“The sacraments are efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us. The visible rites by which the sacraments are celebrated signify and make present the graces proper to each sacrament. They bear fruit in those who receive them with the required dispositions.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1131). To help unpack this dense paragraph and take us beyond what we learned as children during catechesis, Roger W. Nutt will take us through his pick of the five best books on the sacraments in general.
Roger W. Nutt, S.T.L., S.T.D., is Provost of Ave Maria University. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on the Sacraments and Christology. He co-directs the Aquinas Center for Theological Renewal with Dr. Michael Dauphinais and Dr. Steven Long. His research focuses on Christology and Sacramental Theology, and especially the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas. He is the author of three books and many articles on the sacraments: Thomas Aquinas’ ‘De Unione Verbi Incarnati’ (Peeters Publishers, 2015); General Principles of Sacramental Theology (The Catholic University of America Press, 2017); and To Die is Gain: A Theological (re-)Introduction to the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick for Clergy, Laity, Caregivers, and Everyone Else (Emmaus Academic, 2022). His articles and chapters have appeared in publications such as Nova et Vetera, Gregorianum, Louvain Studies, The Thomist, Harvard Theological Review, Angelicum, Antiphon: A Journal of Liturgical Renewal, and the Oxford Handbook of the Reception of Aquinas.
- The Cleansing of the Heart: The Sacraments as Instrumental Causes in the Thomistic Tradition
by Reginald Lynch O.P. - Touched by Christ: The Sacramental Economy
(also available for Kindle)
by Lawrence Feingold - The Spirit of the Liturgy
by Card. Joseph Ratzinger - On Baptism, Against the Donatists
(also available for Kindle)
by St. Augustine - The Mysteries
by St. Ambrose
First of all, could you tell us a bit about what has drawn you to focus your research on the sacraments?
A couple of things have influenced my interest in Catholic theology.
I am a convert to the Catholic faith. I was raised in a very non-liturgical form of Reformed Protestantism: a branch of the Baptist denomination. I was not exposed as a child to the Pre-Reformation theological tradition of the Church. Quite frankly, the Christian community that I belonged to had some fairly strong anti-Catholic sentiments. It was only when I became an undergraduate and had some of the basic beliefs challenged at a secular university—some of the beliefs that I held—that I had to look a little more deeply than the Reformed theology that I was raised in to see if the faith could stand up to how it was presented at the school where I was an undergraduate.
I was deeply struck by the great figures of the Catholic theological tradition, particularly Saint Augustine, then Saint Thomas Aquinas. I fell in love with the Church’s teaching on the real presence. It was really a desire to be in full communion with the Church—to be able to receive Holy Communion—that was a major catalyst in my conversion.
Through that experience, I decided that I would pursue the study of Catholic theology at the graduate level and focus on Saint Thomas, especially on the Third Part of the Summa theologiae, where he treats both Christology and the sacraments.
So, I have never really been able to separate my academic study of theology from my own profession of faith because the Pre-Reformed theological tradition of the church had such a deep impact on my own personal life and my own faith-journey.
You have written a general study on the sacraments, Principles of Sacramental Theology. Could you tell us a bit about that book, which gives an overview of today's theme?
That work was an attempt to fill a lacuna in the current literature on sacramental theology, which used to be a standard part of any substantive course or program of studies in theology. It covers the material that applies to all of the sacraments. Sometimes it was called the material or the general principles of the sacraments in common. But we often do not think about it today. What is a sacrament? What are its basic effects? How do they confer those effects? What must the minister intend? What is its requisite matter and form? Those are all questions that apply in some way to each of the seven sacraments.
When one was formed in Catholic theology, one usually studied the general principles prior to studying each of the seven sacraments. That is still the case in some institutions today.
But in the English language, for nearly five decades, no substantive new work on the general principles had been published. There was a standard work from an older generation, Principles of Sacramental Theology by the Jesuit Bernard Leeming. Mine was really an attempt to fill that gap in the literature because of the historical problem.
