2016/04/05

Karen Armstrong - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Karen Armstrong - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Karen Armstrong

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the religious author. For operatic soprano, seeKaran Armstrong.
Karen Armstrong
OBE
Born14 November 1944(age 71)
Wildmoor, Worcestershire, England
OccupationWriter
NationalityBritish
Alma materOxford University
Website
charterforcompassion.org
Karen Armstrong OBE FRSL(born 14 November 1944) is a British author and commentator known for her books on comparative religion.[1] A former Roman Catholic religious sister, she went from a conservative to a more liberal and mysticalChristian faith. She attendedSt Anne's College, Oxford, while in the convent and majored in English. She became disillusioned and left the convent in 1969.[1] She first rose to prominence in 1993 with her book A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Her work focuses on commonalities of the major religions, such as the importance of compassion and the Golden Rule.
Armstrong received the US$100,000 TED Prize in February 2008. She used that occasion to call for the creation of a Charter for Compassion, which was unveiled the following year.

Early life[edit]

Armstrong was born at Wildmoor, Worcestershire,[2] into a family of Irish ancestry who, after her birth, moved to Bromsgrove and later toBirmingham. In 1962, at the age of 18, she became a member of theSisters of the Holy Child Jesus, a teaching congregation, in which she remained for seven years. Armstrong claims she suffered physical and psychological abuse in the convent; according to an article in The Guardian newspaper, "Armstrong was required to mortify her flesh with whips and wear a spiked chain around her arm. When she spoke out of turn, she claims she was forced to sew at a treadle machine with no needle for a fortnight."[3]
Once she had advanced from postulant and novice to professed nun, she enrolled in St Anne's College, Oxford, to study English. Armstrong left her order in 1969 while still a student at Oxford. After graduating with a Congratulatory First, she embarked on a DPhil on the poetTennyson. According to Armstrong, she wrote her dissertation on a topic that had been approved by the university committee. Nevertheless, it was failed by her external examiner on the grounds that the topic had been unsuitable.[4] Armstrong did not formally protest this verdict, nor did she embark upon a new topic but instead abandoned hope of an academic career. She reports that this period in her life was marked by ill-health stemming from her lifelong but, at that time, still undiagnosed temporal lobe epilepsy.[5][6]
Around this time she was lodged with Jenifer and Herbert Hart, looking after their disabled son, as told in her memoir The Spiral Staircase.[4]

Career[edit]

In 1976, Armstrong took a job teaching English at James Allen's Girls' School in Dulwich while working on a memoir of her conventexperiences. This was published in 1982 as Through the Narrow Gateto excellent reviews. That year she embarked on a new career as an independent writer and broadcasting presenter. In 1984, the BritishChannel Four commissioned her to write and present a television documentary on the life of St. Paul, The First Christian, a project that involved traveling to the Holy Land to retrace the steps of the saint. Armstrong described this visit as a "breakthrough experience" that defied her prior assumptions and provided the inspiration for virtually all her subsequent work. In A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam (1993), she traces the evolution of the three major monotheistic traditions from their beginnings in the Middle East up to the present day and also discusses Hinduism and Buddhism. As guiding "luminaries" in her approach, Armstrong acknowledges (inThe Spiral Staircase and elsewhere) the late Canadian theologianWilfred Cantwell Smith, a Protestant minister,[7] and the Jesuit fatherBernard Lonergan.[8] In 1996, she published Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths.
Armstrong's The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions (2006) continues the themes covered in A History of Godand examines the emergence and codification of the world's great religions during the so-called Axial age identified by Karl Jaspers. In the year of its publication Armstrong achieved the distinction of being invited to choose her eight favourite records for BBC Radio's Desert Island Discs programme.[9] She has made several appearances on television, including on Rageh Omaar's programme The Life of Muhammad. She was an advisor for the award-winning, PBS-broadcast documentary Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet (2002), produced byUnity Productions Foundation.
In 2007 the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore invited Armstrong to deliver the MUIS Lecture.[10]
Armstrong is a fellow of the Jesus Seminar, a group of scholars and laypeople which attempts to investigate the historical foundations of Christianity. She has written numerous articles for The Guardian and for other publications. She was a key advisor on Bill Moyers' popularPBS series on religion, has addressed members of the United States Congress, and was one of three scholars to speak at the UN's first ever session on religion.[11] She is a vice-president of the British Epilepsy Association, otherwise known as Epilepsy Action.
Armstrong, who has taught courses at Leo Baeck College, a rabbinical college and centre for Jewish education located in north London, says she has been particularly inspired by the Jewish tradition's emphasis on practice as well as faith: "I say that religion isn't about believing things. It's about what you do. It's ethical alchemy. It's about behaving in a way that changes you, that gives you intimations of holiness and sacredness."[12] She maintains that religious fundamentalism is not just a response to, but is a product of contemporary culture[13] and for this reason concludes that, "We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world. Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological and religious boundaries. Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment, and indispensable to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global community."[14]
Awarded the $100,000 TED Prize in February 2008, Armstrong called for drawing up a Charter for Compassion, in the spirit of the Golden Rule, to identify shared moral priorities across religious traditions, in order to foster global understanding and a peaceful world.[15] It was presented in Washington, D.C. in November 2009. Signatories includeQueen Noor of Jordan, the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu andPaul Simon.[16]

