Theology of the Body Extended: Jesus' Crucified Hands and the Sacraments Part I

Summary

Our beloved St. John Paul II gave us an incredible treasure, the Theology of the Body, which revealed the age-old wisdom of the saints of the Church: though the Eucharist is the greatest Sacrament in terms of grace, the greatest sacramental sign could be Marriage, since it images our ultimate calling, to unite with God forever in the next life. The Trinity is imaged by the human family, in that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are given a visible, although limited, image in man, woman, and child. Too, man to woman is a physical picture of Christ to the Church, or derivatively, Creator to creature spiritually. This unfathomable gift from God, that the second-most precious aspect of human nature, secondly to our spiritual component of intellect and will of soul, is a picture of the deepest mysteries of our existence, was so incredibly unfolded and elaborated upon by the same Saint Great[!], that it is said it will unpacked for centuries!

BUT, what if it doesn’t STOP THERE! What if, in fact, that just as it is said that Christ, in His Human Nature, is the Word of God INCARNATE, the Word of God made VISIBLE, that there are is even FURTHER THEOLOGICAL MEANING to Christ’s Body than merely sexuality? What if unbelievable treasures await us in His five great Wounds, His Crucified feet and toes thereupon, and His Crucified hands and fingers thereupon? What if these profound signs on His Body, His very manner of death, image theological mysteries of truth, grace, sacraments, ecclesiology, and ages of humanity?

It may sound insane, but simply, come and see! Review these analogies with Catholic doctrine, sacraments, and history and you decide their veracity!

So come along and relax, read, and rejoice! God bless you if you find the time to read any or all!

Our Hands, the “Works” of our Hands, the Will, Grace, the Sacraments, Sources of Grace

Our hands perform the “works of our hands”, which are moral actions of our wills, the second faculty of soul. And our wills cannot do the works that please God apart from grace, and grace finds its greatest sources in the sacraments. How much more should the hands of Christ, nailed to the cross, express a mystery of the Sacraments concerning grace. And the heart, just as His feet, which are to walk the way of truth, image a mystery of the truths of the Church, flowing from five fountains of truth, per the related article to this one.

The Crucified Hands of Christ: The right hand of Christ endures terrible torture, flowing into the five extremities and the left hand similarly. These poles of the hands on each side of Christ’s Sacred Heart, each with five fingers, are like the two extremities of the heretics’ hearts--hardened presumption and fearful scrupulosity, each in five anti-sacramental dimensions, like the five fingers--with the crucified reality centering Christ’s heart firmly in the balance, the balance of the five sacraments that He institutes, five that require the priests, five that balance the Christian’s heart in the walk of the Christian life between the beginning and the end.

The Five Sacraments, the Five Fingers, of Balance

If we recall from the previous article on the five sacraments that Protestant's lose, that such sacraments poled the heretics on two extremes--presumption and scrupulosity. These very five sacraments, when possessed in Catholicism, keep us balanced between these extremes. When we seek to be faithful to them in stability, then we will see that the outstretched arms of Jesus--each nailed on two extremes, and with five fingers each, one finger per sacrament--fully and wonderfully image this theological reality, making for an astounding visual analogy of the "Word of God made visible" that seriously challenges the reader as to whether this is just a coincidence and is not in fact a Divinely Ordained mystical meaning of yet another aspect of the Body of Jesus.

Toward that end, let us review what we saw:

Again, there are five sacraments that no Protestant can have while Protestant. These five absolutely require the priests and, in one case, a bishop, effectively the Episcopate. They are:

Confession
Anointing of Sick
Confirmation
Holy Orders
Holy Communion

Each of these five sacraments firmly grounds the Catholic child between the extremes of presumption and scrupulosity:

The Catholic Balance

Confession: You can fall from grace after initial justification, therefore, do not presume; but do not cower in fear, for there is a certain remedy for mercy if you do it: confession to a mediating father of God's grace.

Anointing of the sick: There is always mercy from God before death, but do not presume, for the end comes like a thief. Postpone not your conversion, for how do you know the priest will be available in your last hour, and you will be unable to muster up perfect contrition when the night descends?

Confirmation: God sincerely desires that all men might be elect, enough that he offers, through the anointing hands of the priest, seven special gifts of the Spirit to aid you in the mature journey of faith, therefore, fear not. Yet, do not presume your election, and forego this sacrament because it is not technically necessary for salvation! For, shall you risk being like the five foolish virgins that did not bring extra oil for the slumbering night?

