Seminar paper

This is my seminar papar that I presented to as partial fulfillment of my third year theological studies.

A

Seminar Paper
On

Augustine’s Contributions to
A
Theology Of Sacraments.

Presented

By
Sanil Michael SCJ.
(T04/451)

To
Fr. Mathew Parinthirickal OFM Cap.

October- 2006
Vijnananilayam - Janampet

Introduction

Sacraments in general

2.1 Sacraments of Initiation
2.2 Sacraments of Healing
2.3 Sacraments of Union

Fathers of the Church.
3.1 Origen
3.2 Tertullian
3.3 St. Ambrose
3.4 Some other important Fathers of the Church.

St. Augustine’s contribution to the Theology of Sacraments.
4.1 The Historical Background.
4.1.1 CAUSES OF THE SCHISM
4.1.2 Augustine- The Theologian
4.2 Sacraments as Sacred Sign.
4.3 The Sacramental Character
4.4 Christ is the Minster of the sacrament.

conclusion
Bibliography.

1
Introduction.
Sacraments in Latin means something holy, an outward sign of something sacred. In Christianity, a sacrament is commonly defined as having been instituted by Jesus and consisting of a visible sign of invisible grace. Christianity is divided as to the number and operation of sacraments. The traditional view held by Orthodox, Roman Catholics, and certain Anglicans counts the sacraments as seven— Eucharist, baptism, confirmation, penance, anointing of the sick, matrimony (see marriage ), and holy orders (see orders, holy ). These are held to produce grace in the soul of the recipient by the very performance of the sacramental act (ex opere operato); the recipient need only have the right intention. Most Protestant denominations recognize two sacraments—baptism and communion, or the Lord's Supper. Protestants hold generally that it is the faith of the participant, itself a gift of God, rather than the power of the sacramental act that produces grace. A conventional division of the seven sacraments sets apart the "sacraments of the dead," i.e., baptism and penance, because they are for souls in a state of sin; the rest, "sacraments of the living," are conferred on souls in a state of grace[i].
The Sacraments of the Church have much in common with religious rituals; but in the understanding of the Church, Sacraments have a meaning that goes far beyond that of a ritual. Throughout history Christians have given the seven Sacraments pride of place in the Catholic Church. In the aftermath of Vatican Council II , a double emphasis was placed on the Sacraments while the Sacraments continue to be seen as brining sanctifying grace to the individual, they are also recognized as dynamic action of the church which being about and nourish the savific relationship of Christian through the Church to God and to the world.[ii]

Sacraments are seen originating in the person of Jesus Christ who is considered the basic sacrament. Through the ministry of the Church, they are celebrated and make it possible for Christian believers to encounter the Risen Christ.[iii]

Sacraments are expressions of our faith relationship to God in the Church. The church community offers us these (Liturgical) expressions to build and strengthen our union with God our Father. In these liturgical expressions, god reaches out to us to share Himself with us and, at the same time, persons relate to each other and to God through and in community. Sacraments are signs of the Kingdom of in the world.

Under these lights and understanding let us proceeds to know more about the Sacraments.

Sacraments to be seen as brining sanctifying grace to the individual, they are also recognized as dynamic actions of the church which bring about and nourish the salvific relationship of Christians through the church to god and to the world.
Sacraments are “powers that comes forth” from the Body of Christ, which is ever- living and life- giving. They are actions of the Holy Spirit at work in the Body, the church. They are “masterworks of God” in the new and everlasting convent.

