Jesus, the Sacrament of the Father

Fray James Erold P. Gatinao, OAR

The incarnation of Jesus Christ is truly the greatest message that God could give. The
message was not given through any medium but it was communicated through His only begotten
Son. The messenger is the message Himself! The act of revelation of God the Father through
Jesus Christ is the summit and the culmination of the revelation of God to man.
Through many years, the Father has disclosed Himself to man through the patriarchs,
prophets, and kings. He spoke in many different ways, with message of love to His chosen
people Israel. Unfortunately, the people of Israel would not heed His voice, repeatedly rejecting
the covenant they made to the God whom they took for granted.
But when God removed the veil and ultimately revealed Himself through Christ, his love
was preserved through the sacraments. Pope Leo the Great stated, “What was visible in Christ is
made present in the sacrament.” The sacrament made present the life of Christ in whom the
revelation of God in its totality is present. Nevertheless, we still cannot grasp the fullness of the
mystery of Christ for we are only finite beings. With this, we will explore why Jesus, the summit
and the fullness of divine revelation, is the sacrament of the Father.

Development of the Term

It is essential first to identify the meaning of the term “sacrament” to be deep in the
knowledge of the subject. Historically, the word “sacrament” was from sacramentum which is
the common Latin translation of the first century Christians to the Greek word μυστήριον
(mysterion), although the translation did not truly capture the whole meaning.1 There was no
clear explanation in the usage of the Latin counterpart if it is intended as a direct translation or
simply an equivalent term. And also, several sources implied that the subject originated in Greek.
Understanding these two words, however, would give us the idea of what sacrament is all about.
Just by the Greek word mysterion, we may already grasp the idea of something hidden,
strange, or unknown to the public. Translating this to the essence of sacrament, we can deduce

1
Alexandre Ganoczy, An Introduction to Catholic Sacramental Theology, Paulist Press, New Jersey, 1984,
p. 7
that sacrament has the element of mystery, concealment, or of something hidden. Other historical
sources would suggest it is connected to the mystery religions of that time.2
The Webster’s dictionary defines the term “mystery” as “a religious truth revealed by
God that man cannot know by reason alone and that once it has been revealed cannot be
completely understood.”3 The term already suggests a concept of God’s revelation in the
religious perspective. It was defined further as “something that has not been or cannot be
explained, that is unknown to all or concealed from some and therefore exciting curiosity and
wonder, or that is incomprehensible or uncomprehended.”4 This description is likely akin to
experience of people of early ages as they found “curiosity and wonder” in the mystery religions
of the apostolic era.
On the other hand, the Latin sacramentum was a term used for the oath of allegiance of
Roman soldiers to the emperor. Tertullian, a 3rd-century Christian writer, suggested that just as
the soldier's oath was a sign of the beginning of a new life, so too was initiation into the early
Christian community through the sacraments of baptism and Eucharist.5 From then,
sacramentum became a common term for Christian initiation. The term is also derived from
Latin sacra, sacer, which means “holy, consecrated, and sacred.”
St. Augustine of Hippo, in the fifth century, view sacrament as “an outward and visible
sign of an inward and invisible grace.”6 His definition reconciled the Latin term sacramentum
with the original Greek of the Christian rites, mysterion. It shows the revelation of what is
concealed through a sign or symbol and yet the mystery is still inexhaustible. He further
elaborated the Christian perspective of the sacraments, which become “a true epochal turning
point of the Church’s sacramental understanding.”7
Moreover, St. Augustine referred to a sacramentum as a sacrum signum or “sign of a
sacred thing.” 8This led him to list down over 300 sacraments aside from the rituals. Whatever
symbolizes or signifies something sacred, he would consider them as sacraments. Gradually, the
Church made distinction between rituals and the signs and symbols used in worship and