Comments on Bill Maher[edit]

Armstrong commented on comedian Bill Maher's criticism of Islam by telling Salon "this is the sort of talk that led to the concentration camps in Europe. This is the kind of thing people were saying about Jews in the 1930s and ’40s in Europe."[17] Maher responded to Armstrong's comments by telling Vanity Fair, "It’s beyond stupid. Jews weren’t oppressing anybody. There weren’t 5,000 militant Jewish groups. They didn’t do a study of treatment of women around the world and find that the Jews were at the bottom of it. There weren’t 10 Jewish countries in the world that were putting gay people to death just for being gay. It’s idiotic."[18][19] After that Armstrong reiterated her criticism of Maher by telling the New York Times, "My problem with some current critics of Islam is that their criticism is neither accurate, fair, nor well-informed. I am sure they do not intend this, but in the 1930s and ’40s in Europe, we learned how dangerous and ultimately destructive this kind of discourse could be."[20]

Honours[edit]

In 1999 Armstrong received the Muslim Public Affairs Council's Media Award.[21][22][23]
Armstrong was honoured by the New York Open Center in 2004 for her "profound understanding of religious traditions and their relation to the divine."[24]
She received an honorary degree as Doctor of Letters by Aston University in 2006.[25]
In May 2008 she was awarded the Freedom of Worship Award by theRoosevelt Institute, one of four medals presented each year to men and women whose achievements have demonstrated a commitment to the Four Freedoms proclaimed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941 as essential to democracy: freedom of speech and of worship, freedom from want and from fear. The institute stated that Armstrong had become "a significant voice, seeking mutual understanding in times of turbulence, confrontation and violence among religious groups." It cited "her personal dedication to the ideal that peace can be found in religious understanding, for her teachings on compassion, and her appreciation for the positive sources of spirituality." [26]
She has also received the TED Prize 2008.[27]
In 2009 she was awarded the Dr. Leopold Lucas Prize by the University of Tübingen.[28]
Armstrong was honored Nationalencyklopedin's International Knowledge Award 2011[29] "for her long standing work of bringing knowledge to others about the significance of religion to humankind and, in particular, for pointing out the similarities between religions. Through a series of books and award-winning lectures she reaches out as a peace-making voice at a time when world events are becoming increasingly linked to religion."
On 30 November 2011 (St. Andrew's Day) Armstrong was made honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of Saint Andrews.[30]
On 3 June 2014, she was made honorary Doctor of Divinity by McGill University.[31]

Reception[edit]

Armstrong has been called "a prominent and prolific religious historian"[32] and described as "arguably the most lucid, wide-ranging and consistently interesting religion writer today".[33] Juan Eduardo Campo, author of the Encyclopedia of Islam (Encyclopedia of World Religions) (2009), included Armstrong among a group of scholars whom he considered as currently conveying a "more or less objective" (as opposed to polemical) view of Islam and its origins to a wide public in Europe and North America.[34] She is a regular speaker on the Abrahamic tradition; in the last decade increasing interest in and debate surrounding Islamic issues has brought her even wider visibility.[citation needed] After the September 11 attacks she was in great demand as a lecturer, pleading for inter-faith dialogue.[35]
Atheist activist Sam Harris criticizes Armstrong's "benign" view of Islam, contending that "Islam, as it is currently understood and practiced by vast numbers of the world's Muslims, is antithetical to civil society."[36] Harris is also strongly critical of Armstrong's "religious apology" of Islamic fundamentalism, accusing her and like-minded scholars of "political correctness."[36] Armstrong has also attracted the criticism of Christian philosopher and theologian William Lane Craig. In Craig's response to a debate between Armstrong and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins published in the 12 September 2009 issue ofThe Wall Street Journal,[37] Craig criticizes Armstrong's "anti-realist" views about statements concerning God, particularly her assertion that "'God' is merely a symbol that points beyond itself to an indescribable transcendence." Craig argues that Armstrong's view of God as ineffableis "self-refuting" and "logically incoherent". Craig also disputes Armstrong's characterization of the religious views of early Christians.[38]

