Verbed by sacrament

Though Kurt Stasiak is a Roman Catholic and a Benedictine, much of what he writes in Sacramental Theology: Means of Grace, Way of Life (Catholic Basics: A Pastoral Ministry Series) is catholic in another sense.

He points out (18) that sacraments are not a “sacred parenthesis,” a slice of holy, or a time out. Instead, “sacraments are the ‘verbs’ of our life; they are those actions, celebrated at special times and in special places, that show us how we are called to act all the time, in all places. We say that sacraments are of and for the Church, because these sacred actions, ordinarily celebrated in the church building, are descriptions, orientations, guides – spiritual resources – for how we, the members of the Church, should live our lives. It is less important for us to define what a sacrament is than it is for us to understand how the sacrament should define us.”

So, sacraments are for the church, but in their “verbal” character, they orient and impel the people of God out of the church into ministry and mission.