2
William A. van Roo, The Christian Sacrament. Roma: Ed. Pontificia Univ. Gregoriana. 1992, p. 37.
3
Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, Inc. United States of America, 1981
4
Webster’s Third New International Dictionary
5
Roo, The Christian Sacrament. p. 37
6
The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA), What is a Sacrament, rcdow.org.uk/att/files/faith/
catechesis/baptism/sacraments.pdf
7
Ganoczy, An Introduction to Catholic Sacramental Theology, p. 20
8
RCIA, What is Sacrament?
eventually reduced the number. Other aids to the rights like holy water, ashes and the like were
categorized as sacraments.
The seven major sacraments, however, was officially recognized at the Fourth Lateran
Council in 1215 and confirmed in the Councils of Lyon II (1247), Florence (1439) and Trent
(1517). The sacraments were Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Eucharist, Penance, Matrimony, Holy
Orders, and Annointing of the Sick.
Nonetheless, it is important to emphasize that this study will only use the notion of
sacrament as the proposition of the subject at hand. There may be some documents of the Church
which propose that these sacraments are the actions of Christ’s bestowal of grace to mankind.
This concept will aid us to develop a view on the premise that Christ is the sacrament of God’s
revelation.

What, then, is a Sacrament?

Several official Church documents captured the totality of the notion of the term
sacrament. The Catechism of the Catholic Church stated,
“The sacraments are efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted
to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us. The visible sites by which
the sacraments are celebrated signify and make present the graces proper to each
sacrament. They bear fruit in those who receive them with the required
dispositions.”9
These signs of grace are the perceptible manifestation of the divine life bestowed upon us.
The Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum
Concilium expresses profoundly and concisely the message that sacrament ought to convey. It
said,
“The purpose of the sacraments is to sanctify men, to build up the body of
Christ, and, finally, to give worship to God; because they are signs they also
instruct. They not only presuppose faith, but by words and objects they also
nourish, strengthen, and express it; that is why they are called "sacraments of
faith." They do indeed impart grace, but, in addition, the very act of celebrating
them most effectively disposes the faithful to receive this grace in a fruitful
manner, to worship God duly, and to practice charity.”10

The Canon 840 of the Code of the Canon Law stated,

9
Catechism of the Catholic Church, Word and Life Publications/ECCCE, Manila, 1994, 1131, p. 322
10
Austin Flannery, O.P., ed., Vatican Council II The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents Constitution
on Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium, Paulines Publishing House, 1984, p. 20; 59
 “The sacraments of the New Testament were instituted by Christ the Lord
and entrusted to the Church. As actions of Christ and the Church, they are signs
and means which express and strengthen the faith, render worship to God, and
effect the sanctification of humanity and thus contribute in the greatest way to
establish, strengthen, and manifest ecclesiastical communion.”11
On the other hand, Herbert Vorgrimler stated accordingly that there is no general concept
that would embody the totality of the sacrament. The attempts were simply summarization of
what is common because the sacraments are concrete individual sacraments; there is no general
sacrament. Nevertheless, these concepts despite its inadequacies ushered our understanding to
the relationship between God and man.12

The Revelation of the Divine

The word “revelation” comes from the Latin infinitive term, revelare meaning “to reveal”
which is “to remove the veil.” 13Now, the concept of revelation gives us the idea of uncovering,
disclosure or communication of information, to show, display or exhibit anything in human
experience. This notion also considers “concealment” or something “hidden” in order to reveal.
In Webster’s Dictionary, revelation is “an act of revealing or communicating divine truth,
esp.: God’s disclosure or manifestation of himself or of his will to man. [It is] something that is
revealed by God to man.” The dictionary, based in this definition, gave the religious aspect of the
term. Moreover, it gives us again the picture of “communication” particularly of divine truth.
The act of revelation requires a recipient. As in the definition, revelation as a sense of
communication is a two way process, by which the persons involved are capable of
understanding. Hence, the act of revelation is exclusively possible to rational being.
Joseph Baierl, in his book Theory of Revelation synthesizes the concept of revelation. He
said, “Through revelation, what was before closed to knowledge is now opened to it; what was
hitherto hidden in obscurity, is now made manifest; what was before veiled, is now uncovered
and, as it were, made palpable.”14
Now, applying this concept on the disclosure or self-unveiling of God to man, it is
undeniable that God has been making Himself manifest to man. The sense of the divine with the