• 
  2 Sacraments in General
  
  Without and adequate and proper understanding of the Church there is the danger that the sacraments be considered more or less semi magical actions that are believed to make grace by their ritual performance. The fathers of Vatican II presented the precise theological context for comprehending these sings of faith. The constitution on Sacred Liturgy also of the Church as a Sacrament: - For the tremendous sacrament which is the whole Church arose from the side of Christ as he slept on the cross[i]. The word Sacrament means a sacred sign or symbol that effects or causes grace. According to Karl Rahner: Christ in his historical existence is both reality and sign, sacramentum and res sacrmenti, of the redemptive grace of God, which through him no longer, as it did before his coming, rules high over the world as the as yet hidden will of the remote, transcendent God, but in him is given and established in the world, and manifested there[ii].
  The different meaning of the term:-
  Å Sacrament: - Jesus Christ, sign of salvation who works salvation.[iii]
  Å Sacrament: - The Church, sign of salvation, which works salvation as instrument or Christ[iv].
  Å Sacrament: - the seven sacred signs instituted by Jesus ( and determined by the church) as the means to be used by the Church for our salvation[v].
  The role of the sacraments in the Church was clearly set forth in the Constitution on the Liturgy: - just as Christ was sent by the Father, He Himself sent Apostles, filled with the Holy Spirit, and for the same purpose: that they should preach the good news to every creature and thus announce that the son of God, by his death and resurrection, had freed us from the power of Satan and death, and carried us over into the Father’s Kingdom. Not only this, however; they were also to enact what they were announcing through sacrifice and sacraments, the things around which the whole of liturgical life revolves.
  
  Are sacraments necessary? Almighty God can and does give grace to men in answer to their internal aspirations and prayers without the use of any external sign or ceremony. This will always be possible, because God, grace, and the soul are spiritual beings. God is not restricted to the use of material, visible symbols in dealing with men; the sacraments are not necessary in the sense that they could not have been dispensed with. But, if it is known that God has appointed external, visible ceremonies as the means by which certain graces are to be conferred on men, then in order to obtain those graces it will be necessary for men to make use of those Divinely appointed means. These truth theologians express by saying that the sacraments are necessary, not absolutely but only hypothetically, i.e., in the supposition that if we wish to obtain a certain supernatural end we must use the supernatural means appointed for obtaining that end. In this sense the Council of Trent (Sess. VII, can. 4) declared heretical those who assert that the sacraments of the New Law are superfluous and not necessary, although all are not necessary for each individual. It is the teaching of the Catholic Church and of Christians in general that, whilst God was nowise bound to make use of external ceremonies as symbols of things spiritual and sacred, it has pleased Him to do so, and this is the ordinary and most suitable manner of dealing with men. Writers on the sacraments refer to this as the necessitas convenientiae, the necessity of suitableness. It is not really a necessity, but the most appropriate manner of dealing with creatures that are at the same time spiritual and corporeal. In this assertion all Christians are united: it is only when we come to consider the nature of the sacramental signs that
  
  
  2.1 Sacraments of Initiation.
  
  The Sacraments of Initiation – Baptism, Confirmation and the Eucharist – lay the foundations of every Christian life. “The sharing in the divine nature given to men through the grace of Christ bears a certain likeness to the origin development and nourishing of natural life. The faithful are born anew by baptism, strengthened by the sacrament of Confirmation, and receive in the Eucharist the food of eternal life. By means of these Sacraments of Christian initiation, they thus receive in increasing measure the treasures of the divine life and advance toward the perfection of charity.[vi]
  
  2.2 Sacraments of Healing:
  
  Through the sacraments of Christian Initiation, man receives the new life of Christ. Now we carry this life “In earthen vessels”, and it remains “hidden with Christ in God”[vii]. We still in our “earthly tent”, “Subject to suffering, illness and death[viii] . This new life as a child of god can be weakened and even lost by sin[ix].
  
  The Lord Jesus Christ, physician of our should and bodies , who forgave the sins of the paralytic and restored him to bodily health[x], has willed that his Church continue, in the power of the Holy Spirit, his work of healing and salvation, even among her own members. This is the purpose of the two sacraments of healing: the sacrament of Penance and the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick.
  
  2.3 Sacraments of Union.
  
  The two sacraments, Holy Orders and Matrimony, are directed towards the salvation of others, if they contribute as well to personal salvation, it is thought service to others that they do so. They confer a particular mission in the Church and serve to build up the People of God[xi].
  Through these sacraments those already consecrated by baptism and Confirmation[xii] for the common priesthood of all the faithful can receive particular consecrations. Those who received the sacrament of Holy Orders are consecrated in Christ’s name “to feed the Church by the word and grace of God[xiii]”. One their part, “Christian’s spouses are fortified and, as it were, consecrated for the duties and dignity of their sate by a special sacrament[xiv]”.
  
