Sacred Mysteries

[presbyter]

Or to put it another way TT - when you read you (in virtue of your baptism) are acting in the person of Christ. You're a sacrament. "The Word was made flesh and lived among us" - when you read - that's you!

[Tsume Tsuyu]

Double Gosh!! - and a lot of other things, not for public consumption!

I'm not sure whether to thank you or not, P. I've always taken my ministry very seriously - practised, and made sure I read the bits before and after to put the reading into context. And I've always believed that I was proclaiming, but...

when you read you (in virtue of your baptism) are acting in the person of Christ. You're a sacrament. "The Word was made flesh and lived among us" - when you read - that's you!

....WOW!

TT

[presbyter]

He explains that the first level of Mystery is God....... mystery at a second level, 1 Timothy 3:16 (He was manifested in the flesh...... a third level of mystery. Christ has to become humankind's contemporary. This is achieved by the Liturgy, which some of the older prayers of the Roman sacramentaries called the mysterium.

Perhaps now we can see something of what the late Mgr Crichton is saying.
Christ is the Sacrament - "He who sees me sees the Father"

Christ is revealed and truly present to us "sacramentally" today, through the entire action of the Liturgy.

Something tells me that if TT is surprised at discovering this, she would be far from alone. What can we say? There is quite some way to go in Liturgical Formation in these islands?

A little more on how the Early Church thought of the entire Mass as "Sacred Mysteries" to follow........if anyone's interested.

[presbyter]

I may be wrong, but I still think it comes down to the bits we don't actually understand, but we believe.

Hmmmmmm - now without realising it TT, there could be a real can of worms you are opening here. This was one of the hotly debated issues at the Reformation. Are the Sacraments signs of Christ's presence only for those who believe that they are? Or are they actions of Christ that do not depend on faith?

For example - Fred is an avowed atheist but he is happy to go along with Bertha to Mass for their child's First Communion. Fred has no Christian faith at all, so is Christ present to him "sacramentally" throughout the ritual of the Mass? Or to put it another way, does Christ's presence depend on one's psychological state?

In Catholic theology, the Sacraments are indeed actions of Christ. He is present to a person in the congregation, whether that person believes he is or not. But if you can get hold of a Book of Common Prayer, see what Cranmer did to belief in Christ's presence in the Eucharist, for example. He makes the presence dependent on the person's faith.

[Merseysider]

In the current issue of M&L (31/1) – that's just to prove I read it – Aidan Rossiter says (p26) that Mysterium Fidei, in Latin, is a statement rather than an invitation – ie The mystery of our faith – provided I'm not misunderstanding him, which I might as I usually read Mary Maryat in Woman's Realm. In this case, is the presider referring to what has just happened, transubstantiation, or to what we then acclaim: death, resurrection, second coming.

I always understood that the acclamation must contain these three elements – death, resurrection, second coming. In which case, why does Ireland have the optional My Lord and My God? (and can you really sing that with umph?) and are there other choices in any other coutries?

Suspect this could be one for Presbyter.