Essentially it is not good to start considering the sacraments in terms of a hierarchical order: each of them has its particular role and function in the life of the Church. The seven sacraments touch the important moments in the Christian life, and this reflects a resemblance between the stages of natural life and the stages of spiritual life.
The sacraments of Holy Orders and Matrimony are directed towards the salvation of others, and so if they contribute towards personal salvation also, they do so through service to others - the priest in his service of the faithful, and the married person in the service of their spouse.
Through these sacraments, those who have already been consecrated by Baptism and Confirmation for the common priesthood of all the faithful receive particular consecrations. Those who receive the sacrament of Holy Orders are consecrated in the name of Christ to feed the Church with the word and grace of God. Those who are married are consecrated for the duties and dignity of their state by a special sacrament.
Ordination is not therefore a higher, better, or more spiritual calling than marriage. Nor, indeed, could the reverse be argued. Both are sacraments for the channelling of God's grace to all those who require it.
- It's interesting that the case of the deacon isn't touched upon here – as the deacon may, if I'm right, receive both sacraments and act in both forms of service?
ReplyDelete- "Both are sacraments for the channelling of God's grace to all those who require it."
Also interesting: I had an idea that grace was given - fully given - in baptism. So to see it written that a Priest, say, *channels* grace, imparts it, so to speak, to those to whom it was presumably lacking, surprises me a little. But perhaps I'm mistaking the agent here? Perhaps what's being suggested is that it is the sacrament itself that does the channelling of grace? But still, if grace is fully given in baptism, what is there that remains to be channelled? Perhaps this is a "Quod Libet"?
- "Those who receive the sacrament of Holy Orders are consecrated in the name of Christ to feed the Church with the word and grace of God. Those who are married are consecrated for the duties and dignity of their state by a special sacrament."
Well, I'm being very silly now, and I apologise for this, but it does strike me that in terms of the words used here, it does rather read to me as if those receiving Holy Orders earn by this a more liberal sprinkling of the impressive language!!
But this is all thought-provoking stuff, DR, and I'm very grateful to be able to read what you have written!
Marriage could be argued to be greater, could it not, in that it is directed towards building the family and life?
ReplyDeleteI'm just flailing in the dark. I agree that the sacraments of service are not supposed to be compared.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteJames Hastings here who asked the question. I also took a gasp of breath at the declaration: "Those who receive the sacrament of Holy Orders are consecrated in the name of Christ to feed the Church with the word and grace of God. Those who are married are consecrated for the duties and dignity of their state by a special sacrament."
That sort of logic does create a hierarchy. Priests first, married second. Why can't married couples also "feed the church?"
Doctors, teachers, even journalists like myself are involved in feeding the church and yet we can still be successfully married.
Would the Catholic church not be in a healthier, more Gospel, state, if , say, a pro nuncio was a lay man or woman. Why must he always be a cleric, and a high ranking one at that?
Sorry, but the hierarchy is there. And perhaps for no other reason than it always has been.
Blessings
James
I think I was taught at school that priesthood leaves a "mark" on the soul- "You are a priest forever.." Am I right in thinking that all the sacraments do this? I am particularly thinking of the marriage bond, because I really feel that I will continue to be joined to my husband in a special and exclusive way in heaven (even though I know that all relationships in heaven will be different).
ReplyDeleteThe question that this rises for me is whether it is valid to portray priesthood and marriage as alternative sacraments. This is certainly how they are experienced today in most parts of the Western Church - that priesthood excludes marriage and marriage excludes priesthood - but it seems impossible to argue that this is necessarily so given the historical existence of a married priesthood and its continued existence in the Eastern Churches today.
ReplyDeleteWould it not be better for the sake of clarity to distinguish between celibacy and religious life and marriage? Celibacy itself is not a sacrament, just as marriage does not - at least in theory, and in practice in the case of the diaconate - exclude the sacrament of ordination. Admittedly this is somewhat messier, but perhaps also more honest?
Most permanent deacons receive the sacraments of both matrimony and holy orders. As married ordained ministers they bring another dimensioni to ministry.
ReplyDeleteMichael.
I think it's useless to compare sacraments in terms of importance. Each sacrament has its own grace that will help us to follow Jesus in the best way possible according to His will.
ReplyDeleteSvS
Considered abstractly and metaphysically, the priestly vocation is higher. Through reception of Holy Orders, the ordained man is given the sacred power to confect the Eucharist and to forgive sins. He stands in the very person of Christ as head of the Church. Of course, besides the sacred power the priest can legitimately (and in the case of Penance, validly) exercise his power only with due faculty, given by the bishop.
ReplyDeleteThe religious priesthood is abstractly the highest calling because the mode and objects of one's living are most decidedly supernatural and eschatological.
[The celibate state, without grace is un-natural. However, even apart from grace, there is a natural integrity (all things being equal) to the married state.]
Married life, indeed, it must be said, carries the only blessing that was not lost with the Fall. Its unique beauty and sacral dynamism have been eloquently expressed by Vat II and JPII, which has eschewed the rather technical and abstract language of metaphysics...not because it is theologically otiose, but because it is pastorally lacking in evangelical elan.
In the concrete, then--which is the only way we live--that which is more perfect depends on that to which God has called one, and the intensity and fidelity with which one responds.
Perfection is measured by the intensity of one's charity. And this is the existential perfection about which one must be concerned. Accordingly, self-knowledge is of infinitely greater worth than a metaphysical hierarchy of the states of life.
Surely there is indeed a universal hierarchy of vocations, the Council of Trent even anathematises those who hold priesthood to be equal or lesser to marriage.
ReplyDeleteSt Francis once said he would sooner bow to a priest than an angel, as only the priest has the power to work the miracle of transforming the bread and the wine.
That said, we shouldn't get wound up on priesthood being individually a higher calling for our particular selves. The highest calling for a particular person is in fact that which God wills of their life, that which they were intended by God for the Glory of His Kingdom.
I couldn't agree more with the last comment.
ReplyDeleteS.v.S.