  
  3 Fathers of the Church.
  During the time of the Fathers of The Church, the term Mysterion expressed what God had done in the world. It was the glory of God that was seen in his creation. The term mysterion was understood as the secret thing-the invisible reality- that had now become known through the visible reality in the world. In time, especially in the East, the sacramental symbols were referred to as mysteries. The Eastern approach stresses the glorious action of God in the world; the Western approach underlines the free response that a person makes and therefore the human effort that is required when a sacrament is celebrated. Both aspects are valid and complementary in constituting the sacramental action.[xv]
  
  The fathers of church were aware that the conferring of grace took place through sensible sings. But these sensible signs included many more realities than the seven sacraments since their notion of sacramental signs extended to all objects that symbolized the divine saving presence in the world. The fathers mostly dealt with the sacraments of initiation in general; they did not theologize on the sacraments in the manner of the scholastics who were concerned about the mode through which the sacraments caused sanctifying grace in a person.
  
  
  
  
  3.1 Origen(c.185-254)
  As head of the school of Alexandria; Origen used allegory to explain the scriptures. This method was applied to the sacraments. He saw them as signs but could not offer a criterion to distinguish the sacramental signs from others.
  
  As Danielou (Origen esp. 42-52) states succinctly, Origen does not see clearly the importance of sacramental economy in the life of Christianity, and his spiritualizing tendencies make him deprecate to some extent the essential, visible aspects of Christian worship[xvi].
  
  The sanctifying power of the sacrament is in the word that is said over the material reality and not in the material reality itself although it is sanctified by the Word of God and prayer. Besides, for a licit and fruitful reception of sacraments on the part of the adult, certain dispositions are necessary:
  
  That which is sanctified through the word of God and prayer does not of its very nature sanctify him who avails himself of its very nature sanctify him who avails himself of it. If this were the case, it would sanctify even him that eats unworthily of the Bread of the Lord, and no one would become infirm or weak on account of his food, not would they fall asleep. Paul indicated something of this kind in the saying: ‘This is why many among you are infirm and weak, and why many sleep”. In regard to his Bread of the Lord, therefore, there is advantage to him, who avails himself of it, when, with undefiled mind and pure conscience, he partakes of the Bread. Therefore, neither by not eating, that is by not eating the Bread, which has been sanctified by the world God and prayer, do we suffer the loss of any good thing; nor by eating do we gain the advantage of any good thing… it is not the material of the bread but the word which is said over it which is of advantage to the one who eats it not unworthily of the Lord.
  
  
  3.2 Tertullian
  
  Tertullian is credited with being the father of Latin Theology and wrote the first treatise on Baptism. He is also remembered as the one who first used the tern ‘sacramentum’ to denote the Greek mysterion. Sacramentum meant the pledge or the oath that the soldier swore when he was inducted to serve the king or prince; it meant also the payment of ‘earnest money”. As a legal tern in ancient times sacramentum ‘signified in the oldest Roman civil proceeding… the sum of money deposited as a stake by both litigants in the stage before the magistrate…”[xvii] but as a military term, it referred to “the oath of allegiance, sworn on attestation by a Roman recruit:’. In this understanding of the sacrament, Tertullian stressed the aspect of permanent consecration of persons to the service of God by their entering into the Paschal Mystery of Christ.
  
  3.3 St. Ambrose.
  Ambrose (c.339-97), bishop of Milan, is now recognized as the author of the treatise De Sacramentis, addressed to the newly baptized. He stresses the use of the worlds of Christ to bring about the change in the Eucharist[xviii].as head of the school of Alexandria; Origen used allegory to explain the scriptures. This method was applied to the sacraments. He saw them as signs but could not offer a criterion to distinguish the sacramental signs from others.
  