11
James A. Coriden, et al , eds. The Code of the Canon Law: A Text and Commentary, Theological
Publications in India, Bangalore, 2001, p. 606
12
Herbert Vorgrimler, Sacramental Theology, The Liturgical Press, Collegeville Minnesotta, 1992, p. 43
13
Joseph J. Baierl, S.T.D. The Theory of Revelation, The Seminary Press, Rochester, New York, 1927 p. 20
14
Baierl, The Theory of Revelation, p. 21
primitive religions in the earliest history of man is a strong evidence of God’s revealing act to
man. God manifests Himself in the many things with the limited capacity of man’s rationality.
Man recognizes Him in creation, in events in life, in the realities of the mind and in the order and
beauty of beings. This led the early man to worship the creatures who echoes God’s greatness.
God has also disclosed Himself gradually through patriarchs, judges, prophets, and kings.
In his goodness and wisdom,15 He revealed His divine will to the people through history. The
previous revelation served as a precursor or a preparation to the supernatural Revelation that is to
culminate. This fullness of His revelation was only fulfilled in the person and mission of His
only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. His message through Christ is His own, the message of love.
God wishes to reveal Himself to men for their redemption from their fallen state inflicted
by sin. “In His goodness and wisdom God chose to reveal Himself and to make known to us the
hidden purpose of His will (see Eph. 1:9) by which through Christ, the Word made flesh, man
might in the Holy Spirit have access to the Father and come to share in the divine nature.” 16 His
revelation through His only begotten Son Jesus Christ communicates his desire to share his
divine life to men, in order to adopt them as his own children.17

Divine Revelation in Christ

The incarnation of Christ, the Word made flesh, is the ultimate act of God’s disclosure of
Himself to mankind. Christ mirrors the image of the heavenly Father, as it was mentioned in the
Gospel of John, “…Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” 18 Christ's whole earthly life - his
words and deeds, his silences and sufferings, indeed his manner of being and speaking - is
Revelation of the Father. 19Jesus Christ contains the fullness of God’s identity, which made Him
known as he revealed the Father. Jesus Christ is both the revealer and the content of the
revelation.

15
Pope Paul VI, Dogmatic Constitution On Divine Revelation Dei Verbum November 18, 1965, 2
http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_dei-
verbum_en.html Retrieved October 12, 2017
16
Dei Verbum, 2
17
CCC, 52
18
Jn. 14:9, The New American Bible, St. Joseph Edition, St. Pauls Philippines, Makati City, 2004
19
CCC, 516; Jesus Christ and the Church: The Fullness of Divine Revelation, http://catholicism.org/jesus-
christ-and-the-church-the-fullness-of-divine-revelation.html
 “In many and varied ways, God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets, but in these
last days he has spoken to us by a Son.”20 The Father finally revealed himself to men through the
Word who is Christ. In Christ the Father has spoken to us everything, and there can be no other
like this than Christ. This Word testifies to the Father, from the moment of creation until the
present time through the testimony of the Church and the Sacred Scriptures (the written Word).
Christ, who is one in nature with the Father, revealed the Father. He is both the revealer
and the content of his revelation. As he is the culmination, the summit, or the ultimate act of
God’s self-disclosure, the Revelation is complete and “no new public revelation is to be expected
before the glorious manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 21 He is the definitive Word, so there
will be no further Revelation after him.

Christ as the Ultimate Revelation

“He has made known to us the mystery of his will in accord with his favor that he set
forth in him as a plan for the fullness of times, to sum up all things in Christ, in heaven and on
earth.”22 We have already established the standing of Christ as the definite and the complete
revelation of God the Father. The mystery of Christ life sums up the redemptive plan of God to
man, although not everything is explicit to us. There can be no further revelation apart from
Christ.
The revelation of the Father through his Son Jesus Christ manifested from the Savior’s
coming to the flesh. He assumed the full humanity in words, actions and even in human culture.
“For us men and for our salvation, he came down from heaven; by the power of the Holy Spirit,
he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man.”23 The heavenly Father has sent his
only begotten Son as the Savior of the world, and “he was revealed to take away sins.” 24 The
Word became flesh to make us partakers of the divine nature. Christ’s incarnation brought
communion to man to make us children of the Most High.
But that did not end there. The culmination of that supreme moment of revelation of the
Father occurred in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. It is the all-embracing event of God’s
self-manifestation.

20
Heb. 1:1-2; CCC, 65
21
CCC, 66
22
Eph. 1:-10
23
Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed; cf. CCC, 456
24
CCC, 457
 Now, as the Father is made known in Christ, the sacraments of the Church serve to be the
visible manifestation of God the Son. The concepts of mystery, sacraments, revelation present in
the human life of Jesus Christ are the objects of this study. Our proposition prevails: Jesus Christ
is the sacrament of the Father.

