A Foretaste of Future Glory | Theology of the Sacraments

[00:00:00] Speaker A: The majority of the sacraments actually employ concrete, material things which become instruments of salvation. Once those are united to certain prescribed words, you wind up with what looks like an incarnation of Divine grace. Close. [00:00:28] Speaker B: Welcome to the Catholic Theology Show, presented by Ave Maria University. This podcast is sponsored in part by Annunciation Circle, a community that supports the mission of Ave Maria University through their monthly donations of $10 or more. If you'd like to support this podcast and the mission of Ave Maria University, I encourage you to visit avemaria.edu join for more information. I'm your host, Michael Doffaney, and today I am pleased to be joined by Father Romana Cesario, and we're going to be talking about his recent book on the Seven Sacraments of the Catholic Church. Welcome to the show, Father. [00:01:10] Speaker A: Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. [00:01:13] Speaker B: For listeners who may not know, father Zara has been on our podcast a couple times previously, but he is a Dominican. He holds the Cardinal Adam MIDA Chair of Catholic Theology at avimer University. He has previously taught at St. John's Seminary and a number of other wonderful places, and is really a treasured theologian in the US. And in international settings as well. He has the status of being a master of Sacred Theology within the Dominican order, and his teachings have really helped to, I think, pass on and revitalize the study of St. Thomas and Sacred doctrina as a path of intellectual and spiritual and theological renewal within the life of the Church. I can even say that when I was a graduate student in the 90s, studying with Alastair McIntyre, who was a famous Catholic moral philosopher at the time, had asked him to help me learn Aquinas, and he said, just read Father Romana Cesario and you'll learn what you need to learn. So, Father, welcome to the show. [00:02:37] Speaker A: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. [00:02:39] Speaker B: Yeah. So you recently published a book that we're going to talk about today called The Seven Sacraments of the Catholic Church. And so this book goes through a general theology of the sacraments and then also goes through all of the seven sacraments. So maybe could you just start with a little bit of just a big question, right? Why did you end up writing a book on the sacraments? And why do you think this was kind of a worthy use of your time? Why is this question or understanding of the sacraments so important to the life of the Church today? [00:03:20] Speaker A: Well, it's because before coming to Ave Maria, I taught for 40 plus years in seminaries, the Dominican Seminary in Washington, the House of Studies, and as you said, St. John's Seminary in Boston. And I observed in the course of those four decades that the young seminarians were not as well acquainted with either a general theory of the sacraments or, for that matter, with the particular graces that each sacrament brings. But I also observed with even more alarm the decline in sacramental practice, at least in the regions of the country where I was serving. And that was especially true of New England. The most obvious sign of the decline in sacramental practice, including the Eucharist, was the closure of parishes at an alarming rate or the combining of parishes, which were called various things, clusters and so forth, that ended up, by closing parishes. And this, I felt, was a very sad indication of a period which, after all, with the Second Vatican Council that transpired, as I was a young seminarian, had promised a renewal and retrieval of the classical Catholic wisdom. Now, that's not to allege a post hoc, ergo propter hawk. That is to say, it isn't to allege that because of the Second Vatican Council, the sacraments declined. And in fact, of course, there are many other reasons for it, including adverse cultural circumstances. But because of that decline, I also noticed it was difficult to find a good and comprehensive book on the sacraments that could be used in theology courses, whether they were taught to the laity or to clerics. [00:05:34] Speaker B: Yes, and I think you've achieved your goal. I think this is a beautiful book that I think will help recover that idea of an understanding of the sacraments. And maybe one question I think that some people have about the sacraments are the sacraments because they are so real and so rich and so historical that they're a vibrant in many ways they are the way people encounter the church through baptism, marriage, funerals, the eucharist, the face and shape of the church often is the sacramental life. And maybe just two questions about that for listeners who may not have yet deeply thought about the nature of the sacraments. But I think so. On the one hand, people can be aware of this idea that over time the sacraments changed in their manner of celebration. I think there was a time when often this kind of historical mode of change of evolution was often really presented in a way that kind of created a little sense of confusion among theologians and the faithful. So how would you