Publications[edit]

Journal articles
  • "Women, Tourism, Politics" (1977)
  • "The Holiness of Jerusalem: Asset or Burden?" (1998)
  • "Ambiguity and Remembrance: Individual and Collective Memory in Finland" (2000)
Books
  • Through the Narrow Gate (1982)
  • The First Christian: Saint Paul's Impact on Christianity (1983)
  • Beginning the World (1983)
  • Tongues of Fire: An Anthology of Religious and Poetic Experience(1985)
  • The Gospel According to Woman: Christianity's Creation of the Sex War in the West (1986)
  • Holy War: The Crusades and their Impact on Today's World (1988)
  • Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet (1991)
  • The English Mystics of the Fourteenth Century (1991)
  • The End of Silence: Women and the Priesthood (1993)
  • A History of God (1993)
  • Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths (1996)
  • In the Beginning: A New Interpretation of Genesis (1996)
  • Islam: A Short History (2000)
  • The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (2000)
  • Buddha (2001)
  • Faith After 11 September (2002)
  • The Spiral Staircase (2004)
  • A Short History of Myth (2005)
  • Muhammad: A Prophet For Our Time (2006)
  • The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions (2006) ISBN 978-0-375-41317-9
  • The Bible: A Biography (2007)
  • The Case for God (2009) Vintage ISBN 978-0-307-26918-8
  • Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life (2010) ISBN 978-0-307-59559-1
  • A Letter to Pakistan (2011) Oxford University Press ISBN 978-0-19-906330-7
  • Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (2014) Bodley Head ISBN 9781847921864[39]

See also[edit]