Christ the Primordial Sacrament

There are two natures in the one person of Christ which is divine and human. Even in the
humanity of Jesus, he is still divine – the Son of God. Edward Schillebeeckx, a notable
Dominican theologian articulated, “The second person of the most holy Trinity is personally
man; and this man is personally God. Therefore Christ is God in a human way and man in a
divine way. As a man he acts out his divine life in and according to his human existence.” 25
Christ two natures compliment and act together actively in his earthly life. Everything he does as
a man is an act of the Son of God, a divine act in human form; an interpretation and transposition
of a divine activity into a human activity. 26 His human love is the embodiment of the redeeming
love of God.
For Schillebeeckx, encounter with God is always sacramental, which is attained in
visibility that directs beyond itself thus involving the concept sign-mystery. He mentioned about
three ascending levels on which this encounter with the divine transpired – in creation, in Israel
and in Christ. Through created nature, man discerned the manifestation of God in which he
stated that St. Thomas Aquinas refer to as “sacrament of nature.” The self-disclosure of God in
the chosen people of Israel is a “sacrament of expectation” where the redemption was not yet
achieved but was bestowed with grace of open readiness for the coming of the Messiah. And
lastly, Christ is the “sacrament of realization” where in his Incarnation accomplished the
personal encounter of man with the visible God. 27
Our Catholic faith holds this distinctive belief in the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ
that he truly became visible and manifested in the flesh. He is not part man and part God. He is
both true God and true man. The Catechism of the Catholic Church asserts, “He became truly

25
Edward Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament, Sheed and Ward, London, 1965, p. 13-14
26
Edward Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with God, Sheed and Ward Ltd.,
NewYork, 1963, p. 14
27
Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with God, p. 7-15
man while remaining truly God. Jesus Christ is true God and true man.”28 This was affirmed by a
number of ecumenical councils. The Second Council of Constantinople in 553 AD similarly
declared, “He who was crucified in the flesh, our Lord Jesus Christ, is true God, Lord of glory,
and one of the Holy Trinity.” 29
Moreover, Jesus who is divine in nature has the divine redemptive power. He saved
humanity in his visible human form and thus Jesus is sacramental. This is in consonant with the
Church definition of the sacrament.30 Sacrament is the juncture where God and man meet in
mutual availability. Jesus’ reality of two natures is the perfect sacrament, the perfect man and
perfect God. He is the perfect mediator between God and man who impeccably enacts the plan of
salvation. St. Paul said, “For there is one God. There is one mediator between God and the
human race. Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself as a ransom for many.” 31 This is
why He is the Primordial Sacrament.
Herbert Vorgrimler remarked on this sacramentality: “…the unseparated and unmixed
unity of divinity and humanity penetrates the whole life of Jesus from the earliest beginnings to
its fulfillment in God. That means that not only the ‘official” high points of this life (birth and
death) are realization and expression of the presence of God, God’s love and God’s salvation, but
also “expressed in the tiniest and most humdrum parts of life.” 32Christ Jesus’ birth (incarnation)
and death (paschal mystery) is the action of God’s work of salvation, an act of bestowal of grace
of redemption from sin for all humanity.
Jesus’ human redeeming acts are therefore a “sign and cause of grace.” He is the
sacramentum or the visible sign through his humanity but at the same time the mysterion or the
mysterium which is attributive to his divinity. “In this sense, Christ himself is the mystery of
salvation: "For there is no other mystery of God, except Christ." The saving work of his holy and
sanctifying humanity is the sacrament of salvation, which is revealed and active in the Church's
sacraments (which the Eastern Churches also call "the holy mysteries"). The seven sacraments
are the signs and instruments by which the Holy Spirit spreads the grace of Christ the head
throughout the Church which is his Body.”33

28
CCC, 464
29
CCC, 469
30
Cf. CCC, 1121
31
1 Tim. 2:5-6
32
Vorgrimler, Sacramental Theology, p. 19
33
CCC, 774
 Furthermore, the Declaration “Dominus Iesus” on the Unicity and Salvific Universality
of Jesus Christ and the Church consistently support on this claim:
By this revelation then, the deepest truth about God and the salvation of
man shines forth in Christ, who is at the same time the mediator and the fullness
of all revelation”.9 Furthermore, “Jesus Christ, therefore, the Word made flesh,
sent ‘as a man to men', ‘speaks the words of God' (Jn 3:34), and completes the
work of salvation which his Father gave him to do (cf. Jn 5:36; 17:4). To see
Jesus is to see his Father (cf. Jn 14:9). For this reason, Jesus perfected revelation
by fulfilling it through his whole work of making himself present and manifesting
himself: through his words and deeds, his signs and wonders, but especially
through his death and glorious resurrection from the dead and finally with the
sending of the Spirit of truth, he completed and perfected revelation and
confirmed it with divine testimony... The Christian dispensation, therefore, as the
new and definitive covenant, will never pass away, and we now await no further
new public revelation before the glorious manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ
(cf. 1 Tim 6:14 and Tit 2:13) 34

