Christ the Sacrament of the encounter with God Volume I

Description

This is a new edition of the 1963 classic which gave Christological thought a new direction. As far back as his first major book Schillebeeckx propounded an anthropological approach to the sacraments. In Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with God, he draws on theologically fruitful work by phenomenological anthropologists like Merleau-Ponty, Buytendijk and Binswanger. That makes Schillebeeckx’s distinctive idiom and modern approach appealing even today. He rediscovers, as it were from within, the notions forged by scholastic theology, and thus restores to us a theology of the sacraments rooted in the biblical and patristic soil from which they first sprang. Schillebeeckx’s speculative synthesis of this quest still has a fresh ring to it. He describes Christ as the primordial sacrament in a reflection on his public ministry, death and resurrection inspired by the universal human search for such a ‘sacrament’. He concludes that the church’s sacraments have to be an earthly extension of the liberation brought by Christ’s story. Schillebeeckx ends by describing sacraments as grace made visible that gives crowning moments in Christian life a mystical quality. Edward Schillebeeckx Collected Works bring together the most important and influential works of the Dutch Dominican and theologian Edward Schillebeeckx (1914-2009) in a reliable edition. All translations have been carefully checked or revised, some texts are presented in English for the first time. The page numbers of earlier editions are included. Each volume carries a foreword by an internationally renowned Schillebeeckx expert. This edition makes Schillebeeckx available for a new generation of scholars and students. Cover HalfTitle Title Copyright How to use this book Contents Abbreviations Introduction to Collected Works of Edward Schillebeeckx Introduction to the new edition ‘Christ the Sacrament’ Foreword Introduction: Personal encounter with God Chapter 1 Christ, sacrament of God 1. Humanity in search of the sacrament of God 1. Sacrament in pagan religion 2. Israel as sacrament of God 2. Christ the primordial sacrament 1. Encounter with the earthly Christ as sacrament of the encounter with God 2. The actions of Jesus’ life as manifestations of divine love for man and human love for God: Bestowal of grace and religious worship 3. Jesus’ humiliation in the service of God and his heavenly exaltation: the redemptive mystery of Christ (a) Passover, Ascension and Pentecost (b) The significance of the saving mysteries of Jesus, the Christ 3. The necessity for the extension to earth of the glorified Christ, the primordial sacrament 1. Our need to encounter the Christ of heaven 2. The real possibility of this encounter from Christ’s side 3. The necessity for earthly sacraments so that the encounter between the glorified Christ and men on earth might take place in terms of mutual human availability Chapter 2 The Church, sacrament of the risen Christ 1. The mystery of the Church, the earthly “Body of the Lord” 1. The Church, earthly sacrament of Christ in heaven 2. The ecclesial character of the office of hierarchy and laity 3. Office and charism in the Church 4. A sacrament: official act of the Church as redemptive institution 2. The sacraments as ecclesial celebration-in-mystery of the mysteries of Christ’s life 1. The presence of the mystery of Christ in the sacraments (a) Christ’s mystery of redemption as eternally actual (b) The sacramental presence of the enduring mystery of redemption (c) The eternally-enduring actuality of the redemption and the historical perspective of salvation in the sacraments 2. The sacraments as ecclesial manifestation of Christ’s divine love for men (bestowal of grace) and of his human love for God (worship) (a) Ritual activity in general (b) Sacramental symbolic action of the Church: ecclesial worship and salvation (c) The infallible working of grace in the sacraments: The sacramental mystery of Passover and Pentecost (d) The ecclesial visibility of grace: “The sacraments confer the grace they signify” 3. Sevenfold ecclesial realization of the one, mystery of redemption 4. The Sacramental presence of Christ for the recipient Appendix: St. Thomas’ Christological interpretation of sacramental “ex-opere-operato” causality Chapter 3 Implications of the ecclesial character of sacramental action 1. The twofold liturgical structure of the sacraments: “Sacrament and word” 1. Historical survey of teaching on liturgical action and liturgical word 2. Sign-activity in action and word 3. The relationship of the word to the sacramental manifestation of salvation 2. The ecclesial administration of the sacraments 1. The necessity of the intention of the Church’s minister 2. Office and charism. The ideal conditions intrinsically required by the essence of the Church 3. Break between office and charism. The necessary minimum for the minister’s act to be a participation in the visibility of the Church 3. The intention of the recipient 1. Free acceptance of the visibility of the Church 2. The problem of sacraments for infants: The assurance of God’s redeeming love towards those who can have no knowledge of it 4. The condition upon which the value of the sacraments as prayer and sanctification depends: Institution by Christ 1. The fundamental institution of the seven sacraments as implicit in the establishment of the sacramental Church 2. The problem of the separate institution of the seven sacraments (a) How Christ himself indicated the sevenfold direction of sacramental meaning (b) The role of Christ, of the apostolic Church, and of the postapostolic Church in determining the shape of the sacraments (c) Conclusion 3. Consequences Chapter 4 The sacraments in their fullness: The fruitful sacrament 1. Mutual availability in the encounter with Christ 1. Personal entry into Christ’s ecclesial mystery of worship 2. Sacraments of the living and of the dead 3. The sacramental bestowal of grace upon infants 2. Sacraments of desire and the revival of the sacraments 1. Sacraments of desire 2. The revival of sacraments Partial ‘revival Chapter 5 Encounter with Christ in the Church as sacrament of the encounter with God:The effects of a sacrament 1. The ecclesial effect as sacrament of the grace effect 1. The character as the ecclesial effect of three sacraments (a) Historical sketch (b) The character as the ecclesial effect of baptism, confirmation and order 2. The ecclesial effect of the other sacraments 3. Explanation of the number of sacraments from the nature of the Church 2. The grace effect of the sacraments: Sacramental grace as the encounter with God 3. The religious value of the sacraments in the separated Christian Churches Chapter 6 Sacramental encounters with Christ: Culminating moments in the ecclesial character of Christian life 1. Sacramental and extra-sacramental grace 2. The Christian life itself as sacrament of the encounter with God 3. Everything is “Grace made visible” Chapter 7 The mystical quality of the sacraments Conclusion