Prince of Peace
Episcopal Church

The Sacraments

Q. What are the sacraments?

A. The sacraments are outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace, given by Christ as sure and certain means by which we receive that grace.

We live in the world of the outward and visible and the world of the inward and spiritual at the same time. For this reason God does not hesitate to use the outward and visible to both signify and convey, the inward and spiritual grace of his presence. All sacraments have an outward and visible sign. They are the appointed means by which we receive an inward and spiritual grace. They are sure and certain means of grace in that Christ has appointed them, that we may always trust them as conveying that which they signify.

Q. What is grace?

A. Grace is God's favor towards us, unearned and undeserved; by grace God forgives our sins, enlightens our minds, stirs our hearts, and strengthens our wills.

The grace of God is a common phrase in the New Testament and is frequently mentioned in the ritual of the Church. Grace is God's favor toward us, exercised not because of any intrinsic merit in us but because of his own great love. We can never earn God's favor. It is a gift that is freely given.

Grace does four things:

• Forgives our sins
• Enlightens our minds
• Stirs up our hearts
• Strengthens our wills

Every sacrament, if received in faith, has this four-fold consequence.

Q. What are the two great sacraments of the Gospel?

A. The two great sacraments given by Christ to his Church are Holy Baptism and the Holy Eucharist.

The Dominical Sacraments, that is to say those instituted by our Lord himself during his earthly ministry, are Holy Baptism and the Holy Eucharist. The first is the sacrament of initiation, without which no other Christian sacrament is effective. The second is the sacrament of nourishment. Physically we are born once. That is unrepeatable. Holy Baptism is unrepeatable. We eat and drink regularly in order that our physical life may be nourished. We make our communions regularly in order that the life of God within us may be nourished.

Baptism can never be repeated. Any Christian Baptism that is in water and in the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is valid. One exception that should be mentioned is baptism by any cult that considers the Holy Trinity to be three separate and distinct persons. If there is any doubt as to either the fact or the validity of any baptism, then the person ought to be given conditional baptism There is a form for conditional baptism in the Prayer Book on page 313 at the conclusion of the Baptismal Office.

In an emergency, that is to, say when the person to be baptized is in danger of death, any baptized person may administer baptism using the form that is provided in the Prayer Book. Such baptism is to be reported to the priest so that the baptism may be recorded. If the person who is baptized recovers, the baptism is celebrated at a public service with only the baptism in water omitted.

The Eucharist is repeatable. It is the Church's custom that the laity receive but once on any given day. This rule is to hinder any superstition concerning the benefits of the Eucharist and the way they are obtained. It is that we receive the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist and not the amount of Bread and Wine that is important. A priest who celebrates at more than one Eucharist on a given day will have to make his communion each time he celebrates. The traditional limit on the number of Eucharist's that a priest may celebrate in one day is three. If the priest is the celebrant at one Eucharist and then assists at another (unless it is a con-celebration), he would not make a second communion at the second service.

Holy Baptism

Q. What is Holy Baptism?

A. Holy Baptism is the sacrament by which God adopts us as his children and makes us members of Christ's Body, the Church, and inheritors of the kingdom of Cod.

Our Christian life begins with our baptism. There are many temptations to locate the. beginning of the Christian life elsewhere. That elsewhere is very often the place and time where we have begun to respond to God's love. We may say that we began our Christian life when we joined the Church, and that is correct, unless we mean that we joined the Church when we were confirmed. On the other hand, we may be tempted to say that the Christian life began at our conversion. It may well be that years after we have received the grace of Holy Baptism, or even some time before we choose to be baptized, our love for God and our awareness of his love for us were awakened in a marvelous way. An authentic conversion experience is a great blessing. It can occur in many ways and at different times of life and circumstance. God deals with each one of us as individuals. Rightly we value a conversion experience if it is a good one and produces in us a healthy relationship to God, the Church and other people, but the beginning of our Christian life is bound up with Holy Baptism. That is where God begins the Christian life in us. Once we are baptized, we are Christians. We may be Christians who are growing spiritually or Christians who are dying spiritually. Often we are Christians whose spiritual growth has stopped and does not begin again until our love for God is consciously reawakened. Be that as it may, our Christian life begins with God's action in Holy Baptism.