Holy Orders: There is a sure way to know which men truly speak for God, the true doctrines. It is those men who have been formally ordained by the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. These are the true men of God, not merely because they possess Scripture but because they possess the spiritual manual to understand Scripture: the Tradition. Hence, whoever wishes to know the true meaning of Scripture for the fullness of faith, consult an Orthodox or Catholic priest or Bishop who fully aligns himself with Peter. Hence, do not fear, little one: this is the sure way to know who speaks for God. But hard-hearted heretics, presume not! Shall you presume that your private dialogue with the Spirit gives you an edge over the men who formally succeed the Apostles? For if you are just one of myriads of men who hold the Scriptures in your hands, what makes you any different from other 99 men who do the same, but no two of which fully agree with you, or one another on all pertinent questions of doctrine? Who called you, O proud heretic? If you say, my pastor did, then who called him, and so forth? Can your lineage be traced formally in history back to the first men of Christ, the Apostles?

The True Communion: There is a certain way to know which disciples truly possess the fellowship of Christ, and this is where the Eucharist is. And this true presence of Christ exists only in the Churches of Catholicism and the Orthodox. Certainly, Christ is literally there. Therefore, fear not, you needn't search among myriads of competing bible-only factions to find this true communion. On the same token, you proud heretic, presume not that you can be saved if you culpably leave the true Church and found your own sect! For these is One Bride of Christ, who believes the same and worships the same in essence. This is the Catholic Church. If you know she is real, you must stay in her or join her, or perish!

We see here, then, the five sacraments which keep a Catholic balanced.

Now, the dragon twists and mocks the Sacraments. We saw above that the sacraments, when faithfully received, keep us balanced between the extremes of presumption and scrupulosity. These two, then, are extremes that the devil can exploit in mocking these five great sacraments.

Let us look at the first extreme deeper, presumption; a firmer, self-assuming extreme with five dimensions of haughtiness. The presumptuous persons are hard headed, which is good, but they have also hardened their hearts, which is bad. This is the hard right: Hard headed, hard-hearted. They are the Pharisees. This is the haughty heretic who presumes immunity from the five:

The Presumptuous Heretic

Confession: I have no need of it, for no true believer can fall from grace. If they do, they never knew God to begin with. Or else, I can sin with impunity.

Anointing of the Sick: Modified perseverance: here, the hardened heretic admits that fall from grace might be possible temporarily, but believes that, in the end, God will guarantee his restoration and save him. In effect, this nullifies the Anointing of the Sick.

Confirmation: The hardened heretic presumes that God wants him saved, regardless of anything else, and that it is guaranteed. He presumes he is chosen and elect and hence presumes he needs no special graces like Confirmation to persevere. That is, he considers himself "confirmed in righteousness" and therefore does not retain healthy fear of necessity to persevere, that salvation is it not guaranteed. He scoffs at Catholic confirmation.

Holy Orders: The haughty heretic is certain Rome is an impostor, yet has no cowering fear as he reads the fearful Scriptures. He assumes with exaggerated pride and confidence that the Spirit truly leads him privately to understand all Scripture and so proceeds to go out in the field and sow the word, assuming that he is a man of God for sure, and casually dismisses any doubt that he is in fact only one of many sola-scripturists who think they understand Scripture in all fullness. Yet no two of which, including himself in the mix, can fully agree on all questions of doctrine.

Holy Communion: Ditto, he assumes his particular community must be the true church, while ignoring that no objective formal criterion can really distinguish it from the myriads of other such communities that altogether, again, mutually disagree on a whole host of doctrinal issues.

The Right Crucified Hand of Jesus

See, then, this strong minded but also strong-hearted heretic is on the right, all the way, and presumes his immunity to the five sacraments. Yes, this is like Christ's right hand, nailed horribly to the cross with five appendages, so that, perhaps, the explosion of such horrible pain all through his right, stronger arm, into the very five extremities, is meriting the future apocalyptic grace that will convert these New Testament Pharisees of the right and show them the humility to accept that these five sacraments are graces from God that are vital to a loving and balanced walk with God in between the great basic, epochal sacraments of man's general ends: baptism, to be made right with God from the outset of life, and marriage, the sign of the Christian's goal at the end, to be married to the Christ forever in the Marriage feast of the Lamb.

Let us look at the other extreme: the scared heretic, the overly scrupulous.