help people understand this idea that, yes, the sacraments have developed over the centuries, over two millennia, and yet, on the other hand, are still the same sacraments and that we can still affirm and as you do in the book, that Christ instituted the sacraments. [00:07:22] Speaker A: Well, we have to make a distinction between liturgy and the sacramental reality, as you point out, and as I do. But the most important thing, as the Council of Trent does in response to the reformers of the 16th century who held a very negative view about the sacramental realities, the Council of Trent made the identification of those realities explicit in its magisterial teaching and it still governs the teaching of the Church. If you go to the catechism of the Catholic Church of John Paul II, there's not one sacrament that doesn't have footnotes from the Council of Trent. And so people became confused by the liturgical differences that they perceived. And the sacramental reality, the sacramental reality is not elusive and spiritual. The sacramental reality has concreteness to it, which, if you want, we can discuss later. But the fact of the matter is that the various ways in which the liturgy that surrounds the sacraments, the readings, the antiphans or hymns for that matter, the prayers said everything that's done to prepare for the sacrament and to give thanks for it. Those of course, not only have changed in the Roman rite since the Second Vatican Council, but those familiar with the Eastern rites know that throughout the grand Catholic world worldwide, the ways of celebrating, for example, the Eucharist, Penance, Matrimony are different blatantly. Different blatantly in the sense that it's very difficult not to recognize it. One good example is the sacrament of matrimony. It's the same sacrament in the Latin church and the Eastern churches including the Eastern churches united with Rome. But the ceremonies are very different. Those who have had the opportunity to visit a Catholic church of the Eastern rites will know that the bride and groom are crowned and there's processions around the altar. And the priest enters into the ceremony with a considerable more liturgical presence than would be the case for the priest today, who is fundamentally a witness and who can be truth to be told, replaced with proper permissions. So, yeah, there are different liturgies, but the fact is, the sacramental reality is what unites the Church. If there were different sacraments, you'd have a different religion. [00:10:17] Speaker B: So this distinction then, between the kind of historical shape and context of liturgical celebrations, which can be done in different languages and have been whether or not they're Aramaic, Greek or Latin, English, other languages, right? The language can be different, the different prayers can be different. And yet you're suggesting, or of course indicating that the sacraments are the same, the concrete reality of the sacraments are the same across all of the different rites of the Church and that they are the same over time. So the sacramental reality of baptism has not changed over 2000 years? [00:11:03] Speaker A: I hope not. It would make it difficult. Well, we're recording this on the Feast of All Saints and as far as I know there's no asterisk that says we're only talking about people that died after 1965 or we're only talking about people that died after 1576. Yeah, no, when the Church celebrates all the saints, she means everyone from John the Baptist and possibly others before we won't get into that, but from John the Baptist to whoever was most recently canonized by Pope Francis. So, yeah, no, there's no of course, otherwise you would have a different not only have a different religion, you have a different church. [00:11:49] Speaker B: And I think that's really helpful for laity today, for students of theology, for priests to recover a profound sense of confidence in the sacramental realities, that the sacraments that Christ gave us have really kind of made our communion with Him and our communion with God the Father possible, and that they continue to do so. Right. And therefore there is this fundamental identity over time. Would you say a little bit more about this concrete realism of the sacraments? [00:12:30] Speaker A: Well, here we have to turn to St. Thomas for guidance. And in fact, the Church does the sacraments, Aquinas says, look like Christ himself in the hypostatic union. What does that mean? Well, we know that when Christ takes a human nature, body and soul, calcedonian, orthodoxy, that human nature is united in a most profound way. The Church has talked about, and continues to talk about saying that the nature subsists in a divine person, which, of course, accounts for Christ's divine identity. So you have the concreteness of human nature and bodily human nature united to the invisible God in a most profound way, and the sacraments, in a sense, reflect that kind of constitution. Now, obviously, the body of Christ is in each of the sacraments, replaced by determined matter. It's referred to in some cases that matter is constituted by an immaterial act. That's a small detail. But the majority of the sacraments actually employ concrete, material