Sacraments

“These are the Sacraments”

                In order for someone to understand sacraments someone needs to have a “divine sense of humor”, which is the ability to look beyond the surface of something. When Jesus came to earth, he brought down the “divine sense of humor”, but he was extremely serious about the soul. In other cases objects such a s sheep, wine bottles, lightning were turned into parables that to explain the Kingdom of God. Jesus has a divine sense of humor because through him someone is able to see that the universe is sacramental.

                A sacrament has two components, which are a visible sign and an invisible sign. The visible can be seen, heard, or touched and an invisible is cannot be viewed. Things such as a handshake or spoken word are sacraments because you can hear, see, or feel it. However, there is also something that’s felt from the rituals as well.

                A world without a divine sense of humor loses its relationship with each other and architecture loses its decoration. Things in nature used to represent signs and they had connections to people. Now the objects in nature are just objects because they convey no meaning to the heart for people. Because the spirituality between architecture is gone, then it symbolizes nothing. This corresponds to the fact that a man without a soul is just a man, he goes no deeper than the use of him.

                The acts of cutting God off or to be puzzled by him are two errors that ruin our understanding of God. The world around people is a sign of God, every little thing has God’s presence in it.
 

“Sacramental- Bible is Sacramental”
 

            The Bible has a background and a foreground. The foreground is the stuff that we can actually see, but the background represents is the influence of God. Fulton used the example of brazen serpent that God used as a symbol to test his people’s faith. It was not supposed to be viewed as a poisonous serpent that would kill them, instead it represented faith because it showed that they listened. The serpent represents Christ because it was hung on the tree to get healing from the poison. Just like the serpent, Jesus was hung from the tree with poison (blemishes and bruises) to heal us of our sins.

            In Greek the word sacrament means “mystery”. Jesus is seen as a mystery because he is seen as a combination of many: eternal, temporal, visible, invisible, human, and divine. His divine and humane sense marked the reason behind our justification and sanctification of him. He is the sensible sign of God, so the sacraments are the sensible signs of God’s grace.

            Jesus is divine and human because he represents a material thing, which helps the material thing symbolize something more than its visible sense.
 

“Sacraments-What the Sacraments Bring to Man”
 

            Grace represents a higher life, and it’s what Jesus came down to bring back to us. As people we may live at three different levels of life, which are senate, intellectual, and the divine. Someone who lives the senate lifestyle represents someone who only lives by the flesh, and it looks for nothing more. They simply settle for what they only see and know.  The intellectual side is someone use reason and thought to go through life. The divine life is led by someone who is not drive by reason, instead the will is led by power and the heart is led by love, which all encompasses grace.
 

            In our world today, Jesus is represented through material things to represent himself. The church is an example of something that represents his divine life that’s used to carry on his life. This relates to how he came down to earth in a divine state to connect with us.
 

            There are two kinds of contact, one of which is the visible. Jesus exhibited this through his power to be seen and understood by an average person. But then there’s the invisible contact, which is Jesus’ ability to still cast us with his grace and love without us having to see it, instead we have to believe.

“Sacraments-Seven Conditions of Life and Efficacy of the Sacraments”

           The five conditions of leading an individual are that one must be born, he has to be fed, he has to mature, he has wounds that should heal, and his diseases must be taken away if he is infected. Being a part of society causes an individual to obey according to the government and live out justice, and he must continue on with his ability to procreate.

                In order to live a Christ-life one must first be baptized. Secondly, they must receive nourishment through the Eucharist. Thirdly, they will mature through Confirmation. The wounds that he acquires will be healed through Penance. To take away the diseases, Anointing of the Sick is applied. To live under the spiritual government, Holy Orders is present. Lastly, in order to sustain the Kingdom of God, marriage is the answer.

                A sacrament must be an institution by Christ, an outward sign, and giving the divine life retrieved for people through the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus.

                 Blood is a sacrifice that is required to bring us to the sevenfold sanctification because life is in the blood and so is sin.  It is the most fitting symbol for sacrifice because it represents the life of people. The blood of Jesus has infinite value due to his divinity.

                Calvary is a place of divine life because there are seven types of sanctification. People receive the divine life when they receive the sacraments. The sacraments are able to dispel grace because they are connected with Jesus.

                A sacrament is received according to the need of the person receiving it. If the person needs to be given faith or healing then the sacrament will reach out to that need and fulfill it.

"What is the Divine Sense of Humor?"

                Humor is not just something that's funny. But it's the ability to see through things. It's the act of seeing things as though they were looking through a window. There is an invisible and visible meaning to different things. A divine sense of humor goes beyond the literal discernment of the eye, but it dives deeper into the spiritual meaning of thing.

                This relates to what we've discussed in class because the idea of sacraments is that they are signs with deeper meanings. The idea of bread is something that gives nourishment, but the more spiritual meaning demonstrates Jesus' body and the nourishment and love that he gives us when we follow him and allow his grace to fall upon us. In conclusion, sacraments are symbols that go beyond their physical appearance usage.