Common Agreement on Mutual Recognition of Baptism - National ...

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―sacrament‖ or ―mystery‖ celebrated by the Church each day in the liturgy. Perhaps the most
influential among these theologians, however, stands the North African bishop, Augustine of
Hippo (354-430), for whom physical realities were the windows through which the spiritual
realities reach us. 5 Augustine also has a notable chapter in the tenth book of The City of God that
essentially exegetes the meaning to Rom. 12:1-3. There he argues that the communion of
Christian lives given in love is offered to God as its sacrifice through Christ ―the great High
Priest (sacerdotum magnum, Cf. Hebrews 4:14 et pass.) who offered himself to God in His
passion for us.‖ Augustine then closes the chapter by asserting that [t]his is the sacrifice of
Christians: the many, the one body in Christ. And this likewise is the sacrifice that the church
repeatedly celebrates by the sacrament of the altar, noted by the faithful, in which she shows that
she herself is offered in the offering that she makes to God. 6
The two senses of sacrament, as Jesus himself and as the sacraments of the church,
continued into the medieval period and Latin theologians gradually synthesized the two ideas of
sacrament into an integrated theology. The basic medieval concept was that the church is the
body of the crucified, resurrected, and glorified Lord, and God‘s grace continues to come to us
through Christ just as it did in the incarnation. Only now the grace that comes through Christ
comes through the sacraments, most especially the Eucharist, by which Jesus Christ continues to
be present in the church. Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274), for example, gave a thorough
exposition of eucharistic theology and sacrifice (cf. Summa Theologica, III, 73-83) that was a
feature of an entire ecclesial world-view that was, so to speak, eucharistic: 7 The whole world
was related to and dependent upon the grace of God, known in creation, proclaimed in salvation
history, and present once and still in Jesus Christ, Word made flesh, the one mediator, who has
united believers into his reign, the Body of Christ. Into this triune God one was baptized, and by
the very being of this God one was nourished during life‘s spiritual journey. Christ instituted the
Eucharist, argued Thomas, because he desired to remain present in the church, in a sacramental
manner available to faith, unlike a mere corporeal presence available to the senses. The whole
5 For a summary of Augustine on sacrament as a sacred sign, see Finkenzeller, Lehre, 39-43. For a wider treatment,
see Edward J. Kilmartin, S.J., The Eucharist in the West, ed. Robert J. Daly, S.J. (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical
Press, 1998), 3-61.
6 De civitate dei 10.6; CSEL 47.278-9. Hoc est sacrificium christianorum: multi unum corpus in Christo. Quod
etiam sacramento altaris fidelibus noto frequentat ecclesia, ubi et demonstratur, quod in ea re, quam offert, ipsa
offeratur (CSEL 47.279.52-55)
7 For a summary of Aquinas‘s eucharistic teaching, and bibliographic references, see David N. Power, The
Eucharistic Mystery (New York: Crossroads, 1994), 163-240, esp. 208-240 (also see, 269-290). For a thorough
entrance to the vast literature on Thomas Aquinas, see Otto Pesch, ―Thomas von
Aquino/Thomismus/Neuthomismus,‖ in Theologische Realenzyklopädie (New York; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter,
2002). In English, see Thomas O‘Meara, The Theology of Thomas Aquinas (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre
Dame Press, 1997), particularly the annotated bibliography, 290-296. Also see, Kilmartin, Eucharist in the West ,
247-266; Erwin Iserloh, ―Abendmahl: III/2. Mittelalter,‖ Theologisches Realenzyklopädie (Berlin: Walter de
Gruyter, 1977), 1:95-97; E. Mangenot, ―Eucharistie du XII e a la fin du XV e siécle,‖Dictionnaire de théologie
catholique (Paris, 1913), 5:1304-1320, passim. For excellent shorter studies, more accessible to those not trained in
scholastic theology, see Owen Cumings, ― Medieval Eucharistic Theology,‖ Emmanuel (March, 1993): 73-79; Gary
Macy, The Banquet’s Wisdom (New York: Paulist Press, 1992), 104-109; Herbert McCabe, ―Eucharistic Change,‖
Priests & People 8/6 (1994): 217-221; Raymond Moloney, The Eucharist (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1995),
139-150; David Power,―Eucharist,‖ in Systematic Theology II: Roman Catholic Perspectives, ed. Francis Schüssler
Fiorenza, John P. Galvin (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), 277-280. For an informative Catholic perspective on
the sacraments in general, and thus the place of Thomas within this development, see Regis A. Duffy, ― Sacraments
in General,‖ in Systematic Theology II, 183-210.
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