things which become instruments of salvation once those concrete material things are united to certain prescribed words. I will repeat for all the audience prescribed words which the Church guards for many reasons, including the one I just mentioned, her unity of practice. And so when those two things come together, you wind up with what looks like an incarnation of Divine grace, which is available to the Christian faithful according to their state in life and so forth. And that's why the sacraments early on, even before Aquinas, the Church recognized that the Aristotelian formula of matter and form, which was Aristotle's account of how reality is composed distinct from Plato's, by the way, but in a matter and form, the composition of matter and form, they recognize hey, this is a good way to talk about the sacraments. It's one of the original places where philosophy won. There are many you can go back to Nicaea and Cassidon, but in the Middle Ages, before Aquinas was born, the Fourth Lateran Council, at the beginning of the 13th century, the Church recognized, this is a good way to talk about a sacramental composition, matter and form. And the Christian Catholic people are familiar with this. When they go to bring a baby to be baptized, they know the baby will be there will be water poured on the baby or more dramatically, immersion or sprinkling. But they don't expect to find rose petals. They don't expect to find magic herbs that have been discovered in somebody's garden. No, they expect to find water to be poured over the baby. That's a symbol of new life and growth that is so much associated with human life, that it's one of the most powerful material things. However, they also know that in the morning or during caring for the baby, they've also washed the baby. But that's not baptism. Why? Because the priest carefully has to say I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Those are the prescribed words. And when they come together, that is, by a divine action, the child becomes a new being. But to put it more gently, a child of God in a way that he or she was not before. There's a sense in which every creature is a child of God, but a child of God in Christ with the claim to eternal inheritance, as the Church teaches, moreover, again comes with baptism. And you can go through the seven sacraments and identify the requisite matter, as it's called, and the form which in the liturgical books is printed in bold so that even a priest who's perhaps becoming a little forgetful or a priest who's distracted by what's going on, which is an easy circumstance today, will have his attention focused on the words just to complete that for the people who are thinking, well, what happens in holy Matrimony? Well, there the Western Church holds that the matter is the act of consent. It's invisible. That's represented by the I do, that each speaks to the other and all that that represents, which is the theology of marriage. And so the material part of the sacrament is the consent and the expression of it, to which the Church gives its blessing to complete what is unique, what takes a natural reality, marriage, and makes it a sacrament. The same is true in the sacrament of penance. People sometimes are confused and think that my sins are the matter. Well, when you start to think about it, that seems like an OD thing, that God would use human sin as an instrument of salvation. He doesn't. But he does use the contrition for the sin and the formula of absolution that the priest says there's a very clear matter and form. And those words too are prescribed. Recently they tweaked the translation a bit to correspond more to the Latin. And people who frequent the sacrament of reconciliation are familiar with the words that the priest says. No other words now can be said because a sacrament can be invalidated if it lacks the words that gives meaning to the sacramental action. [00:19:17] Speaker B: That's really so helpfully and clearly articulated, right, that these sacraments look like Christ. In Christ we have the material human nature. But God is acting in that and through that in the second person of the Trinity, in his divine nature, who has assumed a human nature. So we go in a way through the human nature of Jesus to the divine nature of Jesus and so are returned to our communion with the right as children of God, just as Christ accomplishes that reality through his human nature, through the works of his human nature, his suffering, death, resurrection. So then the sacraments are kind of the continuing work of Christ through the material forms, the water of baptism, the words of Baptism, but the action of God. [00:20:17] Speaker A: That's correct. [00:20:19] Speaker B: And we can see this in all of the different elements. So to a certain extent, to say that the sacraments are real, the sacraments haven't changed over time is really nothing other than saying that the Incarnation is one and that Christ accomplishes our saving or his saving work and our salvation through his life and Resurrection. And then he continues that through the sacraments so that we can participate in that saving reality. [00:20:53] Speaker A: Correct. And I think it's helpful to recognize that with the