Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Schillebeeckx--Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter With God
E. Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with God
Foreword, by Cornelius Ernst, O.P.:
—Schillebeeckx and Rahner stand in a class by themselves
The Christian Religion—an encounter of God and man in Christ the “primordial Sacrament.”
Intro.
—Sacraments are meant to be an encounter with God. Too often, this is lost in a too objective examination of an impersonal, mechanistic approach to the physical categories of the Sacraments.
—in this old understanding, we are passive recipients of sacramental grace, which is just “put into” us.
Religion—above all, a saving dialogue between man and the living God.
—we can reach God through creation, but we cannot alone establish immediate and personal contact with God.
—we can by ourselves desire a personal relationship with God.
—we cannot get to this relationship with God by ourselves. We need grace, God’s own generous initiative in coming to meet us in grace.
—this act of itself of encounter between God and man, taking place on earth through faith, is called salvation.
—God’’s part of the encounter, a disclosure of Himself, is Revelation. Our part of the encounter, devotion to God’s service, is Religion.
—This whole encounter, seen from man’s side, is sanctifying grace—cannot be separated from either God’s personal love for man or man’s response to this divine advance.
—God, through revelation, personally intervenes on behalf of mankind, not just as Creator who guides history, but as someone who takes part in the unfolding play of history and comes to take his place at our side.
Sacrament—every supernatural reality which is realized historically in our lives.
—God’s saving activity “makes history” by revealing itself, and it reveals itself by becoming history.
The Sacraments—the properly human mode of encounter with God.
Chp. 1: Christ, Sacrament of God
1—Humanity in Search of the Sacrament of God
S—uses Augustine to show how sacramentality has been practiced since pagan times.
1—Sacrament in Pagan religion: Sacramental Church is present in the life of the whole of mankind.
—we all receive the inward word God calling us. We can dimly suspect that there is a redeeming God occupying Himself personally in our salvation.
—Man cannot sever himself from God, because God will not let him go.
—pagan religions contain a mixture of true devotion to God, fallible human elements, dogmatic distortion, moral confusion, and sometimes even diabolic influence, since (1) there is that inward spark of holiness and the true God calling us, but (2) they have not yet received the Revelation to come forth in the Old and New Testaments.
**—Man exists in an I-Thou relationship of dialogue with God. Man lost his living contact with God, the attitude of child to father, and of himself could not regain it. Only in visible fulfillment, first in the holy ones of Israel, then definitely in the man Jesus, do we see the substance of truth which lay hidden in the myths of heathen religion.
Pagan religion—the first “providential sketch” of the true Church of Christ to come.
2—Israel as Sacrament of God—grace was and is “anonymous”, so to speak, in pagan religions.
—the clear shape of this grace becomes explicit only in special divine revelation, first occurring with Israel.
The history, as described by S.—“a group of Bedouin of various ethnological origins, whose forefathers had been enticed into the region by the fertile abundance of the Nile Delta, wearied beyond endurance by the forced labour which Egypt imposed, formed themselves into the caravans of the Exodus. Out of the different clans thrown together in this way, each of which seems to have had its own religion, there grew one people which united itself in the desert under the name of the God Yahweh who had appeared to Moses. This was the birth of Israel, the people of God.”
—Israel, the first phase of the Church, is the fruit of God’s merciful intervention, a foreshadowing of that which St. Paul says of the Church of Christ.
—Israel’s visible religion, its faithful people, its cults, its sacraments, sacrifices, and priesthood, was the first phase of the great Church.
—Israel was a partial realization of the mystery of Christ.
—Church of the Old Testament is a sign and cause of grace insofar as in it the Christian age had really begun.
Old Testament Revelation—historical process arising out of God’s fidelity and the often repeated infidelity of the Jewish people. There would be continual failure until God Himself raised up a man in whom was concentrated the entirety of mankind’s vocation to faithfulness, and who would Himself keep faith with the Covenant in the perfection of his fidelity. In Him there was a visible realization of both sides of faith in the Covenant.
**—Christ Himself is the Church, an invisible communion with the living God (the Son made man with the Father) manifested in visible human form.
2—Christ the Primordial Sacrament
1—Encounter with the Earthly Christ as Sacrament of the Encounter with God
Council of Chalcedon—Christ is “one person in two natures”. This means that one and the same person, the Son of God, also took on a visible human form. Even in his humanity Christ is the Son of God.
—The 2nd person of the most Holy Trinity is personally man; and this man is personally God. Christ is God in a human way, and man in a divine way.
—the love of the man Jesus is the human incarnation of the redeeming love of God.
**—Because the saving acts of the man Jesus are performed by a divine person, they have the power to save. Since this divine power to save appears to us in visible form, the saving activity of Jesus is Sacramental.
A Sacrament—a divine bestowal of salvation in an outwardly perceptible form which makes the bestowal manifest; bestowal of salvation in historical visibility.
—when we interact with others, even spiritually, we do it bodily, since we are bodies.
**—the man Jesus, as the personal visible realization of the divine grace of redemption, is the sacrament, the primordial sacrament, because this man, the Son of God himself, is intended by the Father to be in his humanity the only way to the actuality of redemption.