  
  3.4 Other fathers of the church.
  
  John Chrysostom (c. 349-407) speaks about how Baptism is to be perceived: “… In Baptism, the gift is bestowed by a sensible thing, which is by water; but that which is done is perceived by the mind: - the birth and the renewal.[xix]
  
  Cyril of Jerusalem (c. 315-87) in a series of Catechetical instructions to candidates for baptism speaks to them about how they should prepare themselves to receive the sacraments. Attempts to classify the sacraments begin with Dionysisus the Pseudo Areopagite (c.500) who distinguishes three rites: baptism, Eucharist, and Unction.
  
  
  Isidore of Seville (C 560-636) was less pleased with the term ‘sacramentum’ and wishes to reuse the term ‘mysterion’. Thomas Aquinas rejected this effort since he believed that a sacrament not only hides but also reveals the Divine presence.
  
  Sacrament as a sign it could mean that it explicitly shows everything. And everyone can understand but the truth is not so. And that need an explanation of mystery by which all understand that thought there are symbols and signs we can not understand it fully.
  
  Mystery by its very nature is something, which cannot be directly expressed. It needs the help of a medium for expression; it stands fir realities beyond human perception. Signs, or better symbols are the media for expressing mysteries; they make somehow visible and sensible the meaning of the mystery. Once who understands these signs are symbols gets a glimpse of the sacred realities, while it is hidden fro the one who does not understand the signs and symbols[xx].
  
  Because Sacramentum meant the pledge or the oath that the soldier swore when he was inducted to serve the king or prince; it meant also the payment of ‘earnest money”. It had more a materialistic aspect and the Mysterion had a more of the work of God and still more of the work of God in pouring the Graces through the sacraments.
  
  
  4 St. Augustine (354-430) contribution to the Theology of Sacraments.
  
  4.1 The historical background
  During the time of St. Augustine, the church of Africa was facing a crucial heresy. And that is called Donaticism. The Donatist schism in Africa began in 311 and flourished just one hundred years, until the conference at Carthage in 411, after which its importance waned[xxi].
  4.1.1 CAUSES OF THE SCHISM
  In order to trace the origin of the division we have to go back to the persecution under Diocletian. The first edict of that emperor against Christians (24 Feb., 303) commanded their churches to be destroyed, their Sacred Books to be delivered up and burnt, while they themselves were outlawed. Severer measures followed in 304, when the fourth edict ordered all to offer incense to the idols under pain of death. After the abdication of Maximian in 305, the persecution seems to have abated in Africa. Until then it was terrible. In Numidia the governor, Florus, was infamous for his cruelty, and, though many officials may have been, like the proconsul Anulinus, unwilling to go further than they were obliged, yet St. Optatus is able to say of the Christians of the whole country that some were confessors, some were martyrs, some fell, only those who were hidden escape[xxii].
  Once the persecution was over the priests and Bishops who were hiding or who had rejected their faith in order to escape from the persecution came out of the hidden places and started to do their ministries. And here those were professing their faith during the persecutions were against them. And it is here St. Augustine puts forward his theological contributions on the validity of the Sacrament and thus the teachings.
  4.1.2 Augustine –The Theologian
  Among the father’s of the church, Augustine’s contribution to sacramental theology stands out. He began with the understanding that sacraments symbolized the presence of the holy in the world. Hence he extended the notion of sacrament to many objects besides the official sacraments of the Church.
  
  Very early in his ecclesiastical career he addressed the questions raised by the Donatists. The logic of their position was strong, but it was not consistent with the church’s practice of not re -baptizing those who had fallen away from the faith. The task that Augustine faced was to develop and explanation of the sacraments that was equally logical and yet able to justify theologically the traditional practice. And his solution was to argue from practice to theory, rather than the other way around.
  
  Augustine reasoned that if heretics, apostates, and other sinners were never rebaptized, their baptism must somehow be permanent regardless of any sins heretics and others were never rebaptized, their baptism must somehow be permanent regardless of any sins that might be committed afterward. Moreover, if those who were baptized by heretics and others were never rebaptized, then there had to be something about baptism which was independent of the orthodoxy of the minister. At least these were the conclusions that would follow from the traditional practice of the church.
  