sacraments, the Church from the beginning has associated the source of their divine energy with Christ's death on the cross. John Paul II's dominus. Jesus makes this explicit. It is true every mystery in the life of Christ is saving, but each of them is incomplete without his death, which is symbolically expressed as his pierced side. Devotion to the Sacred Heart stems from that because, as the Gospel points out, from his pierced side flowed blood and water. And the Church has seen that from the earliest centuries as symbolic of baptism water and the Eucharist blood. And by inference, the other sacraments you can still find in churches from a certain period images of a woman who represents the Church holding a chalice by the cross in which she collects the blood and water flowing from Christ's Pier side. That's very important because the sacraments, each of them, even the most joyful ones like marriage, bring with them a participation in Christ's cross, which is both purifying and elevating. [00:22:35] Speaker B: That's so well put and that is a beautiful image of going back to Christ on the cross, the blood and water flowing out there's so many beautiful artwork, especially from the Middle Ages, but really throughout and continuing of that, the sacramental life of the Church flows from the pierced side, the pierced sacred heart of Jesus. After the break, we're going to come back and we're going to say a word about all seven sacraments, which you cover in the second part of your book, but just one expression that I think gets used a lot. You speak of it and I think maybe a lot of our listeners may have heard of it, but I think it's helpful to kind of remember it more helpfully and more clearly. Again, what would you say? Why is the Church's teaching that the sacraments work ex operre operato so important? And why is that really kind of related to what you were speaking of in terms of the kind of primacy of Christ's death as the agent of the sacraments? [00:23:41] Speaker A: Well, the short answer to that is a lesson that the Church learned in, again, her earliest centuries. Who wants to worry whether a sacrament is efficacious because of the holiness of the minister who rightfully and dutifully administers it. That would be a very difficult circumstance, especially today. But it was also a difficult circumstance in the third century when there were many priests who under the threat of persecution apostatized. And the Church wanted to certain people in the Church, including saints, thought, well, this is so terrible, those men could never do anything. And the Pope said, wait a minute, yes they can. Because basically if we start saying that by their sinful and they are very more sinful than any other of the popular sins people talk about, namely apostasy, if that is to frustrate the divine action, that holy orders in this case, the same thing could be said of a layperson, his baptism sin can frustrate the Divine action. That's a world you don't want to live in, as I put it most succinctly, nobody wants to live in a world where sin trumps God. And so the Church recognized, well, how do the Sacraments work if it's not the holiness of the minister? And she said, well, the phrase is eventually coined, the Sacraments work by being properly administered ex opre operato. They work by a work worked. And the work worked is the truthful, truthful celebration of the Sacrament. And if a priest thinks this will make more sense to my people if I baptize in the name of the Spirit, the Sanctifier and whatever higher power moves in the world, he's very wrong, very sinful to do that. And that's because no one has the right to change what the Church stipulates for the Sacramental form because the Sacraments work by ex opreferato. [00:26:10] Speaker B: So I think that gives us a sense, one, that it is really Christ acting in the Sacraments. It is Christ who does the work and then the church is a or the minister is a faithful minister using the words of Christ, the matter and the prescriptions that have been articulated and defined by the church and acting with that intention to do what the church does, in a way, the intention to do what Christ does. And therefore it gives us a great confidence that through the Sacraments, christ is truly active and has truly changed us. I don't need to go back and find out who baptized me and whether or not they've become famous or whether or not they've become infamous, it doesn't matter. I can believe that I've truly been baptized by Christ through the ministerial actions of the priesthood and in a way where I go all the Sacraments. So this gives us a great kind of foundation and a kind of a security that we can trust in God's saving work communicated to us through the Church in the Sacraments. So we're going to take a break now, and when we come back, I do want to spend some time and go through a little bit of just all the seven sacraments and maybe see what this general understanding of the sacraments does in helping us to maybe understand better and hopefully draw more fruit out of each of the individual sacraments. [00:27:44] Speaker A: Good. [00:27:52] Speaker C: You're listening to the Catholic Theology Show, presented by Ave Maria University and sponsored in