From http://www.patheos.

com/blogs/albertlittle/god-works-making-sense-sacramental-life/

T he Catholic life is a sacramental life. The means, at its

core, that Catholicism teaches that Gods graces and goodness are
mediated out through the sacraments, through humans. Through
the Eucharist, chief amongst the sacraments, we receive the very
body and blood of our Lord. Through matrimony, confession, the
anointing of the sick, baptism, confirmation, and through office of
the priesthood God gives us his grace in various degrees.
Meditating on the sacraments, however, is a bit of a daunting
exercise for the average evangelical. I admit, when I first started
reading about the Catholic Church I wouldnt have had the foggiest
notion of what a sacrament was. God gave me grace, when He
wanted to, because I prayed for it. Or because He thought I needed
some. Or, because.
Once I understood what the Catholic Church meant about
sacraments and the grace of God it only served, at first, to get my
back up and my spine all out of joint.
You mean, I have to receive Gods grace mediated out
through man?
Surely that goes against every fiber of my Evangelical Protestant
being. Theres only one mediator between man and God and thats
Jesus, right?
Well, yes. And, no.
What Ive learned about what the Catholic Church teaches on the
sacraments, and the grace of God, is that it actually makes sense. It
doesnt contradict Pauls teaching in his letter to Timothy.
And, even more compelling, is that its how God has always
worked.
How God Works
God has always worked through man. Its His modus operandi and
its clear from even a cursory reading or understanding of the
Christian story, as spelled out through the Old and New
Testaments. From Moses to David. From John the Baptist to the
apostles to the divinely-inspired authors of the New Testament. To
the bishops of early Church councils, who recognized the divinely-
inspired parts of the New Testament and defined our sacred
theology.
To the priesthood, the modern day bishops, and the Pope.
God has chosen His main means of dispensing graceand calling
His people back to Himto be to work through people. Ordinary,
disappointing, sinful people. Look at David. Look at the apostles
Peter denied Christ!
Is God bound by the sacraments? Certainly not. God created them
for us. But the Catholic Church teaches that these are the normal
means in which God gives us gracethe mysterious and beautiful
system that Jesus left for us, His Church.
God uses people.
So it shouldnt be a surprise, not at all, that God established a
sacramental system of faith life that works through people.
Was there an alternative? Certainly!
God couldve revealed everything we needed to know through a
system of divine revelation. He didnt need to use people, but He
did. God couldve given us everything we needed to know about
Him and our eternal purpose when we were born, by imparting that
knowledge automatically and letting us decide at that very instant,
but He didnt. God chose to use people.
For 1,500 years this is what Christians believed. In fact, believing
that God used people to dispense His graces was, in a way, one of
the chief catalysts for the Reformation itself. In parts of Europe,
wealthy aristocrats hired personal family priests to say Masses on
their behalfs, often in private chapelsto dispense grace like an
ATM. The early reformers rightly protested against such detestable
behaviour but just because some bad apples used the sacred system
poorly doesnt mean it was poorly built from the beginning.
David fell, hard, but God used Him still to establish a Royal
Priesthood that would never pass away.
God has always worked through humankind, which is why the
sacramental life makes sense to me.
Confession: A Case Study
The Sacrament of Confession is a prime example.
As a young evangelical reading my Bible I couldnt figure out, for
the very life of me, why we didnt practice confession. It was right
there, starkly, in the New Testament. We were called to confess our
sins to one another but nobody I knew was doing it. Except the
Catholic Churchand back then I thought the Catholic Church was
the devil.
But the Catholic Church got it right!
The Sacrament of Confession is the ultimate grace that God gave us.
See, as a Protestant I sin all the time and the best I can do is pray
for forgiveness. Pray to God who, in spite of all the faith I have that
Hes listening, doesnt necessarily, and normally, answer back. As a
Protestant I am left to assume Ive been given the grace of
forgiveness. I can assume that, and billions do, and many folks who
are particuarly blessed might even feel like theyve been forgiven but
many more, the majority, dont. Most, in my experience, feel
nothing. Other than the intellectual knowledge of knowing,
academically, that theyve been forgiven.
On the contrary, what a grace the Church has been given in the
Sacrament of Confession. Taking its theology straight from the
pages of the New Testament and in a continuous line of belief and
practice right from the apostles, through the Church Fathers, up
until today Catholics believe you can confess your sins to a priest,
and be forgiven.
God using man? What precedent is there for that?
The priest, empowered by Jesuss words to bind and loose and the
command of the apostles to confess our sins to each other, have the
God-given ability to proclaim my sins are forgiven. Make no
mistake, the priest has no magical powers to forgive sins but, rather,
God has given us a system which means His forgiveness and,
ultimately, His graces, can be dispensed through that priest. The
priest, standing on the foundation of the New Testament and the
very words of Jesus, can safely say that He, God, forgives our sins.
How much more powerful to hear, Youre forgiven, from a human
being, standing in for Jesus, than to merely imagine these words in
my head, or try to muster up the emotion to feel them in my heart. I
need no mustering here: the tears flow freely when those words are
truly spoken out loud by a fellow traveller like me.
Like Pope Francis said this morning on Twitter,
The Sacraments are the manifestation of the Fathers tenderness
and love towards each of us.
It couldnt be more true.
The Messy, Sacramental Life
But it sure makes for a mess.
The Sacramental Life is messy because human beings are messy.
The apostles themselves were a mess. So was Moses, Jonah, Noah,
and Ive already mentioned David. But this is the system which, to
me, God has clearly chosen. At least, the apostles thought so and so
did the Church Fathers and Christians like you and me right down
through the ages.
But its still a messy system. It makes me vulnerable to the people in
my community and, despite the name of this blog, I dont like a lot
of people, all the time. Im grumpy, too, and sometimes I want my
graces and my faith life to be my own and only my own. It takes a
certain degree of humilityand, ah, theres the rub!to accept a
sacramental faith, a faith dependent on other people. Especially in
this post-post-modern world of me. Its so counter-cultural.
The Sacramental Life is, ultimately, another beautifully compelling
aspect of the Catholic Church, in my opinion. It not only, to
me, makes sense with what we know about God and His character
but it makes sense with what we know about humans and ourselves.
It makes sense with what I know about me. Because I dont feel
forgiven. I dont feel grace-filled. I dont feel, sometimes, like God is
even there. The great, incredible, and ultimate grace that Gods
given us in the sacraments is that He is present, in the most tangible
way possible, to say, like Moses heard from the voice of God in the
burning bush, I AM.

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