What does it mean to be Sacramental?

 To be a sacramental person is so far beyond anything that I think we can convey in words.   It is to be Christ himself present to the world, as his hands, eyes, feet and mouth.

As a convert, the very nature of our faith is so much beyond what I felt and knew growing up.  Though my basic beliefs have not changed much, many of them have been further defined in ways that I could hardly have imagined.  Fleshed out if you will.  Baptism for instance in the church I grew up in was not a sacrament, but a symbol of an inward change.  It was something we did, not something that “did” something to us.  Seeing baptism for what it truly is makes a great deal of difference in how we react to the world.

As in baptism we are buried to the world in the tomb with Christ, and we arise a new man; so too must we think of our daily life.  When approaching others we are to be priest, prophet and king; representatives of a holy Kingdom, of Christ himself.   Our priestly role is to be liturgically present to the church and participate fully in the Mass.  We are a part of the liturgy and with the Bishop, Priests, and Deacons; we the body of Christ offer ourselves up sacramentally as a living sacrifice to be united with Christ's sacrifice on the cross.  As prophet(s) we are to be ever willing and ready to speak the word of God, by internalizing it and living the spirit of the Gospels in front of and TO every person we meet. The true King, Christ himself came as a servant, so too must we as king be servants to other, ready to pour ourselves out as a living libation in the world.

Through the sacrament of Reconciliation we are able to heal the damage we have done to our relationship with God, but also we are able to restore ourselves to right community with the body of Christ.   The grace of Christ pours out into our hearts and through the actions of our penance we are able to make 'right', what we have put wrong.  When we live this sacrament out in the world we too should be channels of grace that pour out our forgiveness to others and want to draw them closer to Christ and his church.

Through the sacrament of Confirmation we can say a resounding Yes, just as Mary, the mother of God, gave her fiat; so too must we say to Christ “Let it be done to me according to thy word.”  As living members sealed by this Sacrament, we must also go into the world renewed with energy and joy, allowing Christ to be created in us so that we can then in turn bring him into the world.  A spiritual rebirth that begins with the humbling of ourselves to do his will.

I think to sum up, as I have gone longer than a single page, the sacramental character of our lives means that we as Catholic Christians should live in the world in the exact same way we live at the Altar.  All too often we see church as an action we do on Sunday, living one way in front of the priest, and another in the parking lot on the way back into our lives.  Until we begin to not just internalize the Sacraments but to live them out fully in our lives, so that the person we are is starting to look like the person that God created us to be, can we truly begin to be the body of Christ in a world that so very much needs us!  It is only by allowing grace to flow through our lives and to restore us to the fullness of humanity that God bestowed upon our first father and mother, and restored to us through the second Adam and second Eve, Jesus and Mary, that we can begin to truly live out what we pray in the Our Father, “Thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven.”

Could have? Should have?

My wife and I were having a wonderfully deep conversation as I drove her in to work this morning
about the concepts of gluttony and sin, and how they could apply to diet cost and expenditure.  We then began to talk about the general judgement, what it might be like at the end of time when we all stand before Jesus and our lives are examined.  I've heard some say it might be like a big screen TV that all of the universe can see as our lives our played out, both good and bad.  While I think it will be beyond comprehension and beyond anything we can imagine or express in words, I began to wonder out loud in our conversation what it might be like indeed.

Imagine if not only your life played out, but superimposed over it was what could have been... no that's not the right word,not what could have been, but what SHOULD have been.  Those times when you did wrong and sinned, imagine if superimposed over that were what would have happened had you done what God was urging us to do instead.  The image of us stuffing our face in the middle of the night superimposed with the child that should have been fed instead.  The image of us stealing covered with the image of us giving generously of our time and talent.

All of this covered not with our emotions and thoughts at the time, but with the sorrow of the Sacred Heart of Jesus at our choices, and of the pain caused in the world by them.  How much different our lives might be if we were to think of each action as a prayer to God, thus "praying at all times without ceasing."

After my wife went into her work I began to play the divine office morning prayer as the sun was rising over the hills behind me, and this verse stuck out: Never let evil talk pass your lips; say only the good things men need to hear, things that will really help them. Do nothing that will sadden the Holy Spirit with whom you were sealed against the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, all passion and anger, harsh words, slander, and malice of every kind. In place of these, be kind to one another, compassionate, and mutually forgiving, just as God has forgiven you in Christ.

How appropriate.

Sept 11, 13 years later.

As I was doing my morning walk after getting my daughter on the bus, I began to listen to the office of readings. My mind began to wander as the Psalms were being read to me, and I began to meditate sincerely on this set of verses: 

O Lord, you have been our refuge

from one generation to the next.

Before the mountains were born

or the earth or the world brought forth,

you are God, without beginning or end.

You turn men back into dust

and say: “Go back, sons of men.”

To your eyes a thousand years

are like yesterday, come and gone,

no more than a watch in the night.

You sweep men away like a dream,

like grass which springs up in the morning.

In the morning it springs up and flowers:

by evening it withers and fades.

How fleeting mankind is, from moment to moment. The universe we believe to be billions of years old. Mankind itself thousands and thousands of years. The life of a tree in the multiple hundreds of years, the life of turtles and some reptiles beyond our capacity. Yet we have an inflated sense of ego. We believe we are so much more important than everything else, as if God saw something in us that deserved his love. Those who claim we cannot merit God's love, then seem to feel that somehow they earned it, by being man.

How little we truly are in comparison to the expanse of the universe, how fleeting we are. I pondered how that grass grows every year, but it's a new blade, the old having withered and died. The root is the same, but the blade is refreshed, new cells, new life. Much like humanity that continues on with or without us, blades that may or may not be remembered in the breath of time. Yet God loves us. What is man then that God is mindful of us? We don't deserve it. We are just grains of sand on a beach of time, being washed in and out of the shore. Will anyone remember me 10 years after I am gone? 20? 100? Or will I like the countless others be simply another leaf that has fallen from the tree of life, gone on into eternity but forgotten here. 

These are my thoughts on the memorial of 9/11... what are yours?