“For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus.” 1Tim2:5
—Human encounter with Jesus is sacrament of the encounter with God.
2—The Actions of Jesus’ Life as Manifestations of Divine Love for Man and Human Love for God: Bestowal of Grace and Religious Worship
—By the Incarnation of the Son, God intended to divinize man by redeeming him; by being saved from sin man is brought into a personal communion of grace and love with God. Implies 2 things:
(1) The fullness of grace belonging to Jesus in virtue of his existence as God was intended by God to be a source of Grace for others; from him all are to receive.
(2) Also shows the man Jesus’ love of God. Jesus is not just revelation of the redeeming God, but also supreme worshipper of the Father. Jesus became the Redeemer by freely living his life in religious worship of and attachment to the Father.
**—Jesus is both the offer of divine love to man made visible and prototype (primordial model); the supreme realization of the response of human love to this divine offer.
—mankind is truly redeemed objectively in the man Jesus, as its Head.
The Incarnation—the foundation of all this. Not just a matter of a moment, at Jesus’ conception in Mary’s womb or at his birth. Not merely a Christmas event. To be man is a process of becoming man.
—Jesus’ manhood grows throughout his life; finds completion in supreme moment of incarnation, his death, resurrection, and exaltation. The Incarnation in the Son itself redeems us.
3—Jesus’ Humiliation in the Service of God and His Heavenly Exaltation: The Redemptive Mystery of Christ
—“It was God who reconciled us to himself in Christ.” 2 Cor. 5:18
—Our redeemer is the living God himself, Father, Son, & Holy Spirit. He brought about redemption in the human nature of the 2nd person, the Son of God, who in union with the Father and together with him is the source of the life of the Holy Spirit.
4 phases of Jesus’ Redemptive Mystery:
(1) Initiative of the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit.
(2) Human response of Christ’s life to the Father’s initiative in sending Him…becoming obedient unto death.
(3) The Divine Response to Jesus’ obedience in the humiliation of his life. Jesus has become Lord, the Kyrios, meaning “the Mighty”.
(4) The sending of the Holy Spirit upon the world of men by the glorified Kyrios or Lord. Last phase of the mystery of Christ, between ascenscion and parousia, is the mystery of the sending of the Holy Spirit by Christ as the climax of his work of salvation.
—Christ redeems us in sanguine, through his blood. It is impossible to “spiritualize” Christ’s sacrifice, to make it merely an act of internal love. The act of love is embodied in the sacrifice of blood.
—The person of the humiliated and glorified Christ is the saving reality.
to be continued...
Foreword, by Cornelius Ernst, O.P.:
—Schillebeeckx and Rahner stand in a class by themselves
The Christian Religion—an encounter of God and man in Christ the “primordial Sacrament.”
Intro.
—Sacraments are meant to be an encounter with God. Too often, this is lost in a too objective examination of an impersonal, mechanistic approach to the physical categories of the Sacraments.
—in this old understanding, we are passive recipients of sacramental grace, which is just “put into” us.
Religion—above all, a saving dialogue between man and the living God.
—we can reach God through creation, but we cannot alone establish immediate and personal contact with God.
—we can by ourselves desire a personal relationship with God.
—we cannot get to this relationship with God by ourselves. We need grace, God’s own generous initiative in coming to meet us in grace.
—this act of itself of encounter between God and man, taking place on earth through faith, is called salvation.
—God’’s part of the encounter, a disclosure of Himself, is Revelation. Our part of the encounter, devotion to God’s service, is Religion.
—This whole encounter, seen from man’s side, is sanctifying grace—cannot be separated from either God’s personal love for man or man’s response to this divine advance.
—God, through revelation, personally intervenes on behalf of mankind, not just as Creator who guides history, but as someone who takes part in the unfolding play of history and comes to take his place at our side.
Sacrament—every supernatural reality which is realized historically in our lives.
—God’s saving activity “makes history” by revealing itself, and it reveals itself by becoming history.
The Sacraments—the properly human mode of encounter with God.
Chp. 1: Christ, Sacrament of God
1—Humanity in Search of the Sacrament of God
S—uses Augustine to show how sacramentality has been practiced since pagan times.
1—Sacrament in Pagan religion: Sacramental Church is present in the life of the whole of mankind.
—we all receive the inward word God calling us. We can dimly suspect that there is a redeeming God occupying Himself personally in our salvation.
—Man cannot sever himself from God, because God will not let him go.
—pagan religions contain a mixture of true devotion to God, fallible human elements, dogmatic distortion, moral confusion, and sometimes even diabolic influence, since (1) there is that inward spark of holiness and the true God calling us, but (2) they have not yet received the Revelation to come forth in the Old and New Testaments.
**—Man exists in an I-Thou relationship of dialogue with God. Man lost his living contact with God, the attitude of child to father, and of himself could not regain it. Only in visible fulfillment, first in the holy ones of Israel, then definitely in the man Jesus, do we see the substance of truth which lay hidden in the myths of heathen religion.
Pagan religion—the first “providential sketch” of the true Church of Christ to come.
