Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex

The final installment in this series will look at the correspondence between human experience and the Sacraments. I should first mention that when I say experience, I do not mean by it the modern sense that it is a completely private and unique event that is not universalizable.

There is certainly an aspect of experience that is personal because it is conditioned by one’s sex, one’s cultural background, the events of one’s life, one’s perceptive skills, etc. However, there is an objective aspect that is common to all human beings because it is given by an objective reality that is publicly available to everyone and because all human beings operate on this reality via a rational intellect and a common set of apparatus for sense perception. In the case of sacramental experience, there are further objective features. Each Sacrament is administered in a common rite that is objectively defined by the reality that takes place; namely, the pouring forth of sanctifying grace. However, this experience does have a subjective aspect to it, including the above sources and from fact that it is conditioned by one’s preparation for and cooperation with sacramental grace.

Sacraments make perfect sense from a metaphysical perspective as we have seen. We have a need for restoration, for re-creation from our fallen states. This is remedied by access to sanctifying grace obtained through the Sacraments. However, from an experiential aspect, we can also see that matter mediating this grace is important in terms of human experience.

Sacraments are visible signs of the supernatural grace that is being bestowed. Let’s look at this in terms of an analogous experience. If we draw an analogy to experiences that have both material and non-material aspects to them, such as obtaining knowledge, we can see the importance of the material aspect of Sacraments.

For this example, imagine that you are going to go to an historical site filled with much meaning for you. Perhaps a pilgrimage to the Holy Land might be the most appropriate here. Now, in order to better appreciate this trip, you decide to study everything you can obtain about the locations you are going to visit. You study the history of each site, it’s geography and topography, it’s climate, etc. You even view pictures and movies about the locations. Now, cognitively you have a great amount of information about what you are going to see.  In fact, when you get there it is likely that you may add only a little in the way of additional substantive information.

However, when you finally arrive, you find that your experience complements the previously obtained knowledge in an almost ineffable manner. Certainly, there are things that you can point to that add to your knowledge in a substantive way such as perhaps scale and positional relationships, but the vividness of your existing knowledge is enhanced and made much more real. Your previous knowledge was obtained in an almost completely non-material manner. Now, you are appropriating the information through physical contact. You see things directly; you touch, smell, hear and even taste what previously you had only read about. This knowledge is now much more real for you because it is integrated with your entire person.

We are composite beings, both soul and body, matter and form. When we experience things directly through our senses, we understand them in a way that was not possible before we came into physical contact with the locations and artifacts of which we previously had only a remote, cognitive knowledge.

In a similar way with the Sacraments, the grace that is being poured out upon us is received in a way that is much more real to us when we experience the sacramental rite with the physical mediation of the grace than if the grace were to be given without it. The matter makes the experience much more real for us for the very reason that we are both body and soul. The experience of what is happening in our souls is more integrated into ourselves when it simultaneously happens in our entire persons, body and soul.

This is why it is appropriate that we experience grace in both aspects of our human nature. God created us and gave us the Sacraments because He knows what we need. Sacraments are not magic; nor are they are simply psychological experiences. They are what you would expect to be given to human beings as an integral part of the divine condescension by which God has chosen to save us.