References


  1. ^ Jump up to:a b "Karen Armstrong on Sam Harris and Bill Maher: "It fills me with despair, because this is the sort of talk that led to the concentration camps"". Salon. 23 November 2014.
  2. Jump up^ Armstrong, Karen (2005).Through A Narrow Gate: A Memoir of Spiritual Discovery(Revised ed.). Macmillan. p. 7.ISBN 0-312-34095-8.
  3. Jump up^ "Karen Armstrong: The compassionate face of religion". The Guardian. 2 October 2010.
  4. ^ Jump up to:a b Armstrong, Karen. The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out Of Darkness. New York: Random House, 2004.
  5. Jump up^ McGrath, Alister (2006)."Spirituality and well-being: some recent discussions".Brain 129 (1): 278–282.doi:10.1093/brain/awh719.
  6. Jump up^ "The runaway nun". New Statesman. 5 April 2004.
  7. Jump up^ See The Case for God, p. 87, footnote 42
  8. Jump up^ The Case for God, p. 283.
  9. Jump up^ "Desert Island Discs, February 12, 2006: Karen Armstrong". BBC Radio 4 Website. Retrieved 9 April2008.
  10. Jump up^ Karen Armstrong delivers the 2007 MUIS lecture, muis.gov.sg
  11. Jump up^ Karen Armstrong Speaker Profile at The Lavin Agency, thelavinagency.com[dead link]
  12. Jump up^ Dave Weich, "Karen Armstrong, Turn, Turn, Turn".
  13. Jump up^ "Voices on Antisemtisim interview with Karen Armstrong". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 5 July 2007.
  14. Jump up^ The Charter for Compassion.
  15. Jump up^ "TEDPrize 2008 Winner :: Karen Armstrong". TEDPrize Website. Retrieved 19 March2008.
  16. Jump up^ Chapman, Glenn (12 November 2009). "Online call for religions to embrace compassion". Agence France-Presse. Retrieved 12 November2009.
  17. Jump up^ Karen Armstrong on Sam Harris and Bill Maher: "It fills me with despair, because this is the sort of talk that led to the concentration camps." Published 23 November 2014. Retrieved 9 December 2014.http://www.salon.com/2014/11/23/karen_armstrong_sam_harris_anti_islam_talk_fills_me_with_despair/
  18. Jump up^ Petition All You Want, Bill Maher Will Speak at Berkeley. Published 4 December 2014. Retrieved 9 December 2014.http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2014/12/bill-maher-interview-islam-berkeley
  19. Jump up^ "It’s beyond stupid": Bill Maher responds to backlash against Islam views. Published 5 December 2014. Retrieved 9 December 2014.http://www.salon.com/2014/12/05/its_beyond_stupid_bill_maher_responds_to_berkeley_petition_and_karen_armstrong/
  20. Jump up^ The Blame Game: Karen Armstrong Talks About ‘Fields of Blood’. Published 26 December 2014. Retrieved 5 January 2015.http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/12/26/the-blame-game-karen-armstrong-talks-about-fields-of-blood
  21. Jump up^ "Last Chance to Buy Your Tickets to MPAC Media Awards Gala on Sunday, June 1st". Muslim Public Affairs Council. Retrieved 25 December 2011.
  22. Jump up^ "Karen Armstrong". Westar Institute. Retrieved25 December 2011.
  23. Jump up^ "Bill Moyers Journal, Karen Armstrong". Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). Retrieved 25 December 2011.
  24. Jump up^ "Open Center Gala Honorees". 2009. Retrieved9 October 2009.
  25. Jump up^ "Honorary Graduates of the University". Aston University. Retrieved 25 December 2011.
  26. Jump up^ "The Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Awards: Freedom of Worship: Karen Armstrong". Four Freedoms Award website. Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute. 2008. Retrieved 28 June 2008.
  27. Jump up^ "2008 Winners". TED Prize. Retrieved 25 December 2011.
  28. Jump up^ Armstrong, Karen. (2010).Plädoyer für Gott. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. p. 108.ISBN 978-3-16-150305-4.
  29. Jump up^ "Intervju med Karen Armstrong". The Knowledge Awards. Retrieved 25 December2011.
  30. Jump up^ "The point of religion"., University of St Andrews, News archive
  31. Jump up^ "Fourteen personalities to receive honorary degree from McGill"., McGill Reporter
  32. Jump up^ Bonos, Lisa (16 January 2011). "Review of Karen Armstrong's "Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life"".Washington Post. Retrieved21 May 2011.
  33. Jump up^ Miller, Laura. ""Buddha" by Karen Armstrong". Salon. Retrieved 21 May 2011.
  34. Jump up^ Juan Eduardo Campo (November 1996). "Review of[Muhammad and the Origins of Islam] by F. E. Peters".International Journal of Middle East Studies 28 (4): 597–599.doi:10.1017/s0020743800063911.
  35. Jump up^ Cliteur, Paul (2010). The Secular Outlook: In Defense of Moral and Political Secularism. John Wiley & Sons. p. 249. ISBN 1-4443-9044-9. Extract of page 249
  36. ^ Jump up to:a b Harris, Sam (5 May 2008). "Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks". The Huffington Post. Retrieved21 May 2014.
  37. Jump up^ Armstrong, Karen; Dawkins, Richard (12 September 2009)."Man vs. God". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved21 May 2014.
  38. Jump up^ Craig, William Lane (20 September 2009). "Dawkins vs. Armstrong" (Podcast).Reasonable Faith. Event occurs at 16:50. Retrieved21 May 2014. External link in|publisher= (help)
  39. Jump up^ McGirr, Michael (10 October 2014). "Book Review: Battling with the evils of humanity".The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 19 October 2014.

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Catholic Sacraments: A Primer

Catholic Sacraments: A Primer

Catholic Sacraments:
Vehicles of Grace

The sacraments are Christ's own gift that provide us with his grace.
They are the divine helps which God gives us to enable us to:
  • Believe the truths of his faith
  • Live according to his moral code
  • Grow in his gift of divine life
The seven sacrements are a fundamental part of the Catholic faith.

