An outward and visible sign

We're still in Epiphany season, so here's another chance to read Rev. Stephen Bowring's Christmas message to members of Ely Cursillo

One of the fifteen talks on a Cursillo is about “sacraments,” and the first part of that word leads us to the word ‘sacred’ and the understanding that a sacrament is fundamentally something ordinary made holy (sacred) by the indwelling of God’s Spirit, imbuing it with a meaning and effect much greater than first meets the eye. In the fifth century St Augustine first described a sacrament as “an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace.” The Church has long recognised a number of specific sacraments, and particularly Holy Communion. Here the bread and wine take on a new meaning and very being as the body and blood of Christ. So the simple act of consuming a small amount of what appears as something outwardly ordinary becomes a channel of invisible grace through which we are absorbed into the eternal saving sacrifice of Christ.

As the new liturgical year begins we look forward to celebrating again the birth of Jesus. Although for those involved a new birth is always very special, what could be more ordinary to the wider world than the arrival of yet another baby? An everyday event; but one that was in fact the most extraordinary sacrament of all time: the incarnated invisible grace of God himself, the creator of all creation tangibly present in a vulnerable, tiny human outward and visible sign.

No wonder the angels were rather excited! Let’s pray that we may be inspired with that excitement, and take it with us beyond Christmas and into a new year of piety, study and apostolic action.

Ultreya!