The Catechism says that God adopts us as his children. This is Scriptural language. You may wish to see Romans 6:23 and Galatians 4:5 in this connection. Christ is the only begotten Son of God. We are God's children by adoption and by grace.

In Holy Baptism, God makes us members Of Christ's Body, the Church. The New Testament makes frequent reference to the idea that the Church is the body of Christ and that we are members of that Body. Please see the following Scriptures: Corinthians 6:15; 12:27; Ephesians 1:23; 5:29 30; Colossians 1:18 and 2:19. These are all quotations from St. Paul. Our Lord used a different picture with the same meaning. He said, "l am the vine, and you are the branches" (St. John 15:5). The idea is that as we live in Christ, we extend his life in the world today.

If we are the sons and daughters of the Most High God, then we are inheritors of the kingdom of God. The ancient Jews thought of this kingdom as the sphere of God's rule. That rule took place in three dimensions God was the ruler of all nature: "Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool" (Isaiah 66:1). God will be the ruler of the future, the kingdom that is coming. In this regard you may wish to consult the following references: Isaiah, chapters 1143 and 34:1-S; Obadiah 1:IS-21; Micah 4:14 and Zephaniah 3:8-13. This is the time when God will triumph over all opposition and evil, and his kingdom will be in the midst of all people. This is the time to which the New Testament looks forward as the time in which "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever" (Revelation 11:15b). God is also the ruler of the individual who takes upon himself the yoke of the kingdom. It is this third sense that relates the kingdom of God to the present through our obedience.

Q. What is the outward and visible sign in Baptism?

A. The outward and visible sign in Baptism is water, in which the person is baptized in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Essential to Holy Baptism is water. The Church allows both immersion, which is rare, and pouring, which is common. Nothing may be substituted for water, which symbolizes both cleansing and birth. Although some early Christian baptisms may have been in the Name of Jesus, St. Matthew 28:19 directs that Baptism is to be in the Name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It may be noted that all who have been baptized in services that take their wording from the King James Version of the Bible will have been baptized in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Holy Ghost is an older English form for saying Holy Spirit. It is still used in Rite I services.

Q. What is the inward and spiritual grace in Baptism?

A. The inward and spiritual grace in Baptism is union with Christ in his death and resurrection, birth into God's family the Church, forgiveness of sins, and new life in the Holy Spirit.

In Baptism, we are united with Christ. As he died, so we also die to the old life, which is life unaided. As he rose again, so we rise to the beginning of a new life which is aided by his grace. Baptism is our birth into God's family, the Holy Catholic Church. All sins committed before Baptism are forgiven in it. The Holy Spirit is then enabled to work in us.

Q. What is required of us at Baptism?

A. It is required that we renounce Satan, repent of our sins, and accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior.

We all make promises. A promise may be as simple as the promise to pay all utility bills by the due date. This is necessary if we are to have power and water and telephone. A promise may have all of the dimensions of the vows we take on our wedding day.

The first promise that is required of us at Baptism is a renunciation. We are to renounce Satan. In tradition, Satan is a fallen angel. This legend reminds us that evil is a corruption of good. Lust is love gone wrong. Gluttony is the healthy appetite that has become the unhealthy passion for food. Pride is the normal feeling of self-worth that has become a monster. A cancer is a formerly good cell that is running wild. Satan, sometimes called the Devil or Lucifer, stands for all that corrupts good and frustrates the design of God. Satan is also known in Scripture as "the deceiver of the whole world" (Revelation 12:9). Evil is a shortcut to nowhere. It delivers something quite different from that which it promises to deliver. When we become Christians, we renounce this deception. We renounce the desires that participate in such deception. All desires are not sinful. The Christian faith does not consider the renunciation of desire to be the pathway to salvation. We promise to turn our backs on those desires that are destructive of good. That is the literal meaning of repentance, to turn our backs and march in the opposite direction.