This problem impacts other branches of theology. We see it especially in biblical studies. It has impacted sacramental theology during the last couple of decades. The sacraments were studied as rites. So, you could study thirteenth-century Eucharistic prayers or the fourth-century architectural styles and churches, or eight-century baptismal fonts. Some of those historical studies are very fruitful. But what happened is that liturgical studies in some ways swallowed sacramental theology, especially the general principles of sacramental theology. So, students were introduced to the sacraments as rites of worship that could be studied historically. However, in the last few decades, students were not always getting those general principles that really transcend particular historical contexts and are very important for understanding the spiritual significance and importance that the sacraments have in the life of the Church. For example, the invisible effects of the sacraments, such as sacramental grace and sacramental character are very important to understanding the centrality that the Lord intended the sacraments to have in the life of the Church. However, those types of things are not really accessible through liturgical studies. What I am attempting to do in the book is to provide an accessible introduction for students of sacramental theology so that they can understand how these general principles are really the foundation for understanding the place and role that the sacraments are to have in the life of the Church.
You've mentioned how this is important for students of theology. I imagine that it is also of vital importance in catechesis. For example, in the recent diocesan synods that have taken place throughout the world, there are proposals coming from some local churches for the ordination of women as deacons. That touches upon a principle of sacramental theology: that the sacraments are not instituted by the Church, but by Christ. The Church can institute certain parts of the liturgical rites in which the sacrament is celebrated, such as the washing of the feet in the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Good Thursday. However, underlying these proposals there seems to be an assumption that the Church can extend the sacrament of holy orders—at least its first degree—to women. The Church’s understanding would be, “Well, that is not possible. The sacrament was instituted in this way by Christ, not by the Church. We don't have any power over that.” So, there seems to be something amiss in catechesis about the sacraments. Do you think that the Church is not doing something right in its catechesis on the sacraments?
Yes, I do. Some of the works that I have selected touch on these things. But, to answer the broad arc of your question, sometimes in class— or when I when I speak about these topics at the more popular level—I will ask the following rhetorical question. “What happened to all the miracles?” If you read the Old Testament and the New Testament, it seems like God was constantly manifesting himself and convincing people of his reality through radical miraculous interventions. One of the basic points that has been lost in the life of the Church today is that the Lord instituted the seven sacraments to be the seven principal rites of worship in the life of the Church, and the certainty that we have in faith that the Lord operates through those seven rites, to transform our hearts and justify us by way of the gift of grace, is totally underappreciated. We have these visible signs that the Lord gave the Church to communicate invisible realities and to deepen the communion that we have with him, as he is alive and risen in heaven now. However, there has not been a dynamic catechesis on the fact that the Risen Lord continues to minister to us through these visible signs in the Church. In fact, they are the highest forms of prayer and the deepest forms of intimacy that we can have with the Lord.
"We would not have liturgical rites in the Church if the Lord had not instituted the seven sacraments. We do not and we should not get our knowledge about the sacraments from the liturgy, but the theological meaning of the sacraments should illumine for us what the rites mean."
The rites seem like historical constructions that can be manipulated and not as the principal gifts that the Lord gave to the Church to sustain her and to lead us into eternal life. This connects to the point that I made earlier. There is a problem with an overly historical approach to liturgical studies. We can forget that we would not have liturgical rites in the Church if the Lord had not instituted the seven sacraments. We do not and we should not get our knowledge about the sacraments from the liturgy, but the theological meaning of the sacraments should illumine for us what the rites mean.
1.
The first book on your list is Fr. Reginal Lynch’s Cleansing of the Heart, which takes for its title a phrase of St. Augustine’s. This is a study on St. Thomas Aquinas’s account of sacramental causality. Why is this theme important and what does St. Thomas teach us about it?
Fr. Lynch is one of the finest sacramental theologians in the Anglophone world, and I learned a great deal from studying his book carefully. St Thomas’s teaching on sacramental causality is important because it helps us understand that the Lord connected spiritual effects— [spiritual effects] that we need to be conformed and transformed into having union with God—to the operation of the sacraments. When we talk about sacramental causality it can seem to the modern ear that we are not talking in a very spiritual way. In the post-Newtonian world, causality is understood in terms of force. In a strictly a-metaphysical Newtonian understanding of the world, things impact each other by crashing into one other. In the deeper understanding of causality, that we receive from the ancient world, a cause is a many-layered explanation or account for why something is the way it is. We are all familiar with Aristotle's four causes. There are really four ways of understanding something: the material component, the efficient component, the formal component, the final component. So, when we speak of sacramental causality, we are not explaining how the Lord impacts us by way of physical force, but how he brings about the supernatural and spiritual effects of grace and character into the life of the soul.