  Augustine’s solution to the theological problem posed by the Dontists was as simple as it was ingenious: there must be two effects of baptism, one which was permanent, and one which could be lost through sin. The permanent effect was the seal, which all the fathers testified was indelible. The other effect was god’s grace removing sins from the should of the baptized. Thus if christens sinned what they lost was God’s Grace, not the seal. And if people were baptized in the heretical sect, the reason why they could not receive the grace of forgiveness was that they were still, wittingly or unwittingly, in a sinful state of separation from the church until they repented of their error. If and when they did repent, that sin too would be forgiven.
  
  Moreover, by referring to the seal as the sacrament, Augustine could argue that the Donatists had simply not distinguished clearly between the sacrament and its beneficial effects and this is why they imagined that if the full benefits of baptism were not present then the sacrament was not present either. That the sacrament was present even outside the church was attested to by tradition of not rebaptizing those who retuned to it, just as stray sheep were not rebranded when they were found , and deserter were not given another tattoo when they returned to the army. In his writing against the Donatists the seal and the sacrament were so closely identified with one another that Augustine could say that “an apostate does not lose his baptism” because “baptism can not be corrupted or defiled”.[xxiii]
  
  … We see that the definition of sacrament antedates the theological understanding of “Seven Sacraments”. There is not intrinsic connection between the Christian definition of sacrament, on the one hand, and the number seven, on the other… In the twentieth century, the inclusion of the Church and the humanity of Jesus into sacramental theology could only be done on the basis that the number seven was not intrinsically connected with the definition of sacrament.[xxiv]
  
  All sacraments pertain to the magnum sacramentum mysterium. Christ and the church. Augustine does not develop a systematic treatment of sacramental doctrine but he leaves a terminology an understanding about sacraments which later theologian will develop. He calls sacrament a sacred sign a signaculum a visible word. He states that “one joins the word to the material element and beholds the sacrament, that is kind of visible work”. Sacraments are sacred sign when signs refer themselves to divine reality they are called sacraments.
  
  
  4.2 A sacrament is a Sacred Sign.
  
  Augustine correctly perceived that material reality could signify something more than itself through the use of language. Commenting on John 15:3 “you are already made clean by the word which I have spoken to you” Augustine says:
  Take away the word, and the water is neither more not less than water. The word is added to the element, and there results the Sacrament, as if itself also is a kind of visible word. [xxv]
  
  It is language that invests the material reality (element) with meaningfulness. Jesus used language- pronouncing the word of healing- to being wholeness to person who were suffering. The prayers that accompany the celebration of a sacrament should always bring home to the recipients the care and goodness of God for them. Further, the visible word is meant to evoke faith in the community and in the recipient.
  
  Augustine introduces the term res in connection sacramentum to distinguish between the sacrament of Christ’s body and the reality or effect of the sacrament when revived. By reality or res Augustine means the ultimate effect of the Eucharist, that is, the grace of union with Christ. In the eleventh century this notion will be referred to and expanded when theologians debate questions of Eucharistic presence. For Augustine sacrament are effective because Christ and the Holy Spirit act through the. He regards the role of the ordained minister in sacraments as essential but subordinate. Augustine maintains that baptism and certain other sacraments have permanent effects: later theology will call this the sacramental character. For Augustine a sacrament is a celebration in which the things commemorated, the passion of Christ, are applied. He teaches that sacraments are instituted by Christ after the resurrection.
  
  
  4.3 The sacramental character.
  
  All the sacraments have a character that brings the recipient into greater union with the Church symbolizing a deeper relationship with the person of Christ. Three sacraments, however, bring about a special and permanent relationship. Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Orders are seen to produce a public relationship to or in, the Church that can never be broken. They have an indelible character. Augustine arrived at this understanding of sacramental character when he had to deal with the Donatists and their insistence on rebaptism for those who had given up the faith and had now returned to the Church. “Theologically the Donatists were rigorists, holding that the Church of the saints must remain ‘holy’… and that sacraments conferred by traditores were invalid.”[xxvi]
  
  For Augustine Sacramental Character- pertaining to baptism, confirmation and Holy Orders- referred to the inner reality being preserved in person in spite of the outward sign of relations being broken. In our understanding, this would imply that baptized persons have a relationship to the Church that can never be terminated. It could happen that persons would choose not be acknowledge their relationship toe church but the church would always recognize its relationship to the baptized persons. They would always have a right to the ministry of the church no matter what their moral state might be. It should be noted that the sacramental character is not produced by the Votum, that is Baptism of Desire.
  