We also promise a positive action. We accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior. This most important promise has to do with the most important Person, Jesus Christ. This promise has to do with commitment to and trust in this Person. The Church does not ask us for blind faith. We may discover who Jesus is by a careful and prayerful reading of the Gospels. You may wish to begin with the Gospel according to St. Mark, which has the virtue of moving rapidly through the essentials. It is also the shortest and earliest of the Gospels.

When we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior, we also accept him as our Lord. The final baptismal promise has to do with following him and obeying him.

Trust, also called faith, may be a conviction dearly held by the mind and the mind alone, or it may be conviction plus an attitude of life that results in action. Our beliefs are important and even essential, but unless they lead to commitment and action, the process of faith has been prematurely arrested. As the New Testament reminds us, ". . . faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead." (St. James 2:17). The Prayer Book teaches that our trust is not simply a conviction that Jesus is Lord, nor is it this and the good feeling that comes from the conviction, but it is all this and a willingness to follow and obey.

Jesus is Savior, and he is Lord and Master as well.

Q. Why then are infants baptized?

A. Infants are baptized so that they can share citizenship in the Covenant, membership in Christ, and redemption by God.

In the beginning, Christianity was an appeal to adults. However, with these adults came children. It was not long before people asked, "Are our children part of the Church?" Were these children of Christians to be considered Jewish or pagan, or were they part of Christ's kingdom? The Church answered," "Let them be baptized." It is inconceivable that Christianity with its roots in Judaism and the idea of the Covenant could exclude the children of Christian parents from the benefits of religion.

Q. How are the promises for infants made and carried out?

A. Promises are made for them by their parents and sponsors, who guarantee that the infants will be brought up within the Church, to know Christ and be able to follow him.

The responsibility for the religious education of children falls primarily upon the parents. To assist them the Church provides for sponsors or Godparents.

Originally, sponsors were those who recommended adult inquirers for Baptism and membership in the Church. The background of this was the attempt of the pagan Roman government to infiltrate the congregations and to secure information that would be used to crush the Christian movement. It became necessary for the Church to require that inquirers have someone already within the Christian community testify that the convert's motivations were genuine and that the inquirer was not a Roman police spy.

With the recognition of the Faith by the government, the office of sponsor began a transition. For many centuries the sponsor has been a Godparent. It is the sponsor who answers for the child in the Baptismal Office. In a real sense, we feel free to baptize the child and use the sponsor's faith in lieu of the faith of the child. It is proper that the parents join with friends as sponsors. Together they guarantee to the Church that the child will be brought up within the Church. This is not the kind of guarantee that is enforceable in the courts. It is a solemn promise on the part of both parents and God- parents. and it is one for which they will be accountable before God. Whether the child will be able to know Christ and be able to follow him will depend upon a number of factors, parents, church and the person himself, but the spiritual atmosphere for such knowledge and obedience is correctly described by the Catechism.

The Holy Eucharist

Q. What is the Holy Eucharist?

A. The Holy Eucharist is the sacrament commanded by Christ, for the continual remembrance of his life, death and resurrection, until his coming again.

The earliest written account of the institution of the Eucharist is not in the Gospels, but rather it is in the first letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians, the eleventh chapter. There our Lord is recalled as saying to the Apostles, "Do this in remembrance of me." He also said, ". . . as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lords death until he comes."

Therefore, the celebration of the Eucharist is according to Christ's command. The Eucharist or Holy Communion is often spoken of by Churchmen as "the Lord's own Service."

It is the only Christian worship service that he instituted. Other Services of the Church are either adaptations of Jewish Services or have been developed to meet specific Christian needs.

The Eucharist is a remembrance, but it is not just a memorial. The background of the Eucharist is the Passover. That event in the history of Israel was not so much remembered as it was summoned from the past into the present. In it every Israelite knew himself to be one who had come out of Egypt. It is at the Eucharist that Jesus and his disciples join us and we stand at the Cross and the empty Tomb. This the Church shall do until time ends and the Lord comes again.

