power of the resurrection that leads them deeper and deeper into the divine nature.

For years, critics and fans of C. S. Lewis have noted his curious attentiveness to descriptions of food and scenes of eating. Some attempts have been made to interpret Lewis’s use of food, but never in a manner comprehensively unifying Lewis’s culinary expressions with his own thought and beliefs. My study seeks to fill this void. The introduction demonstrates how Lewis’s culinary language aggregates through elements of his life, his literary background, and his Judeo-Christian worldview. Using the grammar of his own culinary language, I examine Lewis’s fiction for patterns found within his meals and analyze these patterns for theological allusions, grouping them according to major categories of systematic theology. Chapter two argues that ecclesiastical themes appear whenever Lewis’s protagonists eat together. The ritualized meal progression, evangelistic discourse, and biographical menus create a unity that points to parallels between Lewis’s body of protagonists and the church. Chapter three focuses on the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper and charges that Lewis’s meals which are eaten in the presence of the novel’s Christ figure or which include bread and wine in the menu reliably align with the Anglo-Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist. Chapter four studies how sinful eating affects the spiritual states of Lewis’s characters. The chapter first shows how Lewis’s culinary language draws from Edenic sources, resonating with a very gastronomic Fall of Humanity, then examines how the progressively sinful eating of certain characters signifies a gradual alienation from the Divine. The fifth, and concluding, chapter argues that Lewis’s portrayal of culinary desire and pleasure ultimately points to an eschatological theme. This theme culminates near the end of Lewis’s novels either through individual characters expressing superlative delight in their food or through a unified congregation of protagonists eating a celebratory feast during the novel’s dénouement. I close the study by emphasizing how this approach to Lewis’s meals offers a complete spiritual analysis of Lewis’s main characters that also consistently supports Lewis’s own theology.

An examination of Rahner’s theology and cognitive linguistics
shows that the two are basically in accord concerning sacramental efficacy. This article also puts cognitive linguistics into conversation with Rahner’s theologies of expression. In Rahner’s theology of the symbol, he argues that all beings express themselves in that which is not themselves. Furthermore, Rahner noted the existence of uniquely powerful “primordial words” (Urworte), which mediate the reality to which they point. Cognitive linguistics sees all human knowing as mediated by the “embodied mind,” and characterized by concept integration, wherein a given thing comes to be known in terms of another. This understanding of embodied mind, poses a significant challenge to the Christian tradition. This challenge is answered, though, by Rahner’s distinctive anthropology and christology.

The Anointing of the Sick is possibly the most underappreciated and understudied sacrament. In To Die Is Gain, Roger Nutt seeks to bring greater attention to and appreciation for the Anointing of the Sick. Beginning with an examination of cultural perceptions of dying, death, and burial, To Die Is Gain exposes the ways in which contemporary atheism and physicalism mark a clear divergence from ancient attitudes. In contrast to contemporary hopelessness, the Anointing of the Sick is a powerful counter witness that highlights the great dignity of the human person and the depth of Christian hope. Unlike the cures to particular ailments facilitated by modern medical science, in Holy Anointing Jesus gives his dying followers the healing graces that they need to pass from this life to the next in loving union with Him. As Nutt exposes the biblical and traditional foundations of this sacrament, he corrects common misconceptions and malpractice of this sacrament, especially the ways in which Vatican II is often misleadingly enlisted to support a broadening of the sacrament from end-of-life situations to non-life threatening illnesses. Finally, Nutt carefully describes the graces and effects of the Anointing of the Sick and richly expounds the theological depth of the rite of the Anointing of the Sick. The result is that readers can confidently say with St. Paul that "To die is gain' (Philippians 1:21).

This is the (earlier) electronically-submitted version of my M.Th. thesis, wherein I explore the question of whether a Eucharistic consecration in sign language is valid.  I explore the question from both a systematic (emphasising Aquinas) and dogmatic (emphasising the dogmatic canons) perspective to arrive at the conclusion that 'sound' or 'utterance' lends no force to validity, but rather the force of sacramental validity inheres in the faith proclaimed by the Church that is expressed in the sacramental, and therefore Eucharistic, form.

