Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter With God

In the visual West, we have a tendency to segment much that we do into spheres of specialization, much to the detriment of the whole, while much to the aggrandizement of the parts. The dynamic between the part and the whole has often been a problem in Catechesis in the Catholic Church, often teaching subjects like "sacramental theology" in such a way that it is only briefly related to the wider realms of Ecclesiology, Christology, and Soteriology (let alone the varied other psychological, sociological, etc. relations). While perhaps in one area or during one time period some of these relationships are made, nowhere have I ever read as fine of a synthesis as in this text by Schillebeeckx. The greatest strength in Schillebeeckx's discussion is derived from the fact that he approaches the questions of sacramental theology by always reminding the reader that the primary Sacrament is the person of Jesus Christ. The implication is that Christology is the font of all sacramental theology, for Christ is the visible face of God on Earth. (To use the somewhat-scholastic phrase: He is the visible manifestation of the invisible Father.) However, by placing the sacraments in something of a subordinate role to Christ, the question of continuation is raised. It is in this way that the nature of the Church, as the Body of Christ, is explained in wholly sacramental terms, as the extension of Christ's resurrected body through time. It is from this point that the author reflects upon the nature of ecclesial action, the relationship between objective and subjective reception of the sacraments, the nature of the priesthood in relationship to the sacramental life of the Church (and Christ), and the effects of sacramental grace. On the whole, the text is very accessible, even to one who is untrained in theology. I think that such a unified synthesis (although somewhat abridged from its full form) provides an excellent view of the Church and of Christ as the visible manifestation of God's grace in the world to this very day in the Sacraments.

to which I merely can add this book was first written by the great Dominican preacher and teacher the Reverend Father Schillebeeckx in 1960, to be first published in English by Sheed and Ward in 1963. Father Schillebeeckx is long well known as a scholastic theologian in the line of his fellow Dominican Saint Thomas Aquinas, who also used a massive and keen intellect to render understandable the mysteries of our Faith. Unfortunately such a learned and logical approach requires equal effort on the part of the reader, who may wish to study this book as part of a serious study or course in theology of the kind so rarely available in our late age. Needless to say, this careful and comprehensive study bears the Imprimatur of Rev. George Craven, Vicar of Westminister with the Nihil Obstat of John Barton, Doctor of Divinity. I add this information for those who may dare question the orthodoxy of this monumental and important treatise. The generous personal testimony of conversion to deepening understanding of our Faith in Jesus Christ which appears in the earlier review should be all the approbation and confirmation we require to read it carefully and with all of our attention. Truly this work traces all of salvation history of human seeking the Encounter with God and finding it at last within Jesus Christ. This study then explores every aspect of this Encounter with God in Jesus in life, and after the Ascension, within the Sacraments. Thus we come to understand the profound meaning and import of our sacramental life, and how we meet GOd within them. This book therefore carries us to a closer realization of our Encounter with God in the sacraments, and thus a greater devotion and more serious prayer life, seeking to know and to experience fully awakened that Encounter with God which is ours through Christ. This work was grown so essential in our understanding and discussion of our Faith that Our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI refers to it obliquely by employing its phraseology in his own landmark Apostolic Exhortation Sacramento de La Caridad: Sacramentum Caritatis, within a quote from his own earlier God Is Love: Deus Caritas Est: "The eucharistic mystery thus gives rise to a service of charity towards neighbor, which 'consists in the very fact that, in God and with God, I love even the person whom I do not like or even know. This can only take place on the basis of an intimate encounter with God' . . ." . Father Schillebeeckx remains therefore a prophet of our deepest theology. Read him here in the original and his other comprehensive and astutely scholarly works, including Mary, Mother of the Redemption which so influenced and invigorated the earlier Pope.