Q. Why is the Eucharist called a sacrifice?

A. Because the Eucharist, the Church's sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, is the way by which the sacrifice of Christ is made present and in which he unites us to his one offering of himself.

The word, Eucharist, means thanksgiving. In it, the Church offers God its own sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving. The one, perfect sacrifice of Christ is made present and the sacrifices of the Church are united with his total offering of himself and presented to the Father.

Q. By what other names is this service known?

A. The Holy Eucharist is called the Lord's Supper, and Holy Communion, it is also known as the Divine Liturgy, the Mass, and the Great Offering.

The Lord's Supper is a common term among most Protestant Churches and has been included in previous additions of the American Prayer Book. The Holy Communion has been the more common term among Anglicans for the entire Service, although the most recent Prayer Book restricts that term to the liturgy of the table itself. The word, liturgy, means work, and so the Eastern Church most often describes the Eucharist as the Divine Liturgy. Mass has been used by the Roman Communion and is not uncommon in Anglican conversation about the Sacrament, although no Prayer Book has contained the term for centuries. Mass is a reference to the dismissal of the people at the conclusion of the Service. The Great Offering refers to the consecration itself.

Q. What is the outward and visible sign in the Eucharist?

A. The outward and visible sign in the Eucharist is bread and wine, given and received according to Christ's command. the proper matter of the Eucharist is bread and wine. Nothing may be substituted for either. Bread may be leavened or unleavened. Commonly it comes in wafer form, although some parishes may prefer to bake the bread in loaf form. The wine may be any true grape wine, although it is customary to avoid types that contain carbonation.

Q. What is the inward and spiritual grace given in the Eucharist?

A. The inward and spiritual grace in the Holy Communion is the Body and Blood of Christ given to his people and received by faith.

The personal influence upon our lives is the real presence of Christ given in the Eucharist. Christ is there. We receive what is given by faith. Without faith the reception of the Eucharist is not only worthless, it is destructive. In this connection, please see I Corinthians 11:27.

Q. What are the benefits which we receive in the Lord’s Supper?

A. The benefits we receive are the forgiveness of our sins, the strengthening of our union with Christ and one another and the foretaste of the heavenly banquet which is our nourishment in eternal life.

The Catechism lists three benefits of receiving the Eucharist. The first is the forgiveness of our sins. This assumes a penitent heart. The Sacraments are never magical. Their effectiveness in us depends upon our response to what Christ offers in them. The second is communion with Christ and his Church. The Communion has not only a God-ward dimension but also a horizontal thrust toward our brothers and sisters in Christ. The Communion also looks forward to eternity, where we shall be in union with Christ and the Church Triumphant.

Q. What is required of us when we come to the Eucharist?

A. It is required that we should examine our lives, repent of our sins, and be in love and charity with all people.

The Presence of Christ in the Eucharist is real, regardless of Our own worthiness. Whether the Eucharist does us any good depends upon our own preparation for participation in this Sacrament. Self-examination, leading to repentance, and love and charity for all people is required by the Catechism.

The increased frequency of communions in our own time has been a mixed blessing in that the seriousness of preparation has declined. Few Churchmen, especially among the Clergy, would dispute the historical fact that the Eucharist is the norm for Sunday worship. Some would say that other Services are better suited to reaching people who are not yet committed to Christ and his Church. Some would also say that fewer communions and better communions, prepared for beforehand, would be of greater benefit to both the individual and the Church. It is important for us to know that we need not make our communion every time we are present at the Eucharist. if we are not to make the action useless and even detrimental to our own spiritual growth, we ought to go forward to the altar rail only when we are prepared to do so.

This does not mean that we have to be perfect in order to receive the Sacrament. The church and the Table are for sinners only. It may well be that those times when we are especially conscious that we have failed our Lord, Our neighbors and ourselves an the times when we need the communion most. We may be better prepared when we come because of conscious need than at many other tines. The point that must be made is that the casual communion, made with little or no preparation, is spiritually dangerous.