part by Annunciation Circle. Through their generous donations of $10 or more per month, annunciation Circle members directly support the mission of AMU to be a fountainhead of renewal for the Church through our faculty, staff, students, and alumni. To learn more, visit avemaria.edu. Slash join. Thank you for your continued support. And now let's get back to the show. [00:28:22] Speaker B: Welcome back to the Catholic Theology Show. I'm your host, Michael Doffenet, and today we are joined by Father Romanis Cesario, and we've been discussing his book, the Seven Sacraments of the Catholic Church, published by Baker Academic. So we are really just so thankful to have you on our show today and to be able to dive into this mystery of the great sacramental economy, right, the reality of the Sacraments. So. Thank you, Father. [00:28:53] Speaker A: Well, thank you for having me. [00:28:55] Speaker B: We said in the second part of the show we wanted to focus on the second part of your book, the Seven Sacraments. So we'll kind of go in order as you present them here baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Penance, Reconciliation, anointing of the sick, Holy Orders, and matrimony. So beginning with Baptism, there's this great scene in John Three when Jesus encounters Nicodemus, who comes to him at night, and he says jesus says famously, right, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. What does the church teach about baptism? And could you say a little bit about how the Council of Trent helped to clarify some of the reality of what Baptism is in the life of the Church? [00:29:54] Speaker A: Well, the answer to the question of what the Church teaches about Baptism is what Christ says to Nicodemus. Without it, she would add the Church. Today, the Church knows no other way to enter the kingdom of Heaven. And so this leads to the famous is god binds the Church to the Sacraments, but the Sacraments do not bind God, which should be clear, which is to say that the divine omnipotence can work in ways that we don't know about. But what we do know, and that's what's most important, is that the Church, again knows no other way for a person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Now, the metaphor of entering the kingdom of Heaven means receiving the new life of water and the spirit that Baptism confers. She knows no other way than by sacramental Baptism, which can include within the tradition, baptism by blood, which is to say, the martyrs. So that's what baptism does. It makes us heirs with Christ for a life of eternal beatitude and incorporates us into the Church precisely as a sacramental ministry without Baptism. The other sacraments, simply to put it colloquially, don't work. They don't work because they require that initial divine action which restores us to a position Adam lost by his sin. [00:31:59] Speaker B: Could you say a little bit about the role of faith? I think maybe at least some of our Protestant brethren or evangelical Protestants will sometimes be confused about the nature of the sacraments or seeing it maybe as a ritual that maybe works by magic or these sorts of elements. So how do we recover a sense of the unity of faith and baptism? [00:32:32] Speaker A: Well, the Church is a church of faith and sacraments. In the 16th century, there were those who claimed that baptism was merely a symbolic sign, a protestation to you, that was the technical term, that one had been saved by faith, which meant by making a personal act of faith. So the baptism became roughly the equivalent. This is a somewhat negative metaphor, but it gets the point across of a newspaper announcement that such and such has been saved and made Jesus his savior or her savior. And you see that today in evangelical and other Christian denominations who, when they present themselves and their message, it's urging people to claim Jesus as their savior, which is a very laudable thing. However, stop and think about it. Given everything that baptism bestows, all of which you can read in the Catechism new life, participation in the life of Christ, promise of eternal life, and that's just for openness. Is it possible that God would make all of those divine benefits rest upon human initiative? Now, that said, it becomes very difficult in the baptism of an adult, not in a child, a baby, because in the baptism of a child, the act of faith is assumed to be generated as the child grows, as every parent understands. But in the baptism of an adult, which is the model for baptism, there is a delicate way in which two causalities come together. One, and firstly, the divine causality, which is the grace of baptism with at the same time an awakening within the individual of a confession of the Church's belief, which is why the creed is an interrogatory part of the baptismal ceremony for the baby. It's answered by parents and Godparents. But in the adult, the adult has to say, having renounced Satan, do you believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, and then the rest of the creed that everyone's familiar with? So there is a profession of faith, strictly speaking, at that moment, which is inefficacious until that profession is welded to the sacramental action, which preserves