A Sacramental Life in Christ

A week ago, while I was on one of my many runs these days leading up to the Wexford Half Marathon, I was thinking of my sins in light of my Lenten pledge and the effort for solidarity with Christ in engaging temptation and trying to face it down with His courage. I thought about how I sometimes just lack the strength to overpower a protracted moment of weakness. I allow myself a deviation from what I know to be right. And I can feel, deep inside me - in the shallow, kiddie-pool parts of me too - that I have the capacity and ability to be stronger than that.

I thought about our belief in original sin. Humanity has fallen; humanity is fallen. Catholics point to the sin of Adam as the moment when our perfect nature was corrupted, when the perfect freedom - known only by Christ since the sin of Adam - was violated by man, who willed something different than what God willed. We live in this condition and pass it on from generation to generation, seeking to thrive despite our propensity to fall time after time.

It can seem so futile and defeatist. How do we rise above it? Well, it can all start with the sacraments, and unsurprisingly, it starts with baptism. And as I've discussed before and continue to reflect upon constantly, we don't have the slightest sense of the dignity of our baptism.

In baptism, we are initiated into the redemption of Jesus. We are baptized into His life, death, and resurrection. We are called to emulate the selfless, self-giving love of Christ's life; we are brought into unity with our Lord who died on the cross; and we joyfully join in His cross because, through it, we find the strength to carry our own crosses toward the salvation He won for us in His Passion, death, and rising from the dead. Jesus died, sinless in the sinners' stead. His innocence on the cross made satisfaction for the sins of those who come to believe in Him who is Love. By being baptized into Christ, we can know the purification of our original sin. We endure, living in a state of fallen humanity, but we do so in the salvation of Christ. Our baptism invited us into a life that triumphs over sin and death.

In our baptism, we were brought into Christ and His primacy over sin. Boom.

But we don't reserve baptism for our deathbeds like Constantine and old-school people used to; we go to the waters as babies in our parents' and godparents' care or otherwise as consenting adults in RCIA. So how do we rediscover the salvation into which we were initiated in baptism? Reconciliation. Eucharist. Boom.

I am the last person who should be soapbox-ing on reconciliation, but I'll give it the basic plug it deserves while I continue to warm up to it better in my heart. We are humans who need faith to work with reason; we can't understand the entirety of our faith, its mysteries, and God. So, we have sacraments and sacramentals - visible signs of invisible realities that utilize our senses to give our minds and hearts a better sense of the truth and reality of our faith. Reconciliation utilizes the priest - the man who has consecrated his life to God as his sacramental and spiritual servant and shepherd of God's people - as a sacramental. You come to confession to tell your sins to God, and God is there speaking back to you. The priest isn't God, but He manifests the love, compassion, justice, and forgiveness of God. You still tell your sins to God, and He offers you one of His ordained servants to physically manifest the grace and absolution of Christ. Woot.

But what about people like me who are reconciliation slackers and only really go during Holy Week and maybe Advent? EUCHARIST! It's not to say that reconciliation isn't important or that it shouldn't be incorporated into a well-rounded life of faith, but I just have more credibility to yak on about Eucharistic life. So, yak on I shall.

First off, receiving Christ in the Eucharist forgives us our venial sins. We have an opportunity to examine our consciences in the opening rites of the mass, and we can pray over them throughout mass. Christ brings forgiveness to us first-hand in the Eucharist. Beyond that simple practical thing (which is pretty awesome), the mass is an amazing vehicle for the Eucharist to ride to us in.

We gather to pray and sing together, share our struggles and triumphs (even if nonverbally), and hear the Word. The Body of Christ is enfleshed all around us in our brothers and sisters even before it is enfleshed in the Eucharistic prayer. Then, we share in the Eucharistic prayer, following Jesus' command to "do this in memory" of Him.

Have you ever thought about that phrase, too? What does "this" mean? I think it refers to more than just the act of memorializing His Passion and the Last Supper. I think the whole of all the implications of "The Body of Christ" are manifested when we do this. So much good stuff is going on there. The long and short of it is that we share our triumphs and struggles with each other and put them on the altar so that the priest's sacrifice and ours may be acceptable to God. And then we, as individual sons and daughters of Christ and as brothers and sisters to one another and as a communal Body of Christ, are taken, blessed, broken, and shared. We, like the bread, are gathered to Christ in the mass. We are blessed in our prayer. We are broken into individuals as we each have our moment of intimate encounter with Christ in our reception of the consecrated hosts. And we are shared as the priest sends us forth to - and this is my favorite closing rite - glorify God with our lives!

So what does all this have to do with original sin? Our sacraments give us a chance to live a sacramental life, a life in Christ - a Eucharistic life. We can enter into a Eucharistic rhythm of examining ourselves, sharing and repenting for our sins, and knowing peace in the forgiveness of Christ through the mass and the Eucharist. And for the times when we create thoroughly negative patterns of sin and need fuller, deeper healing, God comes to us with His forgiveness in Reconciliation. So really, our only sin - original sin, which proliferates through the shortfalls we experience - had its stain taken off of us in baptism by our Risen Lord. And we have the freedom to come to God to be washed clean in the sacraments.

Christ made us immaculately clean in our baptisms, and part of answering our call to strive toward His example in love, service, and praise of our God is to embrace the way God comes so close to us in love and mercy. We can realize the dignity of our baptisms by living Eucharistically.