Sacraments

Fr. Louis-Marie Chauvet is professor emeritus of sacramental theology at the Institut Catholique, Paris. He has published numerous works and is the author of Symbol and Sacrament and The Sacraments also published by Liturgical Press.

• ContentsIntroduction  ixTheology  ixThe Basic Pastoral Question  xThe Basic Theological Question  xiOverture: Three Theoretical Models  xiiiObjectivist Model  xivSubjectivist Model  xviiThe Vatican II Model  xxiFIRST PARTSTRUCTURE: THE SYMBOLIC ORDERThe Sacraments: One Element of Christian ExistenceChapter 1. The Human Subject in Language and Culture  3Language as Instrument  3Language as Mediation  6The Symbolic Order  13Chapter 2. The Christian Subject in the Language and Culture of the Church  19The Structure of Christian Identity  20Three Key Texts  20Chapter 24 of the Gospel of Luke  22The Story of the Disciples of Emmaus  23The Mediation of the Church  29Scriptures/Sacraments/Ethics  29The Priority of the Ecclesial “We”  31The Celebrating Assembly  34Pastoral Consequences  38Faith or the Assent to a Loss  39The Temptation of Immediacy  39Maintaining a Distance  40Chapter 3. Relations between the Elements of the Structure  43Relations between the Scriptures and Sacrament  43The Scriptures, Sacrament of God’s Word  43The Sacrament, “Precipitate” of the Scriptures  47Evangelization and Sacraments  51Relations between Sacraments and Ethics  54Jewish Worship  54Jesus and Jewish Worship  59The Status of Christian Worship  61Conclusion  65SECOND PARTONE ELEMENT OF THE STRUCTURE: THE SACRAMENTS AS RITUAL SYMBOLSChapter 4. Symbol  69What Is Meant by Symbol  69Some Examples  69Analysis  70Sign and Symbol  74The Act of Symbolization  83Analysis  83Sacramental Symbolization  85Symbol Efficacy  91The Bread of the Word  91The Sacraments of the Word  92Return to Our Original Question  95Chapter 5. The Language of Rite  97An Original Language Game  97Some Laws of Ritual Language  99An Action-Language  99A Symbolic Language  101A Language That Breaks Away from Ordinary Language  103A Programmed, Therefore Repeatable Language  106A Language That Assigns Positions  110Evangelizing the Rite  111Theological Summary  113THIRD PARTFUNCTIONING OF THE STRUCTURE: SYMBOLIC EXCHANGEChapter 6. Symbolic Exchange  117Anthropological Stakes  117Theological Pertinence  123Chapter 7. Symbolic Exchange Between Humanity and God: The Eucharistic Prayer  129Narrative Analysis  129The Status of the Narrative of Institution, the Anamnesis, and the Epiclesis  133The Story of the Institution  133The Discourse of Anamnesis  135The Discourse of Epiclesis  136The Relation Christ/Church in the Eucharist  138The Threefold Body of Christ  139The Lord’s Supper According to Paul  140The Rites of Communion  141Symbolic Exchange in the Eucharistic Prayer  143The Eucharistic Process  143Widening of the Perspective  145Function of the Moment Sacrament  146Christian Identity and Jewish Identity  147One Process of Identity  148A Different Treatment  151FOURTH PARTSACRAMENTAL MYSTERY AND TRINITARIAN MYSTERYChapter 8. The Sacraments of Christ’s Passover in the Spirit  155Classical Sacramental Theology’s Point of Departure: The Incarnation  155Our Point of Departure: The Paschal Mystery of Christ  156The Ancient Tradition  156A Paschal Mystery Demanding to Be Understood in Its Whole Extent  159Consequences of This Point of Departure  160Sacramental Discourse and Christological Discourse  161My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?  161The Son and the Father  162The Sacraments  164Sacramental Discourse and Pneumatological Discourse  164The Paradoxes of the Spirit  165FIFTH PARTPASTORAL APPLICATIONSChapter 9. Managing the Request for Rites of Passage  173The Celebration of the Four Seasons of Life  173In Contemporary Catholicism  174Requests for Sacramental Rites of Passage and Content of Beliefs  174Psycho-Social Clarifications  176The Pastoral Interview  184Communication as Interaction and Decoding  185From the Start, a Situation Fraught with Pitfalls  187Landmarks for the Pastoral Interview  192Conclusion  199Index  201

Louise-Marie Chauvet has followed his major work, Symbol and Sacrament, with this penetrating study that continues to elaborate his stimulating combination of sacramental theology, theories of ritual and symbol, and liturgical texts. Chauvet proposes that sacramentality is essential to Christian identity and shows how language and gesture in Christian rites are the place where scripture, sacrament and ethics are realized as experiences of the presence of the risen Lord whose grace transforms his people. It will be suited for a wide readership, not only of professional theologians but also of many who are concerned to relate the divine and the human in everyday life.Gregory Woolfenden, Oxford