Freely choosing to accept grace

When God made us, he gave us free will.
He continues to respect our free will to the end. When Jesus died upon the Cross to redeem us from our sins, it did not mean that from then on everyone wouldhave to go to Heaven whether they wanted to or not.
When Jesus died upon the Cross, he paid an infinite price for an inexhaustible flow of grace. That grace would enable each person to turn back to God and to remain united with God through this life and through eternity.
That brings us to a question: How would Jesus provide for this flow of grace to individual souls?
  • Would the whole thing be invisible?
  • Would God simply give to each person of good will a silent inner conviction of being saved?
  • Each time that we felt the need of divine help, would we simply ask for it and immediately feel welling up within us a great surge of spiritual strength?

Consistent with how we are made

God could have done it that way, of course. But God chose to be consistent. He chose to deal with man, in this matter of grace, in the same manner in which He had made man—through a union of the material and the spiritual, of body and of soul.
The grace itself would be invisible, as by its nature it must be. But the grace would come to us through the visible things that we deal with daily.
And so God took the common things from the world about us—objects which we could taste and touch and feel, words that we could hear and gestures that we could understand—and made these the carriers of His grace.
He even matched the sign to the purpose for which the grace was given:
  • Water for the grace which cleanses
  • The appearances of bread and wine for the grace which nourishes and gives growth
  • Oil for the grace which strengthens
To this combination of outward sign and inner grace, welded together by Christ, the Church gives the Latin name of sacramentum—a holy thing.

Sacraments: a definition

The sacraments are chosen instruments of divine power.
The exact definition of a sacrament is that it is "an outward sign instituted by Christ to give grace." We readily can see that there are three distinct ideas contained in that short definition:
  • Outward sign
  • Instituted by Christ
  • To give grace
Let's examine exactly what each of these three ideas means:

Outward signs...

The outward signs are God's way of treating us like the human beings we are. He conveys His unseen grace into our spiritual souls through material symbols which our physical bodies can perceive—things and words and gestures.
The outward signs of the sacraments have two parts: the "thing" itself which is used (water, oil, etc.), and the words or gestures which give significance to what is being done.

...Instituted by Christ...

We know that no human power could attach an inward grace to an outward sign—not even the divinely guided but humanly applied power of the Church.
Only God can do that.
Which brings us to the second element in the definition of a sacrament: "instituted by Christ."
Between the time He began His public life and the time He ascended into heaven, Jesus fashioned the seven sacraments. When He ascended into heaven, that put an end to the making of sacraments.
The Church cannot institute new sacraments. There never can be more or less than seven, the seven Jesus has given us: Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Eucharist,Reconciliation (Confession or Penance), Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders, and Matrimony.
Jesus did completely specify the matter and form of some of the sacraments—notably Baptism and the Holy Eucharist. But this does not mean that He necessarily fixed the matter and form of all the sacraments down to the last detail.
Concerning some of the sacraments (Confirmation, for example) He probably left it to His Church, the keeper and the giver of His sacraments, to specify in detail the broad matter and form assigned by Christ.

...To give grace

Coming now to the third element in the definition of a sacrament, we have its essential purpose: "to give grace."
What kind of grace do the sacraments give?
First and most important of all, they give sanctifying grace. Sanctifying grace is that marvelous supernatural life, that sharing-in-God's-own-life that is the result of God's Love, the Holy Spirit, indwelling in the soul.
  • To the soul cut off from God by original sin,Baptism brings sanctifying grace for the first time. Baptism opens the soul to the flow of God's love, and establishes union between the soul and God.
  • To the soul cut off from God by its own sin, by mortal sin, the sacrament of Reconciliationrestores the sanctifying grace that has been lost. Reconciliation removes the barrier that has kept the Holy Spirit outside and once again gives entrance to God's life-giving love.
The other five sacraments—Confirmation, Holy Eucharist, Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders, and Matrimony—give an increase in sanctifying grace.
They deepen and intensify the spiritual life of sanctifying grace which already pulsates through the soul. As each additional sacrament is received (and repeated, when it can be) the level of spiritual vitality rises in the soul—somewhat as the brightness of a fire increases as you add more fuel.
(God's love does not increase—it is infinite to begin with. But the soul's capacity to absorb His love increases as a child's capacity for life increases with each meal that he eats.)