The Church does have an official doctrine of sacramental causality. It is couched within the three Latin words ex opere operato, namely, that the sacraments cause or bring about their effects “from the work worked”. This precise doctrine of sacramental causality connects the celebration of the sacraments with the ministry that Christ continues to exercise in the Church from heaven. It explains to the faithful why the sacraments are so important for the Christian, spiritual, and moral life.
Father Lynch is a wonderful expositor of Saint Thomas and the commentatorial tradition on St. Thomas’s doctrine of instrumental causality in the third part of the Summa theologiae. St. Thomas introduces the question of the sacraments (q. 60) after treating [the hypostatic union and the life of Christ] for fifty-nine questions. For St. Thomas, it is very clear that the efficacy and power of the sacraments in the life of the Church is something that follows upon the significance of the union of God and man in Christ. Fr. Lynch does a wonderful job of unpacking the significance of the general doctrine of sacramental theology and then tracing the development of St Thomas’s teaching of this doctrine, especially in its most mature articulation in the Third Part of the Summa theologiae.
Here is one of the really important things that Fr. Lynch teaches. He derives it from the commentatorial tradition, especially from Cardinal Cajetan. When we talk about the sacraments as instrumental causes, it is perhaps best not to think of tools as instruments. Sometimes St. Thomas uses those analogies: the artisan taking up a tool and bringing about an effect in marble or wood. However, he relates it specifically to musical instruments. Cardinal Cajetan uses the example of a harp. The instrument is taken up by the musician, who produces musical notes through its own proper instrumentality, but primarily though his own motion of playing it. That is a wonderful analogy for understanding how the effects of grace and character are conferred upon the recipient of the sacraments by our Lord and by the minister who celebrates. It is not as if the sacraments on the one hand are just passive conduits through which grace passes. They do not confer supernatural effects through their own finite and created significations. They do so by being taken up by the Lord as his instruments. They bring about higher effects because they are moved by a higher motion. Fr. Lynch does a very fine job of treating these points with great nuance.
2.
The second book on your list is a recent textbook on sacramental theology in general: Prof. Lawrence Feingold’s Touched by Christ: The Sacramental Economy. What makes this a good book to read?
There are a couple of reasons why I really admire this book. I think Lawrence Feingold is one of the finest theological pedagogues in the English language. He is not only able to penetrate the truths of the faith with the highest academic rigour, but at the same time, his works are always ordered in an incredibly wise fashion that is informed by their immanent structure within the faith.
In this book, he has treated in a single volume all seven sacraments in detail, while engaging key historical sources, magisterial teachings, the Fathers of the Church, general principles (as they come up in relation to each of the sacraments), and even disputed questions and current open debates. He has done all that in one volume. Someone who reads this book can come away with a very advanced understanding of both the speculative doctrine of the sacraments and how it is informed by key teachings in the history of the Church: those of saints, doctors, and magisterial interventions, such as the Council of Trent.
It is easier to find good one volume treatments of single sacraments, such the Eucharist or baptism. It is very difficult to find a book like this that treats all seven sacraments in a single volume in such a detailed and exhaustive fashion. If someone is looking for a good one stop shop, Prof. Feingold's Touched by Christ is very tough to beat.
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3.
The third book on your list is Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s The Spirit of the Liturgy, published in 2000. Ostensibly, this book is not on the sacraments as such. The liturgy is broader than the sacraments. Not every liturgical act or celebration is a sacrament. On the other hand, the liturgy is sacramental. Indeed, as you pointed out earlier, the liturgy comes from the sacraments. Have you chosen this book because it can help us appreciate the liturgical dimension of the sacraments?