the priority of the divine initiative, which is really a way of describing all the misunderstandings of Catholic thought about grace and nature, about the sacraments. The question is, whom should we look to for the first action? If you say yourself, Good luck, if you say God, well, then you understand Catholic life. [00:36:04] Speaker B: And I think a lot of that idea is also expressed in that beautiful line from one John Four, where it simply says, right, god loved us first. Right. So God's love has the priority to our response. Our response is always secondary. Let's say a word about confirmation. Why is confirmation a separate sacrament from baptism? [00:36:32] Speaker A: Well, that's the stuff out of which theology books make a lot of money. The theoretical reason, which may not be the historical one, is that there should be a special sacrament for the child baptized as an infant, when the child faces life outside of what we'd call today the protection of the nuclear family. And when you stop to think about it again, every parent knows when the child leaves home what's going to happen. And in our Western world today, the odds for what's going to happen aren't very encouraging. Here I'll give a plug for Ave Maria University. It's why Catholic parents, I think, seek out a university for the advanced education of their children, where it isn't highly probable that they'll lose the faith that they were brought up practicing faithfully, especially Mass going and confession. So there are challenges outside of the protection of the family. It can be the extended family, for that matter. And so the sacrament has its own distinctive character and aquinas talks about it as witnessing. You really can't say. The child may witness passively. For example, the child, the newborn child that was just beatified of the Polish family that was slaughtered for their Catholic convictions by aggressors into their homeland. Well, you can do that, but the fact of the matter is active witnessing requires an age of discretion. That age can go from eight to 21 according to various practices. Historically, there's another factor which distinguishes east and west dioceses in the east. In the earliest days, by and large, were constructed differently than dioceses as they developed in the west, which has to do with sociology and geography and all kinds of factors that you can read about. And early on in the I think it's the fifth century, a local bishop from the Umbrian region of Italy heard that his priests were signing newly baptized children with the Chrism, the Holy Chrism, and he wrote him a letter and he said, I think that belongs to me. And the priest said, no, we can do it. We don't need you. So what's happening here? There's an ecclesiological dimension that every Catholic belongs not to a parish, but to a diocese, which is why the bishop is considered head and shepherd of a region which is geographical. We're in one that's what, 200 miles, I think, from Bradenton to Everglade City or wherever. The confines are fine. In some places, dioceses occupy a whole state. In other places that are heavily Catholic, it's different. The point, however, is the bishop came to realize that this sacrament, in a special way, introduced the young adult into what today would call diocesan belonging. In the east, it didn't happen. Quite that way. As a result, it is still the practice in the Eastern churches to confirm babies immediately after the baptism. However, the priest can only use the miron, and the miron only comes from one person, and that's the bishop. We have something like that on Holy Thursday when we bless oils. I'm told that the ceremony for making the miron lasts three days because so much has to be done to it. Herbs cooked, aromatic, spices poured into it and so on and so forth. It's very much more of an extensive liturgical action that the Greek bishops participate in. If I'm wrong there, the experts can correct it. It's a minor point, however, except to say that the miron that is communicated to the parishes for the anointing, the double anointing with both Chrism and miron is the way in which in the eastern churches the association with the bishop is maintained. [00:41:37] Speaker B: That's a great way of just kind of in a very simple way of recognizing right, that typically the priest or the deacon is the one who baptizes. Of course it's Christ baptizing, but that we are baptized by the priest or the deacon. And then in a way, all of the anointing, so to speak, the additional anointing that comes in confirmation is somehow from the bishop, not just with the. [00:42:07] Speaker A: Priest, not just congregational. [00:42:08] Speaker B: Yeah, that's also true. Right. And so there is a sense in which we become united to the bishop for the purpose of proclaiming the faith, and for that we obviously need additional strength and additional gifts of the Spirit. On this podcast we have had a six part series on the Eucharist, the Holy Eucharist. So maybe just say a quick word about the Eucharist so we can still say a word or two about some of the other sacraments. How do people understand that the Eucharist is an occasion of kind of the healing of our venial sins but not our mortal sins? Right. That