Eucaristía, Eunsa-Instituto superior de ciencias religiosas, Pamplona 2018, 144 pp.
En estas líneas queremos profundizar lo que el concilio Vaticano II ha llamado la "cumbre y fuente" de la vida cristiana (cf. LG 11, PO 5, SC 10), el centro mismo de la Iglesia. En primer lugar, abordamos lo que la Escritura dice sobre el mayor de los sacramentos y el lugar que va ocupando en la vida de la Iglesia, para seguir después con el tratamiento más sistemático de sus principales dimensiones, esto es, la Eucaristía como memorial, como presencia y como comunión. La Eucaristía permite además que todo lo nuestro sea presentado como ofrenda agradable al Padre.

This study explores common ground and affinities between Christian Orthodoxy and Pentecostalism in theology, spirituality, cosmology, anthropology and the understanding of rites and sacraments. The focus is on the understanding and perception of the Holy Spirit, with regard to spiritual experience, personal transformation and the life of the Church. It also reflects on the African religious heritage of Christianity in the formation of these forms of spiritual experience and expression. The role and development of African Instituted Churches is taken into view, aware of their common heritage with Pentecostalism and of their distinctness. The context of ecumenical exchange between Pentecostalism and the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Churches in the 20th century is considered as background for the realization of convergences. The growing awareness in both Pentecostalism and Orthodoxy of their common ground, based in the hermeneutics and spirituality of early Christianity is recognized and recommended as field for further engagement. The common affirmation of both Churches of a spiritual world view in contrast to the positivistic ‘naturalistic’ world view of secular Enlightenment – as distinct from the spiritual branch of Enlightenment in which Pentecostalism is rooted through Pietism – is recognized as common ground for mutual understanding and critical difference to mainstream Western secularism. This study thus aims at fostering a better mutual understanding of Pentecostal and Orthodox Churches and of their epistemological agreements with regard to the challenges of secular cultures.

GRAHAM GREENE’S CATHOLICISM: FIRST, AN INTELLECTUAL BELIEF IN GOD
THE POWER AND THE GLORY II

In this second bulletin, I outline the first two of three forms of Greene’s religion: 1) the Erastian public school Anglicanism undergirding state morality in which Greene was raised, 2) the intellectual Catholicism he adopted on the basis of argument. In the third bulletin, I shall deal with 3) in distinction from that, “conversion.”.
The Power and the Glory explains Greene’s conversion to the Catholicism he saw in Mexican peasants and described in The Lawless Roads (1939), the travelogue which gave the background, places, and many of the characters and situations for The Power and the Glory (1940). In Mexico he lived briefly, but determinatively, with a religion which embraces pain and martyrdom as ways into God, and intuits the indestructibility both of  the human need for the priestly sacrifice, and God’s provision for it. So The Power and the Glory concludes: “‘My name is Father –’ But the boy had already swung the door open and put his lips to the hand before the other could give himself a name.” 
In contrast, after descriptions of the ugliness and violence of Mexico suggesting that he is putting what he found there behind him, The Lawless Roads describes Mass back in Chelsea (London):

Mass in Chelsea seemed curiously fictitious: no peon knelt with his arms out in the attitude of the cross, no woman dragged herself up the aisle on her knees. It would have seemed shocking, like the Agony itself. We do not mortify ourselves. Perhaps we need violence. 