Exactly that. That is precisely the reason why I admire this book and use it in my own teaching on the sacraments. In less than 250 pages, you receive a very deep appreciation for the substantive liturgical questions and of the way in which a deeply Catholic theologian treats these topics. For example, there is the question of space and time in the liturgy; the orientation that the minister and the faithful should have; altars and tabernacles; a theology of music appropriate to the liturgy.
"People don't understand that in divine revelation there is a theology to the fundamental liturgical questions, such as the question of music. It is not a matter of taste, or opinion, or power. Rather, God teaches us in divine revelation how to appropriately worship him: how we ought to use our bodies, our voices, and so on, in worship."
The biggest service that Cardinal Ratzinger gives to the church in this book, especially for our times, is found in the very first chapter. There, he gives a careful analysis of Moses’s back-and-forth with Pharaoh. “Let my people go so that they may worship me!” Pharaoh equivocates several times and tries to set conditions. “Well, you guys can go, but don't bring the women,” or, “You guys can go, but don't bring the animals.” The point that Joseph Ratzinger makes is that the liturgy is not a product of human preference or political power, but it is given from on high. This certainly applies to the sacraments and to the extension of the sacramental liturgy throughout the day in the Liturgy of the Hours (the Divine Office). This insight is so important today in the Church, certainly here in America, where partisan categories are almost constitutive of how people view reality. People don't understand that in divine revelation there is a theology to the fundamental liturgical questions, such as the question of music. It is not a matter of taste, or opinion, or power. Rather, God teaches us in divine revelation how to appropriately worship him: how we ought to use our bodies, our voices, and so on, in worship. If there is just one take-away from The Spirit of the Liturgy, it is that many of the basic facets of the Church’s sacramental liturgy throughout the ages are extensions of basic truths of divine Revelation, and not that of, say, political preference or taste. That is such an important topic with the liturgy today. There is a divinely revealed way to think through and wrestle with these questions.
His book was based in turn on Romano Guardini’s Spirit of the Liturgy, Guardini has a chapter on the seriousness of the liturgy. There he makes a similar point. The liturgy is not just a matter of aesthetic taste, but a very serious matter, which, as you mentioned, has its roots in Revelation.
That's right.
4.
For the final two books, you have gone back to the Church Fathers. First, there is St. Augustine’s On Baptism Against the Donatists. Have you selected it because his confutation of the Donatists’ erroneous conception of the sacraments is still timely? If so, could you explain who the Donatists were and what they believed?
That's exactly why I have selected this work. I use it in my teaching to draw out some points that are very relevant to living the Christian faith today. There is a very real way in which Saint Augustine, because of the Donatist controversy, had to wrestle with some foundational positions regarding the sacraments. In doing so, he was able to shed some points of clarity and lasting value on the sacraments.
"Augustine was able to pinpoint a central truth about the sacraments. Not every validly celebrated sacrament is efficacious to the recipient. What is needed when a validly celebrated sacrament is not efficacious to the recipient—especially in an abiding sacrament like baptism, or orders, or confirmation—is not a recelebration of the sacrament, but a removal of the obstacle to its efficacy."
Formally, the Donatists were a schismatic group, even though they did have two ideas about the faith which were heretical. However, within the context that Augustine writes, they are essentially a splinter group. Formally, they were schismatics who would not commune or worship with the Christians of the Church, united with their Bishop. They thought the Christians of the Church, united with their Bishop, were too lax in their practice of the faith and in the administration of the sacraments. So, the Donatists rebaptised Catholics who joined their communities. As a result, Augustine had to determine what to do if a Donatist, baptised with water and the Trinitarian formula, decided to leave the Donatists and come to the Church.
In a sense, this is a contemporary question. Many Christians practice rebaptism. Augustine was able to pinpoint a central truth about the sacraments. Not every validly celebrated sacrament is efficacious to the recipient. What is needed when a validly celebrated sacrament is not efficacious to the recipient—especially in an abiding sacrament like baptism, or orders, or confirmation—is not a recelebration of the sacrament, but a removal of the obstacle to its efficacy. In the case of the Donatists, if one renounced their error and did penance, the efficacy of the sacrament would take effect. As Augustine puts it, they misunderstood the difference between the celebration of the sacrament and the working out of the sacrament.
