A Guide to the Sacraments (Paperback)

Sacraments are vague and mysterious (much more the musterion than the sacramentum) in many ways, and Macquarrie takes great care to be as inclusive of differing meanings. Sacramentality can be very broad, as in Temple's view of the `sacramental universe' he felt exists around us. However, there is a danger in this kind of sacramental view. `There is a danger that if one uses the term "sacrament" (or any other term) in a very broad sense, it begins to lose all definition and lapses into vagueness.' (p. 12) The temptation to fall into pantheistic world-views is high; even should this be avoided, the simple logic that if everything is a sacrament, is sacrament then a meaningful term (it would certainly be no distinction), makes sacrament irrelevant. Without discounting the idea that God may permeate everything, or at least have some presence or basis in everything, Macquarrie states `God is not equally present, or, better expressed, present with equal clarity, in everything.' (p. 9) With this statement, specific sacraments become meaningful.

But meaning requires more than a simple sacrament. Macquarrie concedes that `...there has been an unfortunate tendency in Christianity for word and sacrament to become separated.' (p. 22) The framework of community, liturgy, and faith provide the meaningful setting for the sacraments. Sacrament in this context provides a doorway to the sacred, and, while a symbol, it is (to use Tillich's language) `a symbol [which] opens up new levels of reality,' and `participates in the reality which it symbolises.' (pp. 30-31) Sacraments devoid of relevance to a community fails to communication meaning, and thus ceases to be a sacrament. Sacraments require an inward reality, a divine communication, and `without this inward reality, the sacrament would not be a sacrament at all, but a mere empty ceremony.' (p. 47) Macquarrie is adamant about resisting the tendency in some of separating inward and outward aspects of sacraments.

There is no easy definition or set of defining characteristics into which all sacraments tend to fit. `There is sufficient untidiness among these different sacraments to show us that there is no uniform concept that holds all the Christian sacraments together, but rather a "family resemblance".' (p. 47) This is part of the mystery of the sacraments, but that explanation (or perhaps even, excuse) is unsatisfying. In discussing the seven sacraments commonly held as sacraments by history,`...we find that these seven are so diverse among themselves that it is hard to say exactly what it is that entitles them all to be grouped under the sacramental umbrella.' (pp. 36-37) For instance, not all sacraments are `communal' (penance); not all sacraments are repeated events (baptism, confirmation); not all sacraments are available to all (is a person less of a person, or somehow less able to connect to the divine if not married, or not ordained?). Macquarrie even asks of certain sacraments if they are still relevant and have a communicative ability for contemporary culture, particularly holy orders and unction. Finally Macquarrie decides that these do still have value in today's society (for different reasons for each sacrament), but the argument from history can only go so far.

Macquarrie's strongest chapters are those discussing Baptism and Eucharist, the two sacraments given `pride-of-place' among the sacraments in the Anglican world (which shows a somewhat protestant tendency). Baptism as an initiation into community and Eucharist as a constant renewing link to the community, and both as symbolic (in the symbol which participates in the reality it symbolises) action-events are the primary means of making the presence of Christ real and available to the life of the community. `Whatever theory of presence one may hold--transubstantiation, transvaluation, transignification, even Tillich's theory of symbolism which allows the participation of the symbol in the reality which it symbolises--so long as it remains within the eucharistic context and the eucharistic community, that bread is for us the bread that comes down from heaven for the life of the world.' (p 156) In the discussion of these sacraments, Macquarrie very carefully stresses the necessity of connection of word and sacramental action, and of inward and outward convergence, and of human intent and divine covenantal promise.