Greene then lists the institutionalized and unnoticed violence of daily life at the time in London, from the ugliness to the airplanes and motor vehicles. When seeing this ordinary violence in our way of life, Greene anticipated our recent change of consciousness. What we now recognize as world destructive violence, we previously took as the benign advances of rationality.
This kind of reversal of our normal evaluations is typical of Greene. So for example, The Ministry of Fear (1943) centers on the deep evil of pity “Pity is the worst passion of all.”  Just so The Quiet American exposed the murderous destructiveness of innocence. Greene’s transvaluation of values is of Nietzschean dimensions. His novels are a substitute for the metaphysical theology the English mostly lack (Charles Williams, a poetic theologian, is an exception) and his metaphysics, the novels, and his mind operate by the union of extremes. The coincidence of opposites is fundamental to Hellenic and Catholic theology. Thus,  in The Power and the Glory, and many other works (e.g. , The Quiet American,  The Comedians, The Human Factor, The Honorary Consul, Getting to Know the General, Monsignor Quixote), there is an equal concern with Marxist Communism and Catholicism. Like Williams, he regarded dogmatic Catholicism and Communism as the two defining contemporary phenomena.

This paper is a linguistically-oriented evaluation of Joseph Martos´ 2015 tome entitled Deconstructing Sacramental Theology.  My analysis engages critically with Martos´ tracing of the development of sacramental language from the New Testament period to Vatican II, as well as with his proposal for an authentic sacramentality and resolution of the sacramental crisis.  My analysis finds Martos´ volume to be a helpful contribution to the study of the development of sacramental terms from Tertullian to Lombard´s Sentences, especially on the basis of his detailed word searches carried out with the aid of electronic databases.  However, my assessment also reveals serious flaws in Martos´ treatment of the Greek language, the assumptions he holds uncritically in relation to the New Testament, and also in terms of the larger philosophical commitments which are evident throughout this tome.  Throughout his book Martos proposes a novel and, I will argue, problematic ressourcement model in sacramental theology.  Unlike post Vatican II writers such as Kilmartin and Irwin, who seek a deeper grounding of sacramental theology in the Scriptural and early patristic sources, Martos proposes a re-definition of the sacraments on the sole basis of the historically and culturally determined religious experience of a community.  I wrap up my evaluation of Martos by rejecting his proposed paradigm of authentic sacramentality, and suggesting instead a path to authentic sacramental ressourcement in line  with the agenda set forth by Kilmartin and Irwin.

First of all, the author distinguishes between four types of sacra-mentality-the universal sacramentality (appropriate to Christ), the extensive sacramentality (appropriate to the Church), the organic sacramentality (appropri-ate to the seven sacraments) and the concentrated sacramentality (appropriate to the Eucharist). Then, he recapitulates the doctrine as being part of the Church tradition and discerns three types of sacraments-sacraments of the natural order,First of all, the author distinguishes between four types of sacramentality – the universal sacramentality (appropriate to Christ), the extensive sacramentality (appropriate to the Church), the organic sacramentality (appropriate to the seven sacraments) and the concentrated sacramentality (appropriate to the Eucharist). Then, he recapitulates the doctrine as being part of the Church tradition and discerns three types of sacraments – sacraments of the natural order, sacraments of Moses’ Law and sacraments of the New Testament. The following part is dedicated to the concept of salvation history describing its various phases as coexisting layers, so people living in one historical era can belong to various stages of the salvation economy related to the particular types of sacraments. The last part includes a hypothesis that sacramental action of the Church should not be reduced to a celebration of the seven New Testament sacraments but she is called upon to operate with the sacraments prior to the New Testament (or pre-New Testament sacraments) as well. The fullness of revelation enables the Church to recognise their authentic aspects. The author finds support for his hypothesis in the teachings of the Second Vatican Council and proposes to call these sacraments prior to the New Testament, the sacraments of hope or the sacraments of humanity.

The “sacramental imagination” is closely associated with writers from the Roman Catholic tradition. However, Marilynne Robinson, drawing on the creational and sacramental theology of John Calvin, has successfully developed a distinctly American Protestant sacramental vision in and through her novels Housekeeping and Gilead. In this article, I examine Robinson’s appropriation of Calvin to show how he has shaped her sacramental view of the world. I then look at the two novels in succession to show how this vision manifests itself in her fiction. Robinson sees creation itself as bearing a sacramental character that is particularly evident in the elements of water, bread, and wine. When these elements are concentrated in sacramental actions and viewed through the corrective lens of Scripture, they reveal this intention with an even greater clarity. Through her depictions of the sacred nature of ordinary people and places, Robinson articulates a vision that invites the reader to see the divine in the common.

