The Prayer Book: Part VIII

Sacraments: The Incarnation of Grace

The Book of Common Prayer gives the order for celebrating the sacraments of God. The sacraments are an visible outward sign of an invisible inward grace. The sacraments are the physical manifestation of spiritual realities and the physical enactment of spiritual actions; they are the incarnation of grace.
The sacraments, given to us directly by Christ, allow us to visibly take part in and experience the promises of God. The word “Sacrament” comes from the Latin sacramentum, and was used to refer to a pledge; God has made a pledge concerning these rites of the Christian faith, that he will act in them and through them, according to his word. While the Western church has referred to these rites as Sacraments, the Eastern church has referred to them as the Greek Mystērìon, or, as mysteries; for it is a mystery as to how God accomplishes such spiritual things through these physical events. St. Augustine spoke of the Sacraments as “the visible word”, and the reformers spoke of the sacraments as “signs” of the work of God in the life of a believer. St. Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologiæ, speaks of the sacraments as a mark, an imprint, a character of the life of a disciple:
“God himself has anointed us and set his mark on us. The sacraments of the New Law have two functions: remedying sin and disposing and strengthening our soul to worship God according to the rite of a Christian life. When someone is deputed to a particular task we often give him some special badge or token: In ancient times enlisted soldiers were tattooed on their bodies-their task being a bodily one-and the tattoo was called a character. In the same way the sacraments, which depute men to spiritual functions in the worship of God, imprint on them a spiritual tattoo or character. The seal of divine predestination deputes believers to the reward of future glory, the spiritual seal we call character deputes them for certain acts appropriate to the church in the present life. The character, though invisibly imprinted on the soul, is a sign inasmuch as it is imprinted by a sacrament we can perceive; we know a person is marked with the baptismal character because we have seen him washed with water. In any case, anything that marks out and identifies somebody can be said to imprint him with a character, even if it is not apparent to the census. Christ, for example is said to be the imprint or character of the Father’s own being. The sacraments of the New Law imprint a character because they depute men to worship God according to the rite of the Christian religion” (McDermott, 1989, p.555).
The Book of Common Prayer calls us to recognize the centrality of the sacraments to our life and faith. May we always understand that in these gifts we taste, touch, and feel God's promises, his sacramentum, coming to fruition both physically and spiritually in our life, and that through these acts we are drawn up into the mystērìon of Christ, that we may bear the imprint, or character, of Christ.
Let us pray with St. Basil the Great:
Therefore, O Lord...do unto me according thy great mercy, and grant that these Holy Gifts may be for me unto the healing, purification, enlightenment, protection, salvation and sanctification of my soul and body, and to the expulsion of every evil imagination, sinful deed or work of the Devil. May they move me to reliance on thee and to love thee always, to amend and keep firm my life; and be ever in me to the increase of virtue, to the keeping of the Holy Spirit...for Life Eternal. Amen.

The Prayer Book: Part VII

The Liturgy: Divine Drama

In the liturgy (or "service") of the church, we are taken up into an event greater than ourselves, and we express the worship of the church throughout the ages. We witness the enactment of the heavenly worship of Christ, as the saints of God surround the throne of the Lamb. We see the action of the mediation of Christ in the Priest. We see the elevation of the cross in the procession. We see the glory of God in the vestments. We see the hope of the world in the elevated book of the gospels. We find our life within the Body and Blood of Christ at the Eucharist. We join the heavenly choir of angels in praise to our God. The liturgy elevates us, that we may encounter the presence of God, being enveloped in the heavenly worship of Christ. In it we experience fellowship not only with one another, but with the saints of God throughout time who have worshipped according to this same pattern, and with the saints of God in heaven, who are now worshipping according to this same pattern. It is the worship of the church throughout the ages - indeed, wherever you find the early church in the second century, whether in Jerusalem, or Rome, or Alexandria, you find this same pattern of worship. Most importantly, the liturgy is all about experiencing Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit in the glory of God the Father. We "Lift High the Cross" and give adoration to the Lamb of God. Praise God for the liturgy, and praise Christ through the liturgy. Lift up your hearts...