Congregation of the Clergy

15 December 2001

S.E. Mons Angelo Scola

Rector of the Lateran Pontifical University

1. The Vatican II prospective

To look at today's theme - the theological sacramentality of Vatican II up to the present day – it is important to note that the nucleus of the theology of sacramentality of today focuses in on the expressions of no.13 in Fedes et ratio, it speaks on the horizons of sacramental revelation. Actually today's lecture that I should say, again in our days, it agrees almost exclusively with a letter / on ecclesiology on the document of the Vatican II Council. Without negating the objective importance of the constitution on Lumen gentium and Gaudium et spes – this renewal derives from this theology is for the life of the church. I think above all it calls upon the essentialness of the constitution of Dogma on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum, and of Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium. The organic study and consideration can help with the articulation of all the four constitutions, can help with the putting together the greatness of doctrine, pastoral and spiritual with its ultimate aim of ecumenism. In any case it helps to enter in the horizons of sacramental revelation.

In the panorama of today's theology the systematic reflection and critique on sacraments has the task of justifying the fact that through the revelation of Jesus Christ, to reach every person in every place and time, cannot but pass through the seven sacrament. Thinkers like Casel, Schillebeeckx, Semmelroth, De Lubac, Rahner e Balthasar, they had in some way already arrived at this sacramental awareness of Vatican II Constitution. In fact Dei Verbum develops a concept of revelation of its own of Dei Filius of the council of Vatican I. With Cardinal Henri De Lubac we could say that the Vatican II substitutes a "the idea cof abstract truth with the idea of a possible more practical truth, the idea of personal truth, that comes through history, working through History, from the womb of history, capable of being derived from history; the idea of this truth is the person of Jesus of Nazareth, the fullness of revelation"[1]. The novelty is found in the intuition of the profound unity between the absolute and the historical aspect, between necessity and freedom, which is implicated in the notion of the true reality of truth.

The unity of these dimensions, as revealed by Ratzinger, it is made possible from the fact that Dei Verbum, proposes truth as an event[2]. So the make up of Divine Revelation, without minimizing the important formulation of Dogma, uses a language in which the final truth which is Jesus Christ is revealed[3].

Also the Sacrosanctum Concilium, assumes the same perspective which it affirms in no 2 that liturgy posses "the characteristic of being at the same time both human and divine, visible but endowed with the reality of the invisible, fervent in action and dedicated to contemplation, present in the world and above all in the pilgrimage" (SC2). The reflection of Lumen Gentium, comes out of the Church as "sacrament that is to say the sign and instrument of the intimate union with God and the unity with the whole of humanity (LG1). Which gives the background to the prospective anthropological of pastoral ecclesiology characterised above all in the first part of Gaudium et Spes[4], It allows to consider revelation as a fact " that which came from the past and which continues to happen in faith[5]" (LG1). It is the event of an on going and ever new relationship between God and humanity.

As it is documeneted in Sacramental Theology. I think for example of names such as Ladriere, Gerken o Chauvet - that has developed even though it could argued, after the council, the sacrament is the actual environment that brings about the concrete revealed truth. To say it with Fides et ratio we must say therefore from the point of view of the horizons of sacramental revelation.

2. Revelation and Sacrament

We have said that speaking of sacramental horizon of revelation means presenting Jesus Christ as the living and personal event of truth. This is key to answer in recto to the popular objection to Christianity. How is it possible that a past event – and Jesus Christ has a definite time setting – be contemporary to every person in history? With Lessing^[6] we may ask: how is it possible for us, two thousand years after Christ, to overcome the "wide cursed chasm 6" separating us from Jesus Christ?

We see here the central ecclesiological question. If the Church is to be intrinsically mediation of Jesus Christ – Lumen Gentium – the question cannot be an aut-aut. Either the Church is able to propose again the event of Jesus Christ in the present in a way that today people may effectively encounter Him, or this event will be unquestionably out of date.

It follows that the Church may be inspired by the event, still needs to introduce itself to the world not as a medium of Jesus in history but as a "sacrament, i.e. the sign and instrument of the intimate union with God and of the holistic unity of humanity" (LG1).

The answer to this query takes us to the centre of sacramental theology, as it has been understood since Vatican II. The answer takes us to define Church as sacramentum radicale. This is the category that explains why the nature and mission of the Church are found in the mediation of Jesus Christ who died and is risen for the freedom of every person in every time. The Holy Writings, the communion within the Church and the sacrament are the forms of this mediation.

As sacramentum radicale the Church is not a self-sustaining reality, which comes ahead of the sacraments. On the contrary, the sacramentum radicale subsist in the seven sacraments. Among them, it is not difficult to recognize the centrality of Eucharist. It is in this sacrament that the Father anticipates the event of Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection.

Baptism, as well as Eucharist, participates to the sacramental fecundity deriving from the dying body of Christ, from which side blood and water come out. Confirmation, in relationship to baptism, enacts the work of the Spirit in relation to the Eucharist. Marriage, synthesis of sexual diversity, gift of self and life, expresses the Christ-Church relationship. (Eph. 5) The Priestly ordination is rooted in Jesus Christ who establishes himself as priest, victim and altar of his body. Reconciliation finds its source in Christ who carries on the cross the sin of the world and redeems it in Easter of Resurrection. With the Anointing of the sick the Church walks side by side with her children in illness and death. Thus assuring them that Jesus Christ is resurrection and life (John11:25ff).

In this outlined vision, the liturgical celebration takes centre stage. Biblical and ecclesial mediations become true mediation of the Jesus Christ event only in respecting the precise modalities required by sacramental action. For instance, a Christian community is such when it recognizes that the Bishop is the one who guides the Church because he presides the celebration, not that he presides because is the head of the Church. The same we can say of the Holy Scriptures, which we have to free from the emotional limitations found when read subjectively. The Word gives its meaning when read with the objective liturgical criterion. Any other process of abstraction will not be able to receive the interpretation offered by the liturgy, and being non liturgical is non communal as well.

Human freedom truly encounters Jesus Christ as contemporary in the liturgical-sacramental experience. When lived in this sacramental logic ^[7], all experiences and relationships may constitute sacramental ways the Father uses to challenge our freedom and us.

3. Sacramental logic and life as vocation

Fides et ratio calls us to a sacramental horizon of revelation and unveils the true nature of the human existence. Life in itself is a vocation since the person is called to faith, to choose the Father who, in all circumstances and relationships, in the sacraments, wants him / her as son in the Son.

There are many consequences to this way of perceiving life. One is to better determine what we mean by discernment. In fact, discernment can be understood only within the wider concept of verification. Here the specific call to a particular state of life is sub-ordinate to the concept of life as vocation^[8].

4. Jesus Christ, the Saviour present in every choice of freedom

We may say that in the sacraments, and in the sacramental logic that comes from them, the Truth is effectively communicated because it is a living and personal event. An event that is kept alive in the Church, a community of people. Jesus Christ, a living reality, may be communicated only by another living reality: the Church.

The consequences for Christian life deriving from what we said are not minimal. The Christ cannot simply be the pretext of faith for a person. Such a person will end up being a visionary or a believer of tales. The Christ cannot become the result of human reasoning or the apex of religious feelings. Sprouting from the Sacrament and sacramental logic, the Christ is the original event that, through the Church, Mater et Magistra, meets the person in every situation and relationship. Christ is the Saviour present in every action of my freedom.