"Our words indicate our thoughts, but our thoughts don't make anything happen…. It's not the same with God." In Speaking the Love of God: An Introduction to the Sacraments, Dr. Jacob W. Wood shows how Christ gives his Church the power to speak with God's voice in the seven sacraments. In this foundational guide to the sacraments, discover the power of the signs and words that transform us by grace and prepare us for glory.

Trên hành trình sống đức tin mà Đức Gioan Phaolô II đã đưa ra cho Giáo Hội vào lúc bình minh của ngàn năm thứ ba, ngày 17 tháng 4 năm 2003, thứ năm Tuần Thánh, năm thứ 25 triều đại giáo hoàng của ngài và cũng là năm Mân Côi, Thông điệp Ecclesia de Eucharistia - Về bí tích Thánh Thể trong tương quan với Hội Thánh đã được ban hành. Qua Thông điệp này, Đức Gioan Phaolô II muốn toàn thể Giáo Hội suy tư về Thánh Thể, khơi lại tâm tình ngưỡng mộ Thánh Thể và xác định chỗ đứng trung tâm của bí tích Thánh Thể trong toàn bộ đời sống Giáo Hội. Với tinh thần đó, ngày 13 tháng 6 cùng năm, nhân ngày kính Mình và Máu Chúa Kitô, Đức Gioan Phaolô II tuyên bố khai mở “Năm Thánh Thể” bắt đầu từ Hội Nghị Thánh Thể Thế Giới diễn ra vào tháng 10 năm 2004 tại Guadalajare Mexico và kết thúc vào tháng 10 năm 2005 trong kỳ họp Thượng Hội Đồng Giám Mục Thế Giới tại Rôma. Và Tông thư “Lạy Chúa, xin hãy ở lại với chúng con” (Mane nobiscum Domine) chính là Tông thư dùng để khai mạc năm Thánh Thể này.
Tông thư (Littera Apostolica) thứ 44: Mane nobiscum Domine là một trong những Tông thư cuối cùng của của Đức Gioan Phaolô II, được ấn ký vào ngày Lễ Kính Ðức Mẹ Mân Côi - mùng 7 tháng 10 năm 2004. Tông thư có 31 số, gồm phần mở đầu và bốn chương. Trong đó, ba chương sau chứa đựng những tư tưởng thần học Thánh Thể, điều mà chúng ta cần làm rõ hơn ở bài viết này. Theo cấu trúc đó, bài viết này trình bày về các điểm thần học Thánh Thể của Tông thư cũng gồm ba phần:
Phần I: Thánh Thể, mầu nhiệm sự sáng. Phần này chúng ta triển khai mầu nhiệm Sự sáng của Thánh Thể qua việc khẳng định Sự sáng bắt nguồn từ Đấng là ánh sáng; Sự sáng đó được liên kết với Lời Chúa; và cuối cùng được diễn tả nơi các dấu chỉ và biểu tượng.
Phần II: Thánh Thể, mầu nhiệm Hiệp thông. Phần này chúng ta trình bày mầu nhiệm Hiệp thông nơi bí tích Thánh Thể trong ba khía cạnh: Hiệp thông với Thiên Chúa; Hiệp thông với Giáo Hội và Hiệp thông với tha nhân.
Phần III: Thánh Thể, nguyên tắc và kế hoạch truyền giáo. Phần này trình bày mối liên hệ giữa Thánh Thể và sứ mạng tối hậu của Giáo Hội là truyền giáo. Qua đó cho thấy vai trò của Thánh Thể cũng như bổn phận và trách nhiệm của mỗi chúng ta.
Trong mỗi phần chúng ta cũng sẽ so sánh tư tưởng thần học Thánh Thể của Tông thư với tư tưởng thần học Thánh Thể trong lịch sử, để làm nổi bật những điểm tương đồng cũng như những điểm mới mẻ. Trước khi đi vào chi tiết các phần, chúng ta cần lưu lý rằng thần học Thánh Thể trong lịch sử được khởi đi từ các bản văn Kinh Thánh, trải qua nhiều giai đoạn và từ nhiều yếu tố khác nhau, nó được hình thành (thế kỉ I-IV), phát triển (thể kỷ V-XI), hệ thống hóa (thế kỷ XIII-XX) và được canh tân (CĐ Vaticanô II). Do đó, để phục vụ cho việc so sánh với thần học Thánh Thể trong Tông thư Mane nobiscum Domine, trong giới hạn của mình, chúng ta không đi vào phân tích các điểm thần học lịch sử đó mà chỉ đề cập đến vài điểm liên hệ. Giờ đây, chúng ta cùng đi vào từng phần của bài viết.

