The Sacraments are Visible Signs
Sacramental Sign Value and Concelebration
by a seminarian brother studying theology
Part I: The Sacraments Are Visible Signs
According to the Council of Trent, “A Sacrament is a visible sign of an invisible grace, instituted for our justification.”1 More particularly, St. Thomas Aquinas explains that these signs are sensible signs. We are creatures that learn through our senses. God communicates to us through sensible signs to inform our intellects according to our mode of receiving. He could cause the same effects of the sacraments in our souls without the sacraments, but He has chosen to use the sacraments to make our sanctification more fitting to our nature. “Grace builds on nature.”
Now it is part of man's nature to acquire knowledge of the intelligible from the sensible. But a sign is that by means of which one attains to the knowledge of something else. Consequently, since the sacred things which are signified by the sacraments, are the spiritual and intelligible goods by means of which man is sanctified, it follows that the sacramental signs consist in sensible things: just as in the Divine Scriptures spiritual things are set before us under the guise of things sensible. And hence it is that sensible things are required for the sacraments (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiæ, III, 60, 4).
Therefore, what the sacraments cause interiorly is signified exteriorly by audible words with physical matter and actions. Therefore, when the faithful observe the conferral of a sacrament, what they see and hear should be a clear indication of what the sacrament is working in the soul of the recipient. For example, the physical washing at Baptism points to the interior washing of the soul from original sin.
Part II: The Mass Is a Visible Sacrifice
The Eucharist is confected at the Mass. This Sacrament has more than one sign; it is the Real Presence, a Sacrifice, and Communion.2 Therefore, it should signify all three. Fr. Nicholas Gihr explains that the victim of any sacrifice must be visible, “Sacrifice is the offering of a visible object.”3 More particularly, the Mass is the Sacrifice of Christ on Calvary in an unbloody manner. A sacrifice requires a priest, a victim, and an altar, which at Calvary were all encompassed by Christ on the Cross. The Mass, the same Sacrifice as that of Calvary, should clearly point to this by the ordained priest, the consecrated altar, and the Eucharistic Species. The ordained priest should make the participants think of Christ as the priest Who offers Himself to the Father at Holy Mass.
Part III: What Does Concelebration Make Visible?
One celebrating priest signifies this well, whereas, arguably having multiple priests tends to obscure this sign value. In fact, it might confuse the viewers, even though a Mass with multiple concelebrants remains the same essentially, with one priest offering one Victim on one altar. According to Maruice de la Taille, the concelebrants are morally united to the celebrating priest in offering the same Sacrifice, “Most probably, there are not as many offerers as there are co-celebrants; morally there is only one offerer, just as there is only one consecrator; that is to say, the group of priests acting as one body.”4 However, this has not been agreed upon by all theologians. Some suggest that each concelebrant offers his own Mass, “Concelebration is conceived as the synchronization of may masses.”5 Pope Pius XII acknowledges that the concelebrants are to some extent actively offering the Sacrifice of the Mass.6 However, he never specifies if each concelebrant is acting as morally united to the main celebrant or if they each offer their own Mass. Regardless, this would confuse the sacramental signification of the one Sacrifice of the Mass offered by one priest of One Victim at one altar, because all the Masses are being said at one