What constitutes Sacramental?

[silveryslade]

The question came to me today watching an online mass. Now, I'm not baptised or confirmed Catholic (baptised C of E not confirmed). Grew up not going to church apart from Christenings, Weddings and Funerals and maybe a carol service.

Now, I found prayers during the service were very close to my own personal prayers apart from the believing in the Catholic Church bit and the only being able to be there in spirit bit and therefore unable to fully partake in the communion. That's the only contentious bit (of the service at least) for me. I had joined in with a cracker and drink praying the same prayers throughout the whole service apart from the above parts and felt somewhat disappointed.

So where am I now? Do I seek an online service with which I can join in? With a church whose beliefs concerning Sacraments are a bit different. Do I not concern myself with the ritual aspect of this and concentrate on remembrance? Or do I wait till I can be confirmed etc and can partake in person?

How do you discern what is cultural and what is from God? I don't really know why I'm asking as all the discussion in the world can't solve this one for me but I'm hoping in may help.

As an aside, concerning the institution of the established church, I feel I can relate to the medieval peasants who did not feel worthy to pray directly to God/Jesus so relied upon the intercession of Saints...

In that I can understand how this sort of institutional authority could make them feel like that. I do pray directly.

Some big questions here. In both the CofE and RC you can only take communion if you are confirmed or intend to be. I found the idea of spiritual communion really unsatisfactory. I only used it once in lockdown and we were back in the building as soon as we could be. It is a service where physicality is important. Christians believe in the incarnation, that

The prayer about believing in the catholic Church is the creed and it says we not I believe because it is the faith of the church and I find that really helpful when I'm having a wobble over any of the individual components.

It might be worth attending a few churches in person and seeing how that feels. The advantage is that you can get to know people and ask questions of the priest. What happens in the mass is ultimately a mystery but we can have a go at working through what it has meant and might mean to people.

Whoops. The incarnation where God is present physically in Jesus is a key part of Christian belief so being present in person at the mass is really important to many Christians. If you have a more memorialist than sacramental understanding of what happens during the mass when the priest says the words of the Eucharist prayer then online communion is more satisfactory. It isn't for me which shows me that I am more sacramental. During lockdown I could have said mass as I'm a priest but it would have just been me and the cat and the community of believers at the mass is also really important so I didn't.

Thank you, @mostlydrinkstea. In some ways I think what I am experiencing is a longing for unity. Which is difficult to solve on an academic level. Funnily enough, the Catholic devotional I read today was immensely helpful. It was this:

catholic-daily-reflections.com/2021/10/24/the-burden-of-scrupulosity/

Regarding your second post, yes, I can understand that. I think that is what I was pondering over reading about different denominational beliefs. I get both meanings you mentioned, although part of me wonders, what is not present? It is only a matter of physical distance...If I can feel connection over time, the centuries, in Christ, what is distance?

I think a significant thing for me is my belief that the act of remembrance involves physical manifestation, in that it has a physical affect on a person. As what we think and what is heart felt affects our bodies physically. So we consume Christ, through the word and through the word through people. It's how I imagine spirit working.

Does that make sense to people?

So communion is not an either or for me but both.

I'm not sure I understood your later posts properly, so I'm going to try to give a Catholic understanding of some of these issues without, perhaps, properly engaging with your post. I hope it ansewrs some of your questions.

For Catholics, humans are creatures who consist of body and soul. So we worship with both body and soul and either can lead the other. e.g. if I kneel down to pray, the act of kneeling can remind me to get in the right mindset if I'm distracted. But ideally the soul should lead the body because in the proper order of things the soul should be in charge.

So the sacraments are both signs and realities. They are symbols of something and they really do the thing they symbolise, in Catholic teaching. It's called a visible sign (physical) of an invisible reality (spiritual). Like baptism symbolises being washed clean from sin (amongst a lot of other things) and actually does this. It's one of the things which makes Catholic/Orthodox/High Anglican worship and theology very different from any other churches.

But sacraments are not the same as personal prayer (although both are necessary). Catholics believe that to celebrate a sacrament you need the correct form and matter (words and physical things) because the sacrament is a form of worship which has been instituted by Christ for, through, and of the Church. In my personal prayer I can use whatever words I like, but the sacraments have to conform to the Church. So I could use a cracker and drink in my personal prayer to remind me of the Last Supper and Christ's sacrifice and that could lead me closer to God, but it would never be the sacrament of the Eucharist.

We have a broader concept of sacramentals, which are objects used in prayer. They're not sacraments and we don't have to use particular words with them. Things like holy water, rosary beads, crosses and images of saints, even foods like blessed salt or oil. This is about involving body and soul in prayer, but it's different from a sacrament.

Thank you Fink. That does explain the Catholic beliefs more fully to me. The thing is I am between denominations. I am Christian, though. My extended family is mixed denominations and agnostic / atheist. I engage with teachings from a variety of denominational churches. I feel like I belong partially with all denominations and so completely to none. So I'm not surprised you don't understand my later posts. It's difficult to discuss or question with someone and have full engagement if they completely and faithfully believe a thing is one way and you are attempting to explore the boundaries of that belief and use language from a different perspective. But it still helps, so thanks again.

I've been exploring the whole topic of Christian unity and denominational difference more and have found it useful to think about how faith saves but how faith without works is dead.

So I can see how the form and discipline within the established churches is useful to restrain and discipline the flesh/carnality within every human being. I can also see how the form and discipline helps unity within the congregation and wider church.

However, human beings are diverse and the ways in which their faith can manifest is diverse as is the type of discipline which is most helpful to restrain individual and groups. Hence different denominations have arisen. This is comforting to me as it helps me see it how different denominations working towards the same purpose and doing all that can be done from hindering anyone else in this is powerful and important.