Sacraments and Devotional Practices

1
Sacraments and Devotional Practices

• Some definitions

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Signs and symbols

• A sign is a mark or gesture that has little or
  no surplus of meaning.
• A symbol is a mark or gesture that contains a
  surplus of meaning
• linguistic symbols
• physical objects or bodily movements
• social arrangements
• Rituals are standardized patterns of behavior
  that incorporate all three types of symbols
  (words, objects/movement, and social arrangement).

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Social functions of symbols

• Communication
• Shaping of knowledge
• Expressing relative power
• Symbols are a cultures vehicle for expressing
  the meaning of life. (p. 264)

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Understandings of sacrament

• Earliest term used was mysteries
• Latin translation sacramentum
• Augustine visible sign of an invisible grace
• Lombard
• the sign bears a likeness to what it signifies
• the outward symbol is a cause of grace
• Thomas Aquinas
• matter the physical sign
• form the words used in the ritual
• Martin Luther command and promise

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The old Catholic definition

• A sacrament is
• an outward sign
• instituted by Christ
• to give grace

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George Worguls definition of sacraments

• Sacraments are
• symbols
• arising from the ministry of Christ and continued
  in and through the church,
• which when received celebrated in faith are
  encounters with God, Father, Son, and Holy
  Spirit.
• From Magic to Metaphor, p. 123