[JessiPollo]

Dear Richard and others,

I find some of the aspects and implications of your above post troubling. In a (reasonable) attempt to be compassionate, as well as mindful of the working of God, you seem to set forward an understanding of ordination that downplays -- to my mind significantly -- the reality of the charism of ordination in the laying on of hands. Of course it is the grace of God that effects an ordination, as it is God's grace that is present and active in all sacramental activity. This is, in a sense, a truism of sacramental life: it goes without saying. It cannot be seen to negate the sacramental act by which that grace is 'incarnated' into the present moment, in due and reverential order. It is likewise the grace of God that effects the reality of communication in Christ's body and blood at the Eucharist, not the motions of the Liturgy or the acts / words of the priest; nonetheless, the Eucharist cannot be extricated from this liturgical act, from these words, from this priesthood. God's grace is not a generic divine charge. Sacramental existence is life bound up in the full implications of the incarnation; namely, in this context, that God's grace comes in and through creation in the sacramental mysteries of and for creation. The bread, the words, are essential ingredients for the communion in grace of the holy Eucharist. Similarly, the hands, the words -- these are essential ingredients in the charism of grace of divine ordination. This is precisely why the service of ordination stresses the double aspect: it is through the laying-on of hands that the divine grace of God is enjoined upon the one being ordained. The bishop is not praying 'first A, but not really B, actually B' in these prayers; he is praying a single whole, in which the grace of God is active in and through the laying on of hands -- the particular charism of the bishop himself, living in God's grace.

The 'true Church' (as such is the title of this thread) is one in which the fullness of this sacramental reality is embraced. To attempt to disassociate God's grace from the incarnational experience of God sacramentally present in creation, as ordained in his sacraments, is to wrest apart this experience at its very heart.

INXC, Dcn Matthew