Fifth in a Series

In many parishes in this country a large percentage of parishioners do not attend the Sunday Eucharist regularly. When I was a young priest, I frequently described such people as “having the faith but not practicing it.” I would not make such a statement today, not because I know who does or does not have the faith but because I think of celebration of the Eucharist as central to being Catholic.

In a real sense we get our identity as Catholics from celebrating the Lord’s death and resurrection. If some do not do that regularly then I am not sure what it means to call them Catholic. I am not judging anyone’s relationship with God but only stating how I think of Catholic identity. Celebration of the Eucharist is crucial to that identity. Celebration of the Eucharist establishes, shapes and forms that identity.

What I like very much about Eugene Kennedy’s treatment of the sacraments in his book “Would You Like to Be a Catholic?” (St. Anthony Messenger Press) is his linking the sacraments to what it means to be a human person.

Relying on one of the oldest Catholic statements in theology, namely “Sacraments are for the sake of persons”, Kennedy stresses that sacraments should help to make us whole, to make both our personalities and our lives more integrated. He believes that we can’t really understand sacraments unless we understand human personality. He is right.

There is a profound relation between the human personality as created by God and the sacraments as given to us by Christ. The sacraments have a special power to help us fulfill and deepen what is best about us. Insights into the mystery of human personality can lead to insights into the mystery of the sacraments. It is also true that the more deeply we understand the sacraments, the better chance we have of grasping what being human means. Kennedy writes:

“The sacraments are, therefore, understandable only if we understand human personality. We cannot really grasp anything about them if we have a corrupted or inaccurate notion of the human person. One of the most damaging distortions of the person is found in the divided model that is a corruption of the traditional Catholic appreciation of the wholeness of personality. Such a division makes sacrilege of the sacramental by splitting the person into warring elements of body and soul, intellect and emotion, spirit and flesh, setting people against themselves, making them feel guilty, for example, for being human and experiencing healthy sexual feelings.”

I like Kennedy’s relating the nature of the human person to the nature of the sacraments. The more deeply we can see into ourselves, the more deeply we may be able to see into the mystery of God and the mystery of God’s love for us. To have some understanding of what it means to be a human person gives us an opportunity to increase our understanding of how the sacraments can influence us and indeed transform us.

To say that the sacraments are for the sake of persons gives at least a hint that the sacraments can help us to become more whole, more integrated, more human in the way that Jesus was when He walked the earth and more human in the way that He is in His risen state.