2—Israel as Sacrament of God—grace was and is “anonymous”, so to speak, in pagan religions.
—the clear shape of this grace becomes explicit only in special divine revelation, first occurring with Israel.
The history, as described by S.—“a group of Bedouin of various ethnological origins, whose forefathers had been enticed into the region by the fertile abundance of the Nile Delta, wearied beyond endurance by the forced labour which Egypt imposed, formed themselves into the caravans of the Exodus. Out of the different clans thrown together in this way, each of which seems to have had its own religion, there grew one people which united itself in the desert under the name of the God Yahweh who had appeared to Moses. This was the birth of Israel, the people of God.”
—Israel, the first phase of the Church, is the fruit of God’s merciful intervention, a foreshadowing of that which St. Paul says of the Church of Christ.
—Israel’s visible religion, its faithful people, its cults, its sacraments, sacrifices, and priesthood, was the first phase of the great Church.
—Israel was a partial realization of the mystery of Christ.
—Church of the Old Testament is a sign and cause of grace insofar as in it the Christian age had really begun.
Old Testament Revelation—historical process arising out of God’s fidelity and the often repeated infidelity of the Jewish people. There would be continual failure until God Himself raised up a man in whom was concentrated the entirety of mankind’s vocation to faithfulness, and who would Himself keep faith with the Covenant in the perfection of his fidelity. In Him there was a visible realization of both sides of faith in the Covenant.
**—Christ Himself is the Church, an invisible communion with the living God (the Son made man with the Father) manifested in visible human form.
2—Christ the Primordial Sacrament
1—Encounter with the Earthly Christ as Sacrament of the Encounter with God
Council of Chalcedon—Christ is “one person in two natures”. This means that one and the same person, the Son of God, also took on a visible human form. Even in his humanity Christ is the Son of God.
—The 2nd person of the most Holy Trinity is personally man; and this man is personally God. Christ is God in a human way, and man in a divine way.
—the love of the man Jesus is the human incarnation of the redeeming love of God.
**—Because the saving acts of the man Jesus are performed by a divine person, they have the power to save. Since this divine power to save appears to us in visible form, the saving activity of Jesus is Sacramental.
A Sacrament—a divine bestowal of salvation in an outwardly perceptible form which makes the bestowal manifest; bestowal of salvation in historical visibility.
—when we interact with others, even spiritually, we do it bodily, since we are bodies.
**—the man Jesus, as the personal visible realization of the divine grace of redemption, is the sacrament, the primordial sacrament, because this man, the Son of God himself, is intended by the Father to be in his humanity the only way to the actuality of redemption.
“For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus.” 1Tim2:5
—Human encounter with Jesus is sacrament of the encounter with God.
2—The Actions of Jesus’ Life as Manifestations of Divine Love for Man and Human Love for God: Bestowal of Grace and Religious Worship
—By the Incarnation of the Son, God intended to divinize man by redeeming him; by being saved from sin man is brought into a personal communion of grace and love with God. Implies 2 things:
(1) The fullness of grace belonging to Jesus in virtue of his existence as God was intended by God to be a source of Grace for others; from him all are to receive.
(2) Also shows the man Jesus’ love of God. Jesus is not just revelation of the redeeming God, but also supreme worshipper of the Father. Jesus became the Redeemer by freely living his life in religious worship of and attachment to the Father.
**—Jesus is both the offer of divine love to man made visible and prototype (primordial model); the supreme realization of the response of human love to this divine offer.
—mankind is truly redeemed objectively in the man Jesus, as its Head.
The Incarnation—the foundation of all this. Not just a matter of a moment, at Jesus’ conception in Mary’s womb or at his birth. Not merely a Christmas event. To be man is a process of becoming man.
—Jesus’ manhood grows throughout his life; finds completion in supreme moment of incarnation, his death, resurrection, and exaltation. The Incarnation in the Son itself redeems us.
3—Jesus’ Humiliation in the Service of God and His Heavenly Exaltation: The Redemptive Mystery of Christ
—“It was God who reconciled us to himself in Christ.” 2 Cor. 5:18
—Our redeemer is the living God himself, Father, Son, & Holy Spirit. He brought about redemption in the human nature of the 2nd person, the Son of God, who in union with the Father and together with him is the source of the life of the Holy Spirit.
4 phases of Jesus’ Redemptive Mystery:
(1) Initiative of the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit.
(2) Human response of Christ’s life to the Father’s initiative in sending Him…becoming obedient unto death.
(3) The Divine Response to Jesus’ obedience in the humiliation of his life. Jesus has become Lord, the Kyrios, meaning “the Mighty”.
(4) The sending of the Holy Spirit upon the world of men by the glorified Kyrios or Lord. Last phase of the mystery of Christ, between ascenscion and parousia, is the mystery of the sending of the Holy Spirit by Christ as the climax of his work of salvation.
—Christ redeems us in sanguine, through his blood. It is impossible to “spiritualize” Christ’s sacrifice, to make it merely an act of internal love. The act of love is embodied in the sacrifice of blood.
—The person of the humiliated and glorified Christ is the saving reality.
to be continued...
# posted by SeanPatrick @ 10:14 AM 
