I am speaking at a high school youth ministry event in the near future. In this post, I’m attempting to convert my talk notes into an essay. In the talk itself, I will likely say what follows or something similar. I never really know until it’s happening.
I once heard a story about two men standing on the shore of a lake. They were at a party on the beach and the air was filled with the sounds of laughter, chatter, and music. It was night. In an instant, the lake became completely still, like a huge pane of glass. As a natural mirror, it reflected perfectly the night sky. The one man turned to the other, and in hushed voice said: “This is what it means to be Christian. We see what they see, but we see more.” The rest of partygoers just saw a lake — water in a big hole, a home for fish, a source of occasional entertainment, and a nice backdrop for the party they were having on the beach. But, in that instant, the two men saw it for what it was: a mirror for the heavens — reflecting or pointing to something beyond itself, yet of which it is a part.
In many ways, this story encapsulates the difference made by being Catholic, being Christian. Being Christian has to do with a new way of seeing all of reality — seeing what everyone else sees, but seeing more.
Let’s try to unpack this with a thought exercise.1
Pull out your phone and hold it in your hands (unless it’s already in your hands as you read this post). The iPhone, for example. Is this device the result of some unintentional act? Is it some random collection of parts that just so happen to have come together and work together? No one in their right might would consent to that. A mind, or many minds, really, designed the thing and put it together. And they did not design and assemble it for no good reason, but with a clear purpose in mind. The phone (at the most basic level) exists to connect people, to facilitate their relating to one another — to support their relationships.
Now, go pick up a leaf (they’re starting to fall off trees in Ohio). Hold it in your hands and look at it. Think for a bit. From where did this leaf come? What is it designed to do? What’s its purpose now that it’s dead and laying on the ground?
[I’ll have to see what the teens say here.]
Think about you. How did you get here tonight? What happened that got you here? Who all was involved in getting you here? Besides that, where did you come from in the first place? Were you a randomly assembled bunch of body parts on a table that just so happened to join together? Why did you even exist at all? What happened in the lives of your parents such that they even met in the first place? What are you designed to do?
[And here.]
The results of this exercise grate against how we normally see things in life as…
Just happening
Just entertainment
Just stuff
Just boring
Just meaningless
We often see thing shallowly and dimly. We can engage the world in a self-centered and entitled kind of way, as if it’s all just about us, and our tastes, and our wants. We tend to engage with the world mindlessly and recklessly.
But what did we just see through the thought exercises? What did we consider with an iPhone (or Android), a leaf, and our own lives? We saw a world full of design, meaning, intentionality, purpose. We saw things with a “why,” a reason.
Like how an iPhone is not random, but intentional and points to a designer, a mind — the universe, the earth, every part of it, from a leaf to a person, is ordered and fits together. Each part is intentional and points beyond itself to the Designer, the Mind, the Creator.
This idea of created things pointing beyond themselves to their Creator is the basis of a sacramental view of reality. With a sacramental worldview, we see all around us a meaningful world that points to the Author of meaning.
It’s interesting. That adjective “sacramental/sacrament” refers to a sacred thing which lies concealed or beyond. It’s a reference to what you don’t see with your eyeballs. In the created world, you don’t see God directly, but you see through creation to the creative mind and hand of God. There’s a Designer behind the design, there’s a Mind behind how everything fits together. Everything isn’t random and life isn’t meaningless. A sacramental worldview means you see more — you see everything everyone else sees, but you see more. Go back to the original lake image, for a moment. In that instant, the lake wasn’t just water in a big hole or the backdrop of a beach party, but that which reflected the heavens. So too, our world isn’t just a meaningless collection of stuff for our use and exploitation, but the manifestation of God’s handiwork. The created order shows us something of who God is through every aspect of his creation — from the tiniest grain of sand to the soaring heights of Mt. Everest, from the atom to Adam.
In fact, that biblical description of human beings that lies at the core of the Christian understanding of the human person, namely that we are the “image and likeness” of God, is wrapped entirely in this notion of a sacramental vision. “Image and likeness” means we are that part of God’s creation capable of most perfectly reflecting him, of re-presenting him. By saying the human’s very being points to God, means the person has a sacramental (lowercase s) character. This is part of the reason why Pope St. Leo the Great cried out, "Christian Remember your dignity!" The person is not merely another part of creation like all the other parts, but its crown jewel — that part of creation capable of communicating with God on behalf of all creation. Again, we see what they see, but we see more.
So far, we’ve seen that the world is full of order and bears the marks of a design. It is a meaningful, intentional world. And we’ve seen that this meaningfulness points to a source of that meaning, to an Author of that meaning, a Creator. But, what else can we determine through our thought exercises? Just two quick points. We see:
A world in which God’s providence is at play — God doesn’t just create and let the thing go, but he is involved
A world that is gift — we see that everything is gift (yet so often we act like entitled brats)
Surely we could go on. But we can stop there. The bottom line is this: having a sacramental vision of reality allows us to see beyond mere things all the way to their Source. It is a new way of seeing (that’s really very old) that sees everything as a meaningful gift — intended by the Designer, the Creator — that he continuously gives. Everything ultimately points back to a mind that made it and that Mind is God — if we are willing to look, to really see.
Okay, so we have reestablished that we live in a meaningful world that reveals something about the Creator — that points to the Creator. This is the foundation on which stand the seven Sacraments of the Church. So, how do we understand the seven Sacraments? Where did they come from?
Briefly, the logic flows like this: Jesus enters into his creation. The Creator enters his creation in the person of Jesus Christ. This breaks our brains a little bit. It’s as if the painter painted himself into his design and from within, he can exercise his will fully and freely to alter or impact or change the painting. So too with Jesus. Now, from inside creation itself, the Creator can give new meaning, or deeper meaning to things.
So Jesus (who is God), establishes the seven Sacraments and entrusts them to the Church. Each Sacrament reveals a new meaning, deeper meaning behind the already meaningful things of this world. It's like a further unveiling of the original design plans that take us to depths and heights previously unimaginable.
Take Baptism for example. We’ve already established that a lake isn’t just water in a big hole, but a kind of mirror reflecting its heavenly creator. But Baptism reveals more. The lake is more than mere water and more than a mirror, its deepest meaning is unveiled as the place of encounter — it is holy water into which one is immersed into the death and life of Christ, and is reborn as a son or daughter of God.
Or, let’s look at the Eucharist. Bread isn’t just food we eat, but it is a sign of God's providence for us that allows to live for a bit on the face of the earth. But in the Eucharist, bread is given a new meaning. Ordinary bread becomes the Body of Christ — the living Bread of Life, the only food that gives us eternal life.
In the person of Jesus, who took flesh — the Creator who became creature — God establishes the Sacraments to make us new. The Sacraments are transformative encounters with Christ, mediated by the Church, through visible, concrete realities. God establishes the Sacraments to restore us to who we are — to help us become who we are as his children, his beloved sons and daughters who are never alone. God establishes the Sacraments to help us see him more.
Therefore, in light of Christ, the saying we’ve been playing with changes. Now it’s not, “we see what they see but we see more.” Now it’s, “we see what they see, but we see even more of the more.”
As a final note, I plan to use this song as a way of leading into and out of the talk. Enjoy!
What follows will become a brief, open-ended discussion with the teens. So, I’m just including the questions here. Naturally, the discussion will take on a life of its own.
Should be a great discussion, Brad. I absolutely loved the 100billion x song!