You do not need to recelebrate baptism for it to be worked out. You need to repent and remove the obstacle of its being worked out.
This historical insight of Augustine is important. He really started to nail down in deeply systematic terms what later becomes the doctrine of sacramental character. There are some sacraments that have a permanent effect, one that abides beyond the celebration of the external rite. So, if someone falls away, or sins, or lapses you do not rebaptise them. You turn them to repentance so that the abiding presence of baptism can be revivified. The basic point is that there is a difference between the celebration of the sacrament and the sacrament's unfolding in the life of the believer of the sacrament. This has very significant implications for how the church understands those sacraments that have abiding effects (baptism, confirmation, and orders) and why the Church has never practised rebaptism. In fact, the Church considers the practise of rebaptism a very serious error or erroneous practise. It really degrades the significance and dignity of the validly celebrated baptism. There is nothing wrong with the gift of baptism, but sometimes we frustrate it from flowering in our lives. Augustine did the Church a tremendous service by being able to unravel some of those threads.
5.
Finally, there is On the Mysteries by St. Ambrose, the bishop of Milan who helped bring about St. Augustine’s conversion. These are homilies that he gave to the neophytes during Easter week. The mysteries to which the title refers are the sacraments. Mysterion was the Greek word that that the Church used back then to the sacraments. Ambrose was initiating the neophytes into the sacramental life of the Church. How can these homilies help us deepen our sacramental life?
A couple of very important points about this work are underappreciated in the life of the Church today and in much theology.
In the early church, catechesis was pre-baptismal and post-baptismal. The pre-baptismal catechesis was called proto-catechesis and then the post baptismal catechesis really locked the neophytes through the significance of the mysteries that they had received. Proto-catechesis was very much ordered to conversion and the amending of one’s life. The post-baptismal catechesis held people’s hands as they journeyed into the light. These catecheses by Saint Ambrose are on baptism, confirmation, and the Holy Eucharist: the three sacraments of initiation. They are post-baptismal catechesis.
So, the first lesson that I think we should take away is that becoming a Christian, converting, being received into the Church, is not only a pre-Easter preparation. In the early Church, the very significant and substantive formation received after the Easter Vigil was of paramount importance. You teach people how to prepare to be Christian. But then, when they are received into the Church, you also need to teach them how to live out their faith. Faith in harmony with the life of the Church: that is what San Ambrose is doing in this work.
"Becoming a Christian, converting, being received into the Church, is not only a pre-Easter preparation. In the early Church, the very significant and substantive formation received after the Easter Vigil was of paramount importance."
We get wonderful sacramental catecheses from many of the Fathers. The most famous are probably St Cyril of Jerusalem's Catechetical Instructions. St. Ambrose has another set, called On the Sacraments. One is called On the Mysteries and the other On the Sacraments because those words in the early church are essentially interchangeable. One is a transliteration of a Greek word, and one is the Latin translation of that word: mysterion.
The second point that Ambrose accentuates in this work is that baptism was never meant to be a standalone sacrament sustaining the Christian life. There is an order: baptism, confirmation, and Eucharist. This reaches something like a matrimonial consummation between the Lord and the soul. In Latin Christianity, we have divided by time the celebration of baptism, confirmation, and the Holy Eucharist when it comes to children. Generally, they are received by children many years apart and penance comes before First Communion. So, by the time that one ends up receiving confirmation it can seem insignificant in one's spiritual life or a small footnote to baptism and Holy Communion. For those interested in patristic exegesis, it is fascinating how Ambrose quotes passages from the Song of Songs, the love letter, and couches it in terms of the relationship between the soul or the Church and God. He quotes it progressively throughout the work to indicate that, when one receives these sacraments, their relationship with the Lord is deepened and fulfilled in the poetically romantic way that is played out in in the Song of Songs. That is a really important takeaway for the Church today. People often rush to have the newborn baby baptised. But by the time that the newborn baby is, many years later, of the age of confirmation, perhaps their Christian initiation has lost its significance. Ambrose is emphatic that the external celebration of the sacrament that they saw through the water, through the bread and wine, and through the anointing that they receive, is really a deep spiritual fulfilment of the relationship that God intended to have with them and their souls through all three sacraments.