Christ the Revealed Sacrament

Christ Jesus is the sign ultimately revealed by the Father. St. Augustine claimed, “There
is no other sacrament other than Christ.”35 He is the perfect mediator; an ambassador between
God. And man. Like the sacraments of the Church, Christ acts in two vertical ways: descending:
from the Father to man, and ascending: from human realm to the Father. 36From the Father, He is
the living sign of the loving and compassionate God to humanity. To the Father, he is the
forerunner of humanity, the first-born of man, the perfect model of the perfect man.
Jesus Christ in his humanity is the redemptive incarnate of the Father and in His divinity,
the salvation of man through the forgiveness of sins. In this sense, the sacraments echoed the
activities of Jesus. Through the sacraments, Jesus bestowed pure and uncreated grace which is a
direct manifestation of the supernatural revelation. Through the sacraments, he made his Father
visible through his very presence. This living sacrament is definitive, inexhaustible and
transcendent. 37

34
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration “Dominus Iesus” on the Unicity and Salvific
Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church, 5 Retrieved from http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/
cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000806_dominus-iesus_en.html
35
Anscar J. Chupungco, What, Then, Is Liturgy?: Musings and Memoir, Collegeville, Minnesota, U.S.A.,
2010, p. 108
36
Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament, p. 19
37
Dominus Iesus, 6
 This conception brings us back to the notion of Schillebeeckx of Christ as the sacrament
of realization of the promised revelation of the heavenly Father. William J. Hill, OP summarized
Schillebeeckx’s view of the sacramental Christ into four considerations.
First, Christ is the revelation of God's love for man in its specifically Trinitarian
character, by which the humanity of Christ reveals the human perspective of relationship that he
is the natural Son of God. However, Christ relation to the Father as the Son is unlike the view of
human relation of dependence. Christ is not dependent because he is precisely one with the
Father. In his humanity, he sent the Holy Spirit as a visible revelation of God. “He is then the
visible disclosure to us of God's love as the created extension of a Son eternally generated by his
Father and through whom there is spirated forth the Person of Love who is the Holy Spirit.”38
Secondly, Christ as Sacrament is two-directed. Jesus is the sign and instrument of God’s
love to mankind. As mentioned earlier, he is the mediator in two ways: “the sacrament of divine
love for man, and the sacrament of human love for God.”39
Thirdly, Christ’s sacramentality is initially perfected in the Passover. His passion and
death testified his great divine love for humanity and the Son’s love for the Father. His presence
render possible man personal encounter with God but this reaches its culmination in his death on
the cross. He who is sinless due to his divine nature suffered for the sins of sinners. This act
signifies and causes once and for all “moral or meritorious and physical or effective, the
destruction of sin and the reconciliation of man with God.”40
And lastly, His sacramentality is consummated with the Father’s response to Christ’s
sacrifice – the Resurrection and Ascension. His glorified humanity through this greatest moment
of the history of salvation is the instrument of the Father’s self-disclosure. “The reciprocity of
love between Father and Son is such that the Father responds to his Son's sacrifice by raising him
41
from the dead to a position of glory at his own right hand.” This is the final phase and the
fullness of God’s revelation where the divine promise was fulfilled.
Furthermore, the Latin term sacramentum was used to pledge an allegiance to the Roman
Emperor, Christ made a new ad lasting covenant to the Father in behalf of humanity. He is the