  
  For St. Augustine the outward sacramental rite itself is the seal, which characterized us, a sign which marks a person who has been baptized and belongs to the Catholic Church. Even if a person falls away or becomes a heretic the mark and seal of baptism remains indelible and invulnerable… Nevertheless, St. Augustine held that besides the outward rite that imposed the mark there was a deeper, more permanent reality, which he called the “sacrament”, a permanent effect which is, however, distinct from sanctifying grace and independent of valid administration of the sacrament[xxvii].
  
  In celebrating Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Orders, the fidelity of God is celebrated very specially as eternal and unconditional. If these sacraments were to be repeated, it would suggest that God had taken back his faithfulness and this would both express the unconditional and constant fidelity of God as Fathers proclaimed by Jesus Christ.
  
  The teaching on sacramental character underscores the Church’s deeply held conviction that despite any possible infidelity on our part, God is always true to the divine promises incarnated in Christ and celebrated in the Sacraments of baptism, confirmation and Holy Orders[xxviii].
  
  4.4 Christ is the minister of the Sacrament.
  
  
  In a sacramental celebration, the minister is the one who represents Christ’s action (word and deed) and hence the sacrament is valid. The minister represents the Church and acts in the name of Jesus Christ. For Augustine, all sacramental activity is efficacious because it comes from Christ.
  
  Those, therefore, whom Judas baptized where not baptized again, but those whom John (the Baptist) baptized, were repeated Baptism. For those whom john baptized, John baptized; those whom Judas Baptized, Christ baptized. So too, then, those whom a drunkard baptized, those whom a murderer baptized, those whom an adulterer baptized, if the baptism was of Christ, Christ baptized[xxix].
  
  For Augustine, the unworthiness (Moral State) of the minister did not affect the validity of the Sacrament since the minister of the Sacrament was not acting in his won name but in that of Jesus Christ. However, it is also true to say that since the minister represents God’s initiative in the sacramental action, the more perfectly he represents/ symbolizes the action Jesus Christ, the greater the help he renders to the recipient of the sacrament. For Augustine and also for the Church, the sacrament is efficacious because it represents the saving will of God (Grace) brining about transformation in the recipient. It must be kept in mind, however, that the sacrament is constituted by the right intention and not by the moral disposition of the minister. For the valid celebration of a sacrament, the minister must have the right intention, which is to do what the Church intends in the sacramental action: to communicate saving grace merited by Jesus Christ to the recipient.
  
  
  
  5. Conclusion
  
  The conclusion could be of any kind I mean to say that it could be a systematical or pure Theological or any such kind. But I would like to conclude this paper by keeping some practical conclusions. As we around our world, we see that people who receive the sacraments have a great life. People who are Baptized are leading a much holy life than who are not in it. People who go for regular the sacrament of confession and Holy Eucharist have a great and profound way of looking at the life. They are more serene and calm and quite at the tragedies and calamities of life. And it more real with the sick people, who have received the sacrament of anointing, they react to medicine and advices of the medicinal practitioners more positive way. So, though we can argue with the people who do not accept the validity and importance of the sacraments, we can argue and win over them and gain them for the Lord even in a practical way.
  
  Bibliography
  
  Anselm Grun, “The Seven Sacraments” St: Paul’s Publications, Mumbai, 2004.
  
  William. H. Woestman O.M.I., “Sacraments”- Commentary on Canons 840-1007, the Theological Publications in India, Bangalore, 2001.
  
  Errol D’Lima and Thomas Paul Urumpackal, “Sacraments in General”, Indian Theological Series, Theological Publications in India, Bangalore, 2005.
  
