In the ancient narrative about Noah and the great flood, it rained 40 days (Genesis 7:12). Moses was on Mount Sinai for 40 days (Exodus 24:18). In the New Testament, according to the Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke, Jesus spent 40 days of prayer before beginning his public ministry (Mark 1:12-13, Matthew 4:1-11, and Luke 4:1-13).

And now of course our season of Lent begins on February 14. It also lasts 40 days — if the 6 Sundays in Lent are excluded.

Lent – the name comes from lencten the Old English word for the spring — is our special time for reflection and renewal.

The annual forty-day spiritual renewal period of Lent was actually created in 325 CE by the bishops at the First Council in Nicaea, now İznik Turkey.

During Lent 2024, in response to several requests, I would like to offer some updated theological reflections about the sacraments – Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Reconciliation, Anointing of the Sick, Marriage, and Holy Orders. I did this some years ago, I realize. But our theological understandings develop, and I also have some new Another Voice followers.

Theology mediates between faith and culture, as the Canadian philosopher and theologian Bernard Lonergan, S.J. (1904 – 1984) once said. As the cultural context changes, so too does theology. That means of course that all theology, including official doctrinal statements, is provisional. Context is important. Theology is always related to the context in which it is done. It is related to the “signs of the times,” to use a phrase popularized by Pope John XXIII (1881 – 1963), when he convened the Second Vatican Council (1962 – 1965).

In our contemporary historical context people have big questions: Who, or what is God? What do we really know about the man Jesus of Nazareth? Women priests? Why not? Do we really need a church? Human sexuality and gender issues? What is normal and what is natural? Life beyond this life? Do we listen to the questions of older people? Does this life really have meaning? Is the Roman Catholic Church still understood as the “one, true church”? And what kind of Christian community will nourish the faith life of tomorrow’s Christians? Do we really listen to young people today?

There are of course abundant questions about the sacraments. Did Jesus create them? How have sacraments changed over the centuries? What is an invalid sacrament? Are Anglican and Protestant sacraments valid? In 1898, for example, in his apostolic letter Apostolicae curae Pope Leo XIII (1810 – 1903) declared all Anglican ordinations to be “absolutely null and utterly void.” Leo had many good qualities but had a very short-sighed view of sacramentality. He found Anglican orders invalid because of changed ordination rituals and understandings, written by Thomas Crammer (1489 – 1556) and introduced under King Edward VI in 1550 and 1552.

Thomas Crammer of course was a key leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury from 1533 to 1555. As archbishop, he put the English Bible in parish churches, drew up the Book of Common Prayer, and composed a litany that remains in use today. Then he was condemned by the Vatican as a heretic and burned at the stake in 1556, as ordered by the newly installed “Catholic Queen,” Mary Tudor, also known as “Bloody Mary.”

In our contemporary context, changes do not always come easily. On February 3^rd for example, as I was writing this reflection, the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the DDF, issued a doctrinal Note entitled “Gestis verbisque,” (“By gestures and words”) stressing that the words and elements in the rites of each sacrament cannot be changed because such changes render the sacrament “invalid.” The recent DDF Note stressed as well that “changing the form of a sacrament or its object is always a gravely illicit act and deserves exemplary punishment.” Some people seem blind to new understandings or even hostile to change.

The background to this February DDF declaration goes back to an issue brought before the doctrinal office in August 2020 by a number of conservative priests from Phoenix Arizona who doubted the validity of their baptisms because the priest who had baptized them as babies had changed the prescribed words from “I baptize you” to “we baptize you.” The Vatican concluded that in such cases the sacrament had to be considered “invalid.” People who therefore were “invalidly baptized” had to be baptized again, then married again, or ordained again. A real sacramental tempest in a Catholic teapot. Perhaps Rome is now trying to appease conservative Catholics who are still upset about the 2023 December 18 DDF decision allowing blessings for same-sex couples?

Thinking about invalid baptisms, I started thinking about my own father who for most of his life was a baptized Protestant but decided to become a Catholic in later life. Much to his chagrin he had to be baptized again because the parish priest told him his “Protestant baptism” was “invalid.” (Named “Waldo Emerson,” after the U.S. philosopher and poet, he was informed by the baptizing priest – who was really a very kind man — that he also needed a “Christian name.” He took “Joseph” my brother’s name. I was his “godparent” baptismal sponsor. And he was baptized on my sister’s birthday. It was a moving event back then and still is many years later.)

Knowing and understanding history is important. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, promulgated by Pope John Paul II (1920 – 2005) in 1992, still stresses authoritatively that the seven sacraments were instituted by Jesus. This understanding was carved in stone by the Counter-Reformation sixteenth century Council of Trent. Contemporary historical theologians and biblical scholars, however, find no direct evidence that Jesus of Nazareth ever created a well-defined and complete set of seven sacramental rituals, such as appeared in the church several centuries after his death and resurrection.

In fact, before the thirteenth century, there was no talk of just seven sacraments, because Christians had a variety of rituals and symbols. Christian practices and Christian beliefs were far from uniform and far from what they would become. Marriage, for example, was not considered a sacrament until the the Council of Verona in 1184 CE. What WAS considered a sacrament before that time was the solemn consecration of virgins. Well, issues of sex and gender in Western Christianity, especially after the fifth century, have often been problematic. But there were exceptions as well. What is perhaps less well known is that for centuries women had been ordained as deacons and abbesses, and even as presbyters and bishops. This was certainly the case until the 12th century. [See Gary Macy’s book – The Hidden History of Women’s Ordination: Female Clergy in the Medieval West]

Martin Luther (1483 – 1546) and other Protestant reformers rejected the sacramentality of medieval Catholicism. Using the New Testament, they acknowledged Baptism and Eucharist, which are both explicitly mentioned in the scriptures. But they regarded the other five as ecclesiastical inventions.

In response to Luther and the Protestant Reformation, the Council of Trent, meeting for twenty-five sessions between 13 December 1545 and 4 December 1563, initiated a Catholic Counter-Reformation. The greatest weight in the Council’s decrees was given to the seven sacraments, in some detail, refuting the claims of the Protestant Reformers. The bishops, not so well anchored in Christian history but fiercely anti-Reformation, insisted on the numbering of the sacraments as seven and that all seven were directly instituted by Jesus before his death and resurrection.

It is important for us today to have a clearer sense of the evolution of sacramental rituals. But that is not enough. Sacramental actions today need to regain their dynamism, which involves everyone in the Christian community and not just a hierarchy of ordained men.

As my good friend and sacramental theologian Joseph Martos (1943 – 2020) so often said, the sacraments are not things to be “administered” and “received.” All mechanistic definitions of the sacraments must be rejected. Early Christian rituals were grounded in life experiences such as conversion, community, commitment, and self-giving. Grace is not a thing given by sacraments. Grace is our participation in Divine Life. Our Christian way of life is a process of growth in the Spirit, not a doctrinal declaration.

I hope you will find my Lenten reflections informative and helpful.

Jack