SECTION FOUR: SACRAMENTAL LIFE

I. The Mystery of God in Christ and the Church

    94. In its 1991 report on The Apostolic Tradition, the Commission sensed the need for deeper common reflection on the nature of sacrament, starting from the idea of Christ himself as " the primary sacrament" (§ 89). Bearing in mind that one of the oldest names for sacrament is ‘mystery' (mysterion), Christians find a direct scriptural basis for viewing Christ in this way in I Timothy 3:16, where Christ is referred to as "the mystery of our religion":
 

He was manifested in the flesh,
vindicated in the Spirit,
seen by angels,
preached among the nations,
believed on in the world,
taken up in glory.

    95. The ‘mystery' of God is God's eternal purpose which has now been revealed in the person and work of Jesus Christ, a saving design which embraces Jew and Gentile alike in the goodness of God's final kingdom (Mk 4:1 l; Rom 16:25-27; 1 Cor 2:7-10; Eph 3:120; Col 1:25-27; 2:2-3). Christ is "the image of the invisible God" (Col 1:15), the Father's Son upon whom the Holy Spirit always rests (Jn 1:33). Having taken our humanity into his own person, the Son is both the sign of our salvation and the instrument by which it is achieved.

    96. As the company of those who have been incorporated into Christ and nourished by the life-giving Holy Spirit (1 Cor 12:13), the Church may analogously be thought of in a sacramental way Precisely as the body of Christ and the community of the Holy Spirit, the Church may be spoken of "as a kind of sacrament, both as an outward manifestation of God's grace among us and as signifying in some way the grace and call to salvation addressed by God to the whole human race"¹ Constituted by God's saving grace, the Church becomes an instrument for extending the divine offer as widely as the scope of God's eternal purpose for humankind.

    97. In such an approach, the sacraments of the Church may be considered as particular instances of the divine Mystery being revealed and made operative in the lives of the faithful. Instituted by Christ and made effective by the Spirit, sacraments bring the Mystery home Co those in whom God pleases to dwell.

    98. The particular sacraments flow from the sacramental nature of God's self-communication to us in Christ. They are specific ways, in which, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the Risen Jesus makes his saving presence and action effective in our midst. Thus in his public ministry Jesus did not communicate the good news of our salvation in words alone; he addressed himself in signs and actions to those who came to him in faith. Moreover such signs and actions were addressed to both body and spirit. Thus he healed the paralytic and forgave him his sins. After Christ's passion, death and resurrection, the Savior continues his words and actions among us by means of sacramental signs.

    99. There is a two-way connection between the Church and the sacraments. The sacraments build up the Church as the body of Christ until its members come to their full stature; the Church is at work through the sacraments by virtue of the mission received from the Holy Spirit.

II. The Sacraments and Other Means of Grace

    100. By virtue of their ecclesial nature, the sacraments are organically related to each other. In the celebration of the eucharist, as both word and table, the Church is built up as the body of Christ. Into the eucharistic community one is admitted by baptism, which identifies the believer with the death and resurrection of Christ. Methodists and Catholics emphasize this vital connection between ecclesial communion and the sacraments of baptism and eucharist in different but analogous ways. Methodists affirm the full sacramental nature of the rites of baptism and eucharist, by attributing to Christ their direct institution. At the same time, they consider other Christian practices, listed by Wesley himself, to be specific means of grace. Catholics attribute primacy to baptism and eucharist among seven sacramental rites which sustain the life of faith.

    101. It is our common belief that baptism is an action of God by which the baptized begin their life with Christ the Redeemer and participate in his death and resurrection. As Christ is received in faith, original sin is erased, sins are forgiven, the baptized are justified in the eyes of God and become a new creation; with all believers they share the communion of the Spirit; and they are called to seek perfection in hope and in love through faithful response to God's continuing gifts of grace. Through the ministry of the Church baptism is given with water "in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." Baptism is irrevocable and is not repeated. While it is received in the context of a local church and in a specific Christian community, it introduces people into the universal Church of Christ and the gathering of the saints.

    102. With the whole Christian tradition Methodists and Catholics find in the New Testament the
evidence that baptism is the basic sacrament of the Gospel. They also agree that Jesus Christ instituted the eucharist as a holy meal, the memorial of his sacrifice. As the baptized partake of it they share the sacrament of his body given for them and his blood shed for them; they present and plead his sacrifice before God the Father; and they receive the fruits of it in faith. Proclaiming, in his risen presence, the death of the Lord until he comes, the eucharistic assembly anticipates the final advent of Christ and enjoys a foretaste of the heavenly banquet prepared for all peoples. In the words of the Wesleys' Hymns on the Lord's Supper:

He bids us eat and drink
Imperishable food,
He gives His flesh to be our meat,
And bids us drink His blood:
What'er the Almighty can
To pardoned sinners give,
The fulness of our God made man
We here with Christ receive².

    103. Meanwhile, as believers we seek to enact throughout our lives what we celebrate in the sacraments. Thus prayers of the Roman Missal ask that the sacraments received at Easter may "live for ever in our minds and hearts," and that "we who have celebrated the Easter ceremonies may hold fast to them in life and conduct"³.

    104. Baptism, received once, and holy communion, received regularly in the Church's liturgical festivals, are at the heart of the life of holiness to which the faithful are called. While they are the two biblical sacraments recognized by the Methodist tradition, the Catholic tradition regards other holy actions of the Church as also sacraments of the Gospel instituted by the Savior: in them also God's grace reaches the faithful in keeping with some of the acts and words of Jesus to which the New Testament bears witness.

    105. Catholics believe that in confirmation the gift of the Spirit confirms what was done in baptism. The faithful who are aware of sinning and are contrite have access to Christ the healer and forgiver in the sacrament of reconciliation. When they are sick, they also receive in the anointing the touch of Christ the healer. When they marry, they marry in the Lord through a sacrament of mutual communion in which they are given an image of the communion of all the saints in Christ and a promise of the graces that are needed for the fidelity which they themselves promise. In the sacrament of orders, some of the believers are chosen and empowered to act for Christ in the spiritual guidance of the faithful through the preaching of the Word and the administration of the sacraments. In all sacraments the power of the Spirit is at work, inviting the believers to closer union with their Redeemer, to the glory of God the Father.

    106. Although Methodists do not recognize these rites as sacraments of the Gospel, they too affirm the active presence of the Holy Spirit in the life of the faithful, the necessity of repentance for sins, the power of prayer for healing, the holiness of marriage, and the enablement by the Spirit of those who are called and ordained for the tasks of the ministry.

    107. Catholics and Methodists both recognize other ‘means of grace' than those they count as sacraments. These include public and private prayer, the reading of Scripture, the singing of hymns, fasting, and what Methodists refer to as "Christian conversation." In the same category one may reckon the traditional works of mercy, such as visiting the sick and serving the poor. As the faithful meet the image of Christ in their neighbor, they acquire and develop a sense of the pervading sacramentality of the life of faith.

ENDNOTES

1. Joint Commission between the Roman Catholic Church and the World Methodist Council, Towards a Statement on the Church, 1986, § 9, referring to Vatican II's Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, § 1.

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2. John and Charles Wesley, Hymns on the Lord's Supper (1745), n. 81.

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3. See the Prayer after Communion for the Second Sunday of Easter ("ut paschalis perceptio sacramenti continua in nostris mentibus perseveret"), and the Opening Prayer for Saturday in the Seventh Week of Easter ("ut qui paschalia festa peregimus haec moribus et vita teneamus").

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