The World's Christians. Douglas Jacobsen

Чтение книги онлайн.

Figure 2.2 Statues of the Infant of Prague (the baby Jesus) for sale at a shop near the Church of Our Lady Victorious in Prague (Czech Republic), where the original statue is on display.

      Photo by author.

A sacramental experience is an invitation from God to become somehow “more” than one already is, to enter into a new depth of love and fellowship with God, with others, and with all of creation. God’s sacramental engagement with humankind is never a matter of imposition. Catholics believe that God does not force grace on anyone; it is an offer that must be actively received. The Catholic tradition sees human cooperation – religious effort – as a necessary part of spirituality. But while grace is never forced on anyone, it does come with strings attached. God’s grace is not given merely to enliven people or to help them with their ills; God’s grace is given for the purpose of drawing people closer to God and toward personal holiness. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains this in its very first paragraph, saying that “God draws close” to humankind as an invitation for individuals “to seek him, to know him, and to love him.”³

The logic behind this sacramental vision of spirituality comes from the ancient North African Bishop Augustine of Hippo (354–430), who declares in the first lines of his autobiography, the Confessions, that human beings were created by God and are unavoidably restless until they rest in God. This “rest” is experienced most intensely in the practice of prayer, which the Catholic Catechism defines as “a vital and personal relationship with the living and true God.” The Catechism further explains that humanity’s prayerful thirst for God is really a response to God’s own thirst for fellowship with humankind: “Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God’s thirst with ours. God thirsts that we may thirst for him.”⁴

      The sacraments of the Catholic Church represent one very concrete expression of this sacramental consciousness. The seven sacraments – baptism, confirmation, penance, the Eucharist, the anointing of the sick, marriage, and holy orders (ordination to the priesthood) – are understood by Catholics to be ritual experiences that communicate God’s grace to human beings in uniquely effective ways. Baptism inaugurates the beginning of faith, and confirmation signals the maturation of that faith. Penance and the Eucharist are repetitive acts that sustain the life of faith and help people to grow spiritually. And the anointing of the sick prepares a person for what used to be called a “good death” – the ability to face the end of life without fear and with trust in God. The sacraments of marriage and holy orders are somewhat different, representing alternative life directions: either to marry and live “in the world” or to become a celibate (unmarried and sexually inactive) priest wholly dedicated to God and the service of others.

      The Catholic tradition also includes a variety of sacramentals, other actions that convey forms of grace in addition to the sacraments proper. Making the sign of the cross, being sprinkled with holy water, and receiving ashes on one’s forehead at the beginning of Lent are all sacramentals. Catholics believe that the sacraments and sacramentals represent the most predictable and consistent means of receiving God’s grace, but Catholics also believe that God’s mercy can overflow these containers, making it possible for God’s grace to suddenly appear in someone’s life in unexpected ways when people are in special need or specially open to God’s presence in the world.

      Communal consciousness

The Catholic tradition affirms the communal and interconnected character of human life. In particular, it stresses that the actions and attitudes of individuals affect those around them. Catherine of Siena (1347–80) put it this way: “There is no sin that does not touch others, whether secretly by refusing them what is due, or openly by giving birth to the vices.”⁵ Virtues work in much the same way. While a virtue is first of all an individual characteristic – a disposition that allows someone to act in a morally good manner – the living of a virtuous life has the potential to impact others positively both by modeling good behavior and by eliciting gratitude from those who are positively affected by those good actions. Growing out of this vision of human interconnectedness, Catholics recognize the need for community within the church. Being a Christian is being part of the people of God who together are making their way forward in faith. It is within the community of the church that vices are slowly unlearned and that virtues are encouraged and nurtured.

The Catholic tradition takes this communal perspective one step further and applies it to society as well as to individuals and the church. The assumption is that the accumulated moral choices of individuals in a society will slowly create a certain kind of moral ethos within that society that will, in turn, shape the morality of individuals. People who grow up in a materialistic culture are more likely to become materialistic themselves, and people who grow up in a sexually liberal society are more likely to become sexually promiscuous. By contrast, cultures that emphasize spiritual, as opposed to material, values and that stress sexual self‐control, as opposed to libertinism, are more likely to produce citizens who are nonmaterialistic and sexually chaste. Consequently, public rules of behavior – especially the legal codes of nations that touch on explicitly moral matters – are assumed to be serious and relevant concerns for the church. СКАЧАТЬ