the mortal sins need to be brought to penance and reconciliation, but that the sacrament of the Eucharist is still healing of sin? [00:43:02] Speaker A: Well, the quick answer is that the Eucharist increases charity but does not restore it. And when charity is increased by receiving the Eucharist, or for that matter, by doing anything that is charitable in excess of the failure of charity, which is what venial sin is. For example, I'll take a married man, not you, but take a married man who loses patience with his wife mildly, and that's certainly a venial sin. Well, by showing some added affection or added respect for the wife, that venial sin is in fact erased because the soul is brought back to an even keel, so to speak. And that's what happens in the Eucharist. And it has to do with the nature of venial sin, which is why it's called venial, that is to say, less than the deadly effect of mortal sin. [00:44:07] Speaker B: Yeah. So could you say then a word about how is it that penance allows us to experience that forgiveness of mortal sin and venial sins? [00:44:18] Speaker A: Well, I wouldn't use the word experience because not everybody leaves the confessional with an experience. They should leave it with a knowledge that the sins are forgiven. But the Church does not guarantee an experience, I regret to say. I know people think that and look for it, and you often hear the complaint, I don't feel anything, and so forth. But no one promised that unless you want to talk about a faith experience. Okay, well, the quick answer, because we're running at the end of our very happy discussion here. It's because Christ gave to his priests the power to forgive sins. That's why there's a sacrament in which the priest is able to do it, which is the essential act for sins, for which one is sorry to some degree, even if it's only I'd like to be sorry, but to some degree. And the priest then is able to absolve those sins by the words that the Church puts in his mouth, which are perhaps among the sacramental formulas, the most expressive. God, the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of His Son, has reconciled the world to Himself and poured out the Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of sins through the ministry of the Church. I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. So that's the reason, and that's the reason, too, why only priests anoint? Because anointing brings forgiveness of sins. And that's when deacons thought, well, we're more deacons in hospitals than there are priests. And the Pope John Paul II had to say no. And it's in fact introduced into canon law. Forgiveness of sins is communicated, and you can find it in your Bible there by Christ himself to his apostles and handed down from them. [00:46:17] Speaker B: That's really kind of just powerful to meditate upon. And I love the distinction you make between our knowledge that we have been forgiven if we have at least imperfect sorrow and contrition and the experience. Right. Our feelings are not facts. We do not rest upon the feeling of being forgiven, but the knowledge that we are. And I think this is also why the Church encourages, right, the practice of regular confession and deepening in the knowledge that we can grow by confessing venial sins, because it allows us to also know that those are forgiven and to receive further direction as well. [00:47:05] Speaker A: I didn't mention that, but I should have. Yes, there's a pedagogic function. The Church instructs priests to give counseling, limited counseling, to help people recognize in what the defective character of sin consists. [00:47:22] Speaker B: Yeah. So you spoke a little bit there about the anointing of the sick. So I'm going to move beyond that to holy orders, because I think the nature of the priesthood today is maybe we talk more about the vocation of the laity over the last couple of decades, the universal call to holiness as articulated in Lumingenium, but also the great dignity of holy orders, the necessity of the ministerial priesthood. So could you say a word or two about the uniqueness of the ministerial priesthood within the life of the Church and how that is accomplished through the sacrament of holy orders? [00:48:10] Speaker A: I will preface my remark by saying that this is a most important discussion, as you have indicated, and perhaps the disease is more widespread than you indicated. I think someone told me Ireland, the whole country of Ireland, which has a reputation for its Catholicism, has seven seminarians. And in the United States you add up all the seminarians in the United States, I think it comes out to about 500 or so. Yeah. And that doesn't equate at all with the servicing of what are probably about 10,000 at least parishes at one time at the high was 13,000. So the priesthood is in a powerless state, and something has to be done soon, because otherwise, without priests, there's no Eucharist. Without priests, there's no forgiveness of sins. And so Christ set his apostles as heads shepherds and teachers, bridegrooms who want to instruct people in the truth. Head, shepherd, bridegroom. And each of those functions puts on a man the obligation bridegroom to love his people and to love their