Other kinds of grace

If each sacrament gives (or increases) sanctifying grace in the soul, then why did Jesus institute seven sacraments? Wouldn't just one sacrament have been enough, to be received as needed?
Yes, one sacrament would have been enough, if sanctifying grace were the only kind of grace God wanted to give us. But God did not choose simply to give us spiritual life and then let us fend for ourselves.
God gives us the spiritual life which is sanctifying grace, and then does all that He can (short of taking away our free will)...
  • To make that life operative within us
  • To expand that life and intensify it
  • To preserve and protect it
So in addition to the sanctifying grace which is common to all the sacraments, each sacrament also gives the sacramental grace of that particular sacrament. These are other special helps which God wills to give us, helps keyed to our particular spiritual needs and our particular state in life.
In Baptism we receive sanctifying grace and also a continuing chain of graces enabling us to preserve and extend that grace by the practice of the virtues of faith, hope, and charity.
Confirmation increases our basic vitality (sanctifying grace) but also establishes a permanent fund of actual graces (sacramental grace) upon which we may draw in order to be strong and active and productive exemplars of Christian living.
The Anointing of the Sick strengthens us in sickness or prepares us to meet death with confidence. Its sacramental grace comforts us in our sufferings and, by supporting us in any final temptations that may assail us, enables us to face eternity unafraid.
The Holy Eucharist, whose special sacramental grace is growth in supernatural charity (love for God and neighbor).
The Sacrament of Reconciliation—inoculation against sin—whose special sacramental grace is to cure us of the spiritual illness of sin and to help us resist temptation.
There are also the two great states in life which impose upon us grave responsibility for the souls of others: the priesthood and marriage. The two sacraments of Holy Orders and Matrimony give to their recipients each its own sacramental grace, which will enable priests and spouses to discharge, creditably before God, the sometimes heavy burdens of their state in life.

Proper dispositions

A sacrament gives grace of and by itself, by its own power.
This is because Jesus attached grace to the outward sign, so to speak, so that that outward sign and grace always go together.
But our own attitude does matter. Our interior dispositions have an effect on the amount of grace we receive. The more perfect is our sorrow in the sacrament of Reconciliation, the more ardent our love in receiving the Holy Eucharist, the more lively our faith in receiving Confirmation—then the greater will be the grace we receive.
Our dispositions do not cause the grace; they simply remove the obstacles to the freer flow of grace and, in a sense, make more room for grace. We might illustrate this by saying that the more sand we empty out of the pail, the more water the pail will hold.
We can, of course, by a positive act of the will prevent the grace of the sacrament from entering our soul: for example, by positively not wanting to receive it or by not being truly repentant for mortal sin. But, unless we interpose an outright barrier, when we receive a sacrament we receive grace; the sacrament itself gives grace.
The dispositions of the one who administers the sacrament do not influence the effect of a sacrament. It would be very wrong for a priest to administer a sacrament if he had mortal sin on his soul, but it wouldn't diminish the grace the sacrament gave one bit.
The person receiving the sacrament would receive the same amount of grace, regardless of whether the priest was a saint or a sinner. All that is required of the one who administers a sacrament is that:
  • He have the power to give it (this means the power of the priesthood except for Baptism and Matrimony)
  • He have the intention of administering the sacrament (the intention of doing what the Catholic Church intends)
  • He perform the essential ceremonies of the sacrament (such as the pouring of the water and the saying of the words in Baptism).
If you assume a receiver who does not put any obstacles to grace and a giver who is qualified to administer the sacrament—then always and infallibly a sacrament will confer grace.

Special "marks" on the soul

Besides the bestowal of grace (sanctifying and sacramental) we should mention another effect specific to three of the sacraments.
This is the character imprinted on the soul by the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders. We sometimes say that in these sacraments God puts a "mark" on the soul. The individual mark imparted by Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders is defined by theologians as a "quality" which imparts to the soul powers which it did not previously possess.
It is a permanent quality of the soul, an alteration in the soul which forever will be visible to God, the angels, and the saints.
  • The character of Baptism is a supernatural quality which gives us the power to absorb the grace of the other six sacraments and to participate in the Mass.
  • The character of Confirmation gives us the power to profess the faith fearlessly and to spread the faith.
  • The character of Holy Orders gives the priest the power to celebrate Mass and to administer the other sacraments.

The extraordinary through the ordinary

The Catholic sacraments are quite extraordinary: they are ordinary signs that do God's own work.
God in His wisdom chose to bestow His grace in a visible way to give us the quieting certainty that we had received grace when He did give it.
Christ has given us so many tremendous gifts. In his sacraments, he continues to provide those gifts to us, beyond all measure, whenever we need them.


Blessed is the Lord!
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