Paul is alone among New Testament authors in using LXX Malachi’s τραπέζης κυρίου (trapeza kyriou, table of the Lord). In bringing his lengthy section on Christian freedom to a close, Paul addresses a specific concern of the Corinthian church: the eating of meat sacrificed to pagan idols. In 1 Cor 10:14–22 we see Paul use τραπέζης κυρίου and other Eucharistic language to frame the celebration of the Lord’s Supper as the ideal counter-example to this Corinthian practice. Why, in this setting, would Paul make use of Malachi’s phrase? What does τραπέζης κυρίου communicate to Paul’s audience that other Eucharistic language can not?

This paper will propose that Paul’s use of Malachi’s τραπέζης κυρίου (trapezēs kyriou) allows him to speak of the Eucharist in sacrificial terms and provides later Christian writers a New Testament precedent for using Malachi in a Eucharistic sense. It will be argued (1) that Paul certainly has Malachi’s disputation with the Levitical priest in mind when he uses τραπέζης κυρίου (trapezēs kyriou) in 1 Cor 10:21, (2) that the context of Malachi’s own use of τραπέζης κυρίου (trapezēs kyriou) provides a vision of a future, sacrificial worship of Yahweh by “the nations,” and (3) that Paul intends for these sacrificial overtones to be heard in his use of the Eucharist as a counter-example to the consummation of idol meat.

There have been few serious attempts to develop theologies of ordination. This essay considers whether ordination lies within or outside the boundaries of Biblical theology. It analyses the topic of ordination from the perspective of Biblical theology. This essay demonstrates that it is not possible to argue for our contemporary concept of ordination from the Old Testament, that the Old Testament concepts of priesthood do not transfer to the New Testament (unless one adopts a sacramental theology), and that the term and the concept of ordination do not appear in the New Testament at all as we might recognize them in our contemporary setting. While arguments may be made for ordination from administrative necessity, tradition, and other theological systems, ordination must be understood as lying entirely outside the boundaries of Biblical theology.

Kreuzzeichen und Katechumensalbung; Taufe; Salbung mit Chrisam; Bekleidung mit dem weißen Taufgewand; Taufkerze
The Signs of Baptism for Children: Sign of the cross; Anointing with the oil of catechumens - Baptism - Anointing with Chrisam - Clothing with the white garment - Baptismal Candle

This article analyses the debates about mixed marriages held within the Roman Curia (and especially the Roman Inquisition) between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries, integrating these debates with the normative and prescriptive literature. These authorities generally considered mixed marriages between Protestants and Catholics valid and even sacramental in virtue of the shared sacrament of the baptism, but at the same time constructed such unions as ‘carnal crimes’ to ‘abhor’. They believed that the most harmful effect of these polluting unions was that the Catholic partner might become tolerant of Protestantism, rendering the ‘heretic’ dangerously, contagiously familiar and abandoning future generations to heresy. Women were a particular concern for these authorities. Drawing upon traditional and somewhat contradictory ideas about women, they saw the wives in these marriages on one hand as particularly likely to be seduced by the ‘false faith’ because of their presumed weakness, but on the other hand they recognised women as a group with a special talent for beguiling men and so entrusted them with a missionary function towards their ‘heretical’ husbands. The role women could assume in mixed marriages therefore dynamised gender relations, but also caused social tension because of the challenge to patriarchal society, especially if they continued to practice their own faith and were entrusted with the religious education of the children.