spiritual well being, second, as head, to govern them. Because the Church needs governance, and there are many examples of that which we'll pass over at the moment, except there's also much misunderstanding about governance. For example, in the celebration of the Mass, it's the priest's responsibility to ensure that the place mode atmosphere is conducive to a sacred mystery and not to confuse it with a daycare center. And as shepherd, their teaching is most important. The metaphor is clear from the Bible. The priest has to lead people into knowledge of the truth, and those are the marks of the sacramental priesthood. And when you take it away and substitute lay leaders, you lose a lot. [00:50:34] Speaker B: Yeah. You finish your chapter on holy orders with a little dive into St. John viani. Would you say a little bit about why he is especially helpful in understanding the nature and role of priests? [00:50:54] Speaker A: Well. Although, as you mentioned at the beginning, I'm a Dominican and therefore religious. The fact of the matter is the most important priests are the parish priests, because they're the ones who take on as their obligation to provide pastoral care. The one right, by the way, that the laity enjoys in canon law to receive pastoral care. Not to give it, to receive it. And so there's a corresponding right that there be priests to do that. And he was the patron of parish priests. However, that's when I was growing up, he was the patron, and religious priests had their own patrons st. Dominic for us, st. Francis for the Franciscans, and so forth. But then John Paul II, who has beautiful catechesis on the curiovas, said, wait a minute, he's the patron of all priests, so that's why he's in the book. He's the patron of all priests. And although when I supercilious people, he's easy to make fun of because they're very simple man. However, his life and example and John Paul II's letter of Holy Thursday, which was his custom, the year escapes me now, but it can be easily found on the Internet, is a masterpiece of dissecting. The Life of the Parish Priest, illustrated by John Vianney. [00:52:20] Speaker B: Wow. Well, thank you so much for walking us through that. And we did say a little bit earlier about the nature of holy matrimony and the unique way that it's really the consent of the man and the woman. And there's just so much more to be said here. There's one or two aspects of the book that we didn't get a chance to speak about. But I think right at the end, as you begin the conclusion, you say a word about the fact that Aquinas says that the sacraments are prognostic, they are a foretaste of future glory. So anyway, not only do all the sacraments have their root at the pierced side of Christ, but they also have the end of that flower of that branch is in the glorified and risen Christ. And therefore the Sacraments are this foretaste of future glory. And I think recovering A notion of Heaven that as Aquinas will say, the virtue of faith is that by which eternal life begins in us. Now that there is more than this world, right? And the Sacraments are that reminder that there is more than this world. We are more than our bodies, that we are called in Christ one day to live with Him forever. And I think recovering that notion of heaven is also a helpful way of recognizing the reality and blessing of the Sacraments. And also a renewal of sacramental theology is necessary to recovering that notion of that desire and confidence in the reality and attainment of Heaven. I do want to remind our listeners we have another episode that we did about a month or two ago on the Sacraments with Dr. Roger Nutt and a book that he did. And also, as I mentioned, we have a six part series on the Eucharist. And Father, is there a final word you'd like to share with those who might read your book or those who know just want to deepen their own understanding of the sacraments according to the mind of the Church and the mind of St. Thomas? [00:54:40] Speaker A: Well, I'd say to young eligible men, ask God for the grace to be a priest and don't think about it too much because thinking can dissuade eligible men from assuming the burdens of the priesthood. But to everyone, I would say practice the sacraments that are available to you most universally, penance and the Eucharist and the ones and practice as well, the ones you have received by relying on God's grace to sustain you in your Christian life. And as Dr. Dauphine has reminded us, as does St. Thomas sacraments, which are each of them, in a way, a foretaste of heavenly glory. [00:55:28] Speaker B: Thank you so much, Father Cesario. And again, the book we've been discussing today is the Seven Sacraments of the Catholic Church by Baker. Academic under again by Father Romana Cesario. And so thank you so much for being on our show. [00:55:43] Speaker A: My pleasure anytime. [00:55:46] Speaker C: Thank you so much for joining us for this podcast. If you like this episode, please rate and review it on your favorite podcast app to help others find the show. And if you want to take the next step, please consider joining our annunciation circle so we can continue to bring you more free content. We'll see you next time on The Catholic Theology Show.