Communication Incarnate

A Sacramental Reflection on Human Festivity

When viewed through a sacramental lens, communication binds the Catholic Church together, connecting the faithful to God and to one another. The multilayered mystery occurs both broadly through the Church herself and acutely through the administration of her Sacraments. By living out the sacramental life, we begin to realize the fullness of our human potential for God-centered communication, marching ever closer to that which we long for, the culmination of our relationship with Our Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal feast — the beatific vision.

In the Sacraments, communication and ritual combine to conform us to the divine order. Indeed, we were created for festivity, as both Pieper and Ratzinger like to remind us, and that creative design demands to be lived out in properly ordered actions. The Sacraments are the normative means to such fulfillment. Even those outside the visible bounds of the Catholic Church, however, display a similar sacramental penchant for festivity and for ritual, even if it’s not always conducted in a purified form. Whether replete with the pure or profane, rituals define the human experience, not only punctuating our existence but shaping it. Our innate festivity compels us toward the Sacraments by feeding our creation of small-S sacraments: mealtimes, birthdays and anniversaries, deaths and funerals … all of these flow from our innate sacramentality, fueled by our festivity, pointing us toward the divine Source of it all.

Despite the diversity of applications, there is no doubt that humans are sacramental by nature. Whether we’re discussing Ratzinger’s “primeval sacraments” or the Holy Sacraments themselves, we see much shared in common. On the one hand, a certain universal sacramental quality overshadows them all, suggesting they are part of an even bigger reality. On the other, radically different results stem from the disparate sacramental practices. After all, one is sacred, the other profane. That is why proper order is the key to establishing a trustworthy sacramental framework. When it comes to sacraments, order relates not only to the manner in which the sacraments are treated but also the order under which the entire operation is conducted. The symbolic and the real blur together when the posture of a person’s heart before God mirrors their physical posture receiving the Sacrament (speaking metaphorically here — not throwing down any liturgical gauntlets). The question then becomes, what guides the sacramental life of each human? What motivates our actions? For if God is not at the helm, our human inclination toward festivity will be hindered by concupiscence, distorting the sacred good we desire into something profane. 

Make no mistake, it is right and proper to cultivate our sense of festivity — we were made for eternal communion with the God of the universe, after all, so we long to feast with and on him — but when that pursuit is not tethered to the one true Source, it inevitably gets fixed on a lesser good (if not something downright bad). When that happens, corruption quickly follows. Scripture teaches us that we cannot serve two masters: and if we aren’t serving God, chances are we’re serving ourselves as god. Again we are reminded of the importance of our anthropological foundation in festivity, which we must properly channel if we are to conform our lives to Christ. Awareness is a necessary first step.

So, how can we conform our lives to Christ? How do we elevate our natural festivity, accentuating the good while suppressing the bad? The Holy Sacraments are the answer to both. When we actively participate in the sacramental life of the Church, we reorient ourselves to Christ, fomenting festivity as it was intended. In its highest form, channeled through the Church’s seven Sacraments, this transcendent communication represents a real participation in the divine. Just as heaven meets earth in the Mass at the moment of consecration, so too does God share something in common with us, his people, when he communicates grace through the Sacraments. In those moments, we truly “become partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). What a beautiful glimpse of heaven!

To better understand the layers of meaning present in our reflection on the sacramental and festive nature of humanity, it is helpful to unravel the concept of communication. In English, the meaning of communication is overly reductive, so instead I want to turn our attention to the Latin it borrows from: communicatio. In Latin, the term evokes active participation in, partaking of, and communing with something, with someone (“communatio” relates to “communis,” which translates to “common”). This highlights the relationship that motivates such communication — a relationship with God. Only when understood in that context does the proper order come to life, inspired by the Word of God made flesh. Communication incarnate.

This divine communicatio is on full display in the Sacraments, or the Holy Mysteries, as they are known in the East (for indeed they are both holy and mysterious!), when God unites heaven and earth, the invisible and the visible, the symbolic and the real. The strong sense of relationship that rests at the heart of the sacramental encounter is most profoundly on display in the Holy Eucharist. When we consume the living flesh of Christ, we proudly remember, proclaim, and participate in the reality of the Incarnation, remembering that “the Son of God became man that we might become God” (St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation). Thus, “Holy Communion” represents not only the particular Sacrament but the divine purpose instilled in all of us: to be in communion with God and with all mankind forever. The Sacraments show us the way home.

In the sacraments, we see how our need to communicate, our yearning for festivity, are both ordered and sanctified by divine decree. The Sacred is made tangible and the tangible, sanctified. Communication and ritual are two parts of the same sacramental equation. It is a Holy Mystery that speaks to the heart of our relationship with God and fuels our pursuit of the Heavenly Banquet that awaits us.