Since being elected to the Chair of St. Peter on March 13, 2013, Pope Francis has given unique shape to the meaning of the new evangelization. With his emphasis on the concept of encounter, and his stunning expression of pastoral ministry in Evangelii gaudium, the present pontiff has breathed new life into the Christian vocation to evangelize. This book brings together the voices of fifteen American Catholic scholars around the theme of Pope Francis and the Event of Encounter. Inaugurating the new series, Global Perspectives on the New Evangelization, this book incorporates a variety of approaches and questions in order to amplify the theology behind the pontificate of Pope Francis and the most recent developments in the new evangelization. Among the topics treated in the book are mercy, ecology, doctrine, culture, and the life and ministry of Jorge Mario Bergoglio. The reader will be delighted with an array of perspectives that promise to give inspiration for embarking on further frontiers of the new evangelization.

For centuries, Christian theology has understood the Eucharist in terms of metaphysics or in protest against it. Today an opening has been made to imagine the sacrament through the method of phenomenology, bringing about new theological life and meaning. In Dialectical Anatomy of the Eucharist, Donald Wallenfang conducts a sustained analysis of the Eucharist through the aperture of phenomenology, yet concludes the study with poetic and metaphysical twists. Engaging the work of Jean-Luc Marion, Paul Ricoeur, and Emmanuel Levinas, Wallenfang proposes pioneering ideas for contemporary sacramental theology that have vast implications for interfaith and interreligious dialogue. By tapping into the various currents within the Judeo-Christian tradition--Jewish, Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant--a radical argument is developed that leverages the tension among them all. Several new frontiers are explored: dialectical theology, a fourth phenomenological reduction, the phenomenology of human personhood, the poetics of the Eucharist, and a reinterpretation of the concept of gift as conversation. On the whole, Wallenfang advances recent debates surrounding the relationship between phenomenology and theology by claiming an uncanny way out of emerging dead ends in philosophical theology: return to the fray.

This essay argues that the center of Quaker Faith and Practice is the immediacy of Christ; connected to the center are convictions regarding authentic worship, universal ministry, incarnational sacramentology, nonviolent peacemaking, consensus decision making and a witness to simplicity.

The article is devoted to the movement of Baptist sacramentalism, which emerged in the middle of the 20th century in British Baptism and developed actively in 2000’s. The singularity of the very notion sacramentalism in Baptist movement, which is famous for its denial of ritualism and superficial rites, is demonstrated. The dynamics of the expansion of the movement of Baptist sacramentalism is described in the article. According to the author, this movement grows stronger in modern Baptism, as well as its numerous and often quite fair criticism.

The study describes some fundamental elements of Eucharistic doctrine of St Ambrose of Milan. It develops the idea of the Eucharist as the Bread of Life, as Nourishment on the Way and focuses especially on the Forgiveness of Sins and Spiritual Marriage. Especially the concept of Eucharist as Forgiveness of Sins is very original and it represents an invitation for the Christians of Milan to live every day from Christ who gives himself for them daily. Ambrose uses the means of a very personal symbolic theology to bring to the assembly not only the understanding of the Church doctrine, but also the desire to accomplish the union of the soul and the Church with the Christ. On top of that, he offers the Eucharist as a real answer to real needs of the Christians of his days and not only as an institution adapted from the Scriptures and the Tradition, but recognising it and celebrating is as something precious."

This is a translation of Aquinas' letter to a fellow brother of his order that has never been translated into English. It contains six unconventional articles which are responses to five questions that Aquinas rightly considers somewhat frivolous in addition to another pertaining to the sacrament of Confession, which he appropriately dedicates more time to. Observing the way he responds to the first five questions sheds light upon the way he lived out the ideals of the Christian life and also provides some theological principles. The sixth one, however,  provides the most substantial theological content. 

I provide the Latin in the second part of the document.