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Transformed by Grace: Scripture, Sacraments and the Sonship of Christ
The author explores Scripture to discover Christ's purpose in creating the sacraments. He explains that Christ designed them to give human beings the Holy Spirit, who would unite them to God as his adopted children. And as God's own children, endowed with this reality by the sacraments, Christians can live their ordinary lives with supernatural power. A Servant Book.
- GenresTheology
240 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2003
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August 31, 2011
This book has some good information and lays a good overall foundation for the significance of the sacraments. I found a lot of it to be difficult to follow. I've included some quotations of the most interesting parts:
"Grace is...not a thing: it is on God's side, the gift of God communicating Himself to man, and, on man's side, transformation of his person in response to the new presence of God, a transformation in which he is configured to Christ in whose grace and in whose response to God he now participates" (67).
and since one of his main arguments for the purpose of sacraments being adopted sonship...
"In practice, living our adopted sonship is living the life of the Son. First of all, the Spirit of the Son is within us, enabling us to enter upon a personal relationship with God the Father. Second, He puts us in contact with the entire life of the Son. As the Trinitarian role of the Son is glory--giving the Father the glory of being His image, and of love--so now this twofold glory is the driving force in our life. Since the Son is the image of the Father--'He who sees me sees the Father'--the Son becomes for us way, truth, and life. The Spirit forms us into His image, and is Himself our love" (68).
but what are sacraments?...
"We tend to think of the presence of God, say in the Blessed Sacrament or in the person in grace, as something static, inactive. He is present for our consolation. Yes, but even more is He present for activity, for changing us into Himself. The presence of God is always dynamic. Even more in the sacramental moments. These are like the great visitations of God to His people in the Old Testament, always under cover of symbolic action ...The sacraments are the great visitations fo God in the New Testament, and because they occur so frequently--daily Communions, weekly confessions--we fail to see them as great" (76 & 77).
where does the Church come in?...
"...since the purpose of the Church is to bring us to the beatific vision, through, in, and with the incarnate Son; the sacraments are the essential life of the Church; there can be no other" (85).
"Whenever a sacrament occurs in the Church the original symbolic action of Christ is made present through its effects. Its first effect is glory to the Father" (86).
"Christ's human nature adores the divine by means of its human intellect and will, acknowledging thereby that God is its creator. Adoration is the most basic form of glory that a human person can give to God, because it tells Him that the creature has grasped the fundamental difference between God and himself: God is being from Himself, the creature is being from God" (86).
sacraments as symbols...
"As Fr. Camelot wrote recently: '...the essential element of a sacrament [is] its relation to the reality signified'" (89).
"A sign is a way of knowing something through at least one of the senses...when we say that Christ established the seven sacraments we do not say that He determined precisely what the signs should be, but that there should be signs--grace through signs...While He was visibly present on earth, Christ operated through signs. What else were His miracles but ways for the people to know that God's power was present and active?" (89 & 90).
turns out signs have been around for awhile...
"We recall the signs by which the Jews knew God's love and mercy, His mind and plans in their regard, during the years of the Exodus: the pillar of fire, the luminous cloud, the brazen serpent, the stone tablets with the Ten Commandments. Until He unites His essence directly to our intellects in the beatific vision, God's way of encountering us is by signs. Christ's human nature is the greatest of these" (91).
"Grace is...not a thing: it is on God's side, the gift of God communicating Himself to man, and, on man's side, transformation of his person in response to the new presence of God, a transformation in which he is configured to Christ in whose grace and in whose response to God he now participates" (67).
and since one of his main arguments for the purpose of sacraments being adopted sonship...
"In practice, living our adopted sonship is living the life of the Son. First of all, the Spirit of the Son is within us, enabling us to enter upon a personal relationship with God the Father. Second, He puts us in contact with the entire life of the Son. As the Trinitarian role of the Son is glory--giving the Father the glory of being His image, and of love--so now this twofold glory is the driving force in our life. Since the Son is the image of the Father--'He who sees me sees the Father'--the Son becomes for us way, truth, and life. The Spirit forms us into His image, and is Himself our love" (68).
but what are sacraments?...
"We tend to think of the presence of God, say in the Blessed Sacrament or in the person in grace, as something static, inactive. He is present for our consolation. Yes, but even more is He present for activity, for changing us into Himself. The presence of God is always dynamic. Even more in the sacramental moments. These are like the great visitations of God to His people in the Old Testament, always under cover of symbolic action ...The sacraments are the great visitations fo God in the New Testament, and because they occur so frequently--daily Communions, weekly confessions--we fail to see them as great" (76 & 77).
where does the Church come in?...
"...since the purpose of the Church is to bring us to the beatific vision, through, in, and with the incarnate Son; the sacraments are the essential life of the Church; there can be no other" (85).
"Whenever a sacrament occurs in the Church the original symbolic action of Christ is made present through its effects. Its first effect is glory to the Father" (86).
"Christ's human nature adores the divine by means of its human intellect and will, acknowledging thereby that God is its creator. Adoration is the most basic form of glory that a human person can give to God, because it tells Him that the creature has grasped the fundamental difference between God and himself: God is being from Himself, the creature is being from God" (86).
sacraments as symbols...
"As Fr. Camelot wrote recently: '...the essential element of a sacrament [is] its relation to the reality signified'" (89).
"A sign is a way of knowing something through at least one of the senses...when we say that Christ established the seven sacraments we do not say that He determined precisely what the signs should be, but that there should be signs--grace through signs...While He was visibly present on earth, Christ operated through signs. What else were His miracles but ways for the people to know that God's power was present and active?" (89 & 90).
turns out signs have been around for awhile...
"We recall the signs by which the Jews knew God's love and mercy, His mind and plans in their regard, during the years of the Exodus: the pillar of fire, the luminous cloud, the brazen serpent, the stone tablets with the Ten Commandments. Until He unites His essence directly to our intellects in the beatific vision, God's way of encountering us is by signs. Christ's human nature is the greatest of these" (91).
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