The Innocent, Scrupulous Heretic

This is the innocent heretic. His heart is soft, so he realizes perpetual need for repentance and dependence on God. But the Scriptures, without Rome's stable Tradition, have left fearful uncertain answers by their harsh hyperbole to the five dimensions above, as follows:

Confession: On the one hand, the heretic fears that if you fall from grace, there is no remedy; you are lost forever. Some heretics believe this. Others say, you can fall from grace but can get it back, but their opinions differ as to precisely how you might lose grace, much less how to get it back. Some say, it is not so much sin but lack of faith. Others, a lesser group, say any wrongdoing, even minor, cuts you off. Others say, you have to stop trying to follow God but are not specific. To get it back, some say, just resume fiducial trust in Christ to cover you. Others say, start trying again. Others say, you must also turn away from the wrong doing. Some are tortured, “have I really, really, really repented, or am I fooling myself?” Others deny you can fall from grace but say that if you ever do, you never knew God to begin with. This can lead to despair and abandonment of faith, thinking, “If all that time, I seemed to love God, and yet I didn’t, then what is true love and faith?”

Anointing: Scripture seems to suggest unforgivable sins:

Hebrews 6: There is no remedy for apostasy. “For it is impossible for those who have once tasted...if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance...”

Apocalypse: The mark of the beast, “And the smoke of their torment shall rise forever and ever!”

Matthew: Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit: many Christian counselors must have a training for this, for fearful despairing souls who come in because they think they have committed the unforgivable sin.

James: St James says, whoever swears is damned if he breaks it. No supplemental info is given.

Then, in this horror, if a soul believes that he is unforgivable, the rest of his life is now an evening waiting for damnation, no matter how hard he pleads with God. It is, in a certain sense, an “anointing unto damnation” rather than anointing of the sick. Hence, some Calvinists who have presumed election have said to a poor soul, Well, since you are now damned with no hope, perhaps you should take up your anointing unto damnation and eat, drink, fornicate, and be merry, for when you die, you go into eternal fire!”

Confirmation: Calvinism argues that God does not want all men saved. Hence God would not offer the Sacrament of Confirmation since, as it is available to all members of the Church who are ready for it and desire it, and it is a gracious gift of God to strengthen the person for the ultimate calls of faith, even martyrdom, it would clearly imply a Divine Resolve to save all men. Hence, the terrible torture of an innocent Calvinist is to suspect that God doesn't desire their election, that they are damned. This can arise especially if they are struggling with some sin or sins and failing, a sign that God is not with them and is abandoning them to reprobation. Think of the horror of being told by an "elect" Calvinist that you are not elect, tough luck, God didn't choose you!

Holy Orders: The innocent heretic does not trust Rome or her other Bishops because of their sins and laxity. So he fears Rome; he cannot go there; they are imposters, the whore, the beast; they are the antichrist. But now, then, without them, and the stability of Tradition, the heretic enters the arena of myriads of competing men and factions, all hell fire and brimstone, claiming to speak for God, but all mutually conflicting. What must he do? He must search the Scriptures in fear, cowering in humility until he thinks he has found all truth. But pray, for if you misinterpret because of your sins, you will perish! That is torture. That is the fearful reality of not knowing for sure who really is a man of God and who isn’t!

Holy Communion: Ditto, Calvin taught that at any age of history, there is guaranteed to be at least one community that fully correctly interprets the Word, but where it is, no one knows! You can only hope you find it. But if you don’t and join even a partially erroneous community, you will perish!

Here, the heretic is soft in heart, humble, having fear of God, but also soft and weak in mind, for they are tossed from one extreme to another, having a gravity of fear Christ does not will; for He desires all of His Father’s children to have the stability of the Church, that their hearts may rest, not fully presumptuously, but in loving trust, balance, having certitude of belief and what is home, and so forth.

The Left Crucified Hand of Jesus

Hence, these heretics, the weak ones in heart and mind, who have five dimensions of exaggerated scrupulosity, of spiritual torture, are like the left hand of Christ, nailed with five appendages, the weaker arm, so that the similar explosion of pain in his weak arm, down to the five extremities, might merit the graces to give these heretics relief, that when Christians are reunited, not only should the presumptuous heretics be humbled, but that the fearful heretics might be relieved.

Conclusion

So we have seen an analogy in Jesus' crucified hands on two extremes, of five fingers each, mirroring the two extreme relationships that heretics have relative to the five sacraments they lack by their very objective condition of heresy. Is this analogy substantiated, seeing as Christ is, per our very faith, the mysteries of the Divine made visible - The Word INCARNATE?

You decide!