WE ARE A SACRAMENTAL CHURCH

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

We celebrated the Feast of the Presentation and the Feast of St. Blaise, Bishop and Martyr, this week. Both of these feasts have in connection with them the use of sacramentals. Sacramentals, as the "Catechism of the Catholic Church" tells us, are sacred signs instituted by the Church. They prepare us to receive the fruit of the sacraments and sanctify the different circumstances of life.

On the Feast of the Presentation, for example, candles are blessed to be used for the visitation of the sick or to be burned in church at the altars for the celebration of the Eucharist. Candles remind us of the Light of Christ; Jesus described Himself as the Light of the World and these candles remind us of Christ.

On the Feast of St. Blaise, traditionally we bless throats through his intercession. Tradition has it that in his lifetime, St. Blaise dislodged a fishbone from the throat of a boy who was choking. Ever since then, his intercession is invoked against all ailments of the throat and, as the blessing tells us, every other evil.

Our Catholic Church is a sacramental Church. We preserve the seven sacraments given to the Church by Jesus and we make use of sacramentals, signs and concrete objects that help us appreciate the grace and union available to us with God in the sacraments.

There are many other sacramentals. The Sign of the Cross is the most used sacramental, when we come to realize it. St. Bernadette Soubirous once commented that if only the faithful could learn to devoutly make the Sign of the Cross, they could be assured of their salvation. What this great saint understood is that anything that reminds us of God's presence, and especially of the Triune God, can assure us of the path to salvation.

As a young priest, I remember looking out the rectory window and every morning seeing a not-so-old Italian immigrant coming out of his house who made the Sign of the Cross before he proceeded to get his bus to go to work. One day I asked him why he made the Sign of the Cross as he began his day's journey. He simply said to me, this is what I was taught, that as we leave our dwellings we invoke God's presence so that God is with us all the day long. What a wonderful habit to begin the day with as we leave our homes, making the Sign of the Cross.

Another sacramental is holy water, which can be used to bless our homes, to bless ourselves with the Sign of the Cross. It is a reminder of our Baptism and leads us to understand what a great gift this sacrament is to us. Also, sacred pictures and statues are sacramentals that remind us of those whom they represent, contrary to the accusations against us as Catholics that we worship statues and idols. These are simply reminders of the persons they represent. When someone confronts me with that accusation, I simply ask if he or she carries a picture of his or her family, children or mother, and most answer yes. I ask, and so why do you carry it? To remind me of that person is the usual answer. And so, this is why we honor those who are saints, by keeping their images before us always.

A popular sacramental is the Rosary, which helps us understand that sacramentals are objects of devotion. They are what are called items of popular piety; they give us that particular understanding of our closeness to God by using objects that continually bring us into the presence of God.

Soon we will begin Lent, and on the first day of Lent we use another sacramental, the imposition of ashes. It is certainly a very popular one. We hope it is a means of grace to the many who come to receive it, even though they might not understand its true significance. The ashes are a call to penance; they are a reminder of our sinfulness and the power of God to create holy people out of sinners. Just as He created from the dust of the earth the first humans, so too He can create out of sinful humanity the greatest of saints.

Sacramentals nourish our Christian life by various forms of popular piety rooted in our culture. As Catholics, we should not lose this special attachment to those concrete things that remind us of the presence of God. Our faith is a sacramental one; we cannot live in the abstract. We need to have concrete reminders of the presence of God so that we will frequent the sacraments, which assure us of an encounter with Christ each time we receive the Eucharist, Reconciliation or any of the other sacraments.

The use of sacramentals many times is an exercise of putting out into the deep. It deepens our sense of our human nature, which has a need for the tangible and concrete. These sacramental signs provide us with a window to our souls. They are the concrete means to coming close to the spiritual that is within us.