  Joseph Martos, “Door to the Sacred”, - A Historical introduction to sacraments in the Catholic Church, An imprint of Liguori Publications , Liguiri, Missouri, 1991.
  
  The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright© 2004, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products, New York.
  
  Catechism of the Catholic Church, published by Theological Publications in India for the Catholic Hierarchy of India, 2002.
  
  Austin Flannery, O.P., (General Editor), Vatican Council II -The Councilor and post councilor Documents, St. Paul’s Publications. Mumbai, 2001.
  
  The Catholic Encyclopedia – An International work of Reference on the constitution, Doctrines, Disciplines and History of the Catholic Church Volume No. II, Robert Appleton company, New York.
  
  Vatican Council II, Translation Tanner, p. 821. Flannery, Vol. 1 P. 3.
  
  
  [i] Vatican Council II, constitution on Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, December 3 1963, in AAS (1964) P.P 5-12 No. 5; Translation Tanner, p. 821. Flannery, Vol. 1 P. 3.
  [ii] Karl Rahner S. j.; The church and the Sacraments, questines disputas no. 9, Montreal, palm Publishers, 1963. P. 15-16.
  [iii] Cf. CCC. No. 774. (CCC= Catechism of the Catholic Church).
  [iv] This meaning is found in the oration for the liturgy of the hours and the opening prayer for Mass on August 24; one prays that through the intercession of Saint Bartholomew “ecclesia tua cunctis gentibus salutis fiat sacramentum” the ICEL translation is “Let your church be the sign of salvation for all nations of the world” the official French translation is closer to the Latin text: “..pour ton Eglise, fais qu’elle devienne pour tous les peoples le sacrament du salut” CF. CCC. No. 738 and 774- 776.
  [v] Cf. CCC. Nos. 776-1117 and 1210.
  [vi] Catechism of the Catholic Church, Theological publications of India for the catholic hierarchy of India, 2002, P. 238.
  [vii] 2 Cor: 4:7, Colossians: 3:3.
  [viii] 2Cor: 5:1.
  [ix] Cf, Mk: 2:1-12.
  [x] LG: & 2.
  [xi] CCC Page 294.
  [xii] Cf. LG. 10
  [xiii] LG. &11, 2
  [xiv] GS: 48& 2.
  [xv] Sacraments in General, FR. D’Lima and Fr. Urumpackal Thomas Paul, Indian Theological series, Theological publications in India, Bangalore, 2005, P.49.
  [xvi] RP. Lawson, Ed; Origen; The Song of Songs; Commentary and Homilies. Ancient Christian writers, London, 1957, P. 330.
  [xvii] The Oxford Classical Dictionary Revised third edition, p. 1343.
  [xviii] Sacraments in General, FR. D’Lima and Fr. Urumpackal Thomas Paul, Indian Theological series, Theological publications in India, Bangalore, 2005, P.49.
  
  [xix] John R. Willis, Ed; The teaching of the Fathers of the Church.31#14.
  [xx] Sacraments in General, FR. D’Lima and Fr. Urumpackal Thomas Paul, Indian Theological series, Theological publications in India, Bangalore, 2005, P.56.
  
  [xxi] The Catholic Encyclopedia, from the website of Catholic Encyclopedia under the title ‘The Donatist schism’. http://www.newadvent.org/
  [xxii] Ibid
  [xxiii] On Baptism against the Donatists V. 15, 20; IV 2, 2.
  [xxiv] K. Osborne, Sacramental Theology, A general introduction p. 9.
  [xxv] J.R. Willis, Ed; The Teaching of the Church Fathers, 1996. P. 40.
  [xxvi] The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. P. 500
  [xxvii] Edward Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament P. 193.
  [xxviii] Encyclopedia of Catholicism P. 1148.
  [xxix] The faith of the Early Fathers, Volume III, P. 116#1810.

[i] The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright© 2004, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products, New York.
[ii] Sacraments in General, FR. D’Lima and Fr. Urumpackal Thomas Paul, Indian Theological series, Theological publications in India, Bangalore, 2005, P. 6.

[iii]Ibid, P.6.