38
William J. Hill, O.P., The Encounter with God, p. 174-175
39
Hill, The Encounter with God, p. 175
40
Hill, The Encounter with God, p. 175
41
Hill, The Encounter with God, p. 175-176
new Adam. The first fruit from the dead though his resurrection.42 Jesus revealed to us the
mystery (mysterion in Greek), “He has made known to us the mystery of his will in accord with
his favor that he set forth in him as a plan in the fullness of times, to sum up all things in Christ,
in heaven and on earth.”43
Although Christ is made visible through the sacraments like he made the Father visible to
his apostles, he cannot be put in the fence of sacrament. Christ is beyond the sacraments and he
is the factor of the transcendence of the sacraments. The actions of the whole Christ or Christus
Totus in the sacraments 44 attains communion with the Trinity makes us faithful partakers in the
divinity of the Father as his adopted children.45
Moreover, the sacramental manifestation of Christ is again present in the divine plan of
redemption,
“For this reason Jesus perfected revelation by fulfilling it through his
whole work of making Himself present and manifesting Himself: through His
words and deeds, His signs and wonders, but especially through His death and
glorious resurrection from the dead and final sending of the Spirit of truth.
Moreover, He confirmed with divine testimony what revelation proclaimed, that
God is with us to free us from the darkness of sin and death, and to raise us up to
life eternal.”46
He who is the Word of God, proclaimed the Word of God the Father, just as we proclaim the
Gospel through the liturgy. He who is one with God revealed God. “Whoever has seen me has
seen the Father.”47
The Holy Spirit, through the sacraments, unites us to the Body of Christ and gives us the
charisms or gifts. The Father wished to accomplish through Christ, “to share with us divine
benefits which entirely surpass the powers of the human mind to understand.” 48
The statement of Pope St. Leo the Great concisely sum it all up, “What was visible in
Christ passed over to the sacrament.” 49The Father, or the unity of the Holy Trinity, is what was
visible in the person of Christ. It may be of help to recall that Pope John Paul II had made
reference to the “sacramental character of revelation” and in particular to “the sign of the

42
Cf. 1 Cor. 15: 20-24
43
Eph. 1:9-10
44
CCC, 1136
45
CCC, 1129
46
DV, 4
47
Jn. 14:9
48
DV, 6
49
St. Leo the Great’s Homily on the Solemnity of the Ascension of our Lord, The Ascension renders our
faith more excellent and stronger Retrieved from http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/360374.htm
Eucharist in which the indissoluble unity between the signifier and signified makes it possible to
grasp the depths of the mystery.”50

Conclusion
When we recognize that Jesus is a sacrament, we must also admit that He is the
Primordial Sacrament – meaning He is the first and the source of all sacraments. Everything is
made real in Him. Furthermore, Jesus is the only way to God.
Why is this important? We need to understand how the Sacraments participate in Jesus’
own ministry as performed and enacted in his life, death, and Resurrection. Otherwise the
Sacraments may become passive observation instead of active participation, service to rituals
rather than service to neighbor, impersonal obligations instead of personal encounters, and
abstract theory rather than embodied praxis.
We are one in the mystical body of Christ.51 The acts of the Church as the medium of
grace to man through the sacrament echoes the acts of the risen Lord. As these sacraments are
signs as Christ is for the Father and to the Father, so also the members of the Body of Christ. The
Church is the people who are enacting the sign of Christ redemptive act through the sacraments.
Christ is the Church. Just like in the Holy Eucharist, Christ is present in the Eucharistic species
(True Body and True Blood), in the proclaimed Word, in the person of the minister, and the
gathered assembly. Just as Christ mediates man and God in two ways (ascending and
descending), the Church worship God in two-fold manner through Christ: sanctification of God
and sanctification of man.52
It is also good to point out that the revelation of Christ as a sacrament unveiled the
mystery of the heavenly Father yet the Father still remain a mystery. Although Christ has
revealed the fullness of God’s revelation only a few was extrinsically comprehended and
unveiled. Our human finite mind is so insufficient to grasp the infinity of God’s mystery. After
all, the concept of Christ as a sacrament implies that He is both the revelation and a mystery.

50
Sacrament and Scripture, https://www.ewtn.com/expert/answers/sacraments_in_scripture.htm
51
Cf. Eph. 2:11-22
52
Notes on the Lecture of Fr. Carmelo P. Arada, Jr., Introduction to Sacred Liturgy on September 13, 2017
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 St. Leo the Great’s Homily on the Solemnity of the Ascension of our Lord, The
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 The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA), What is a Sacrament,

rcdow.org.uk/att/files/faith/catechesis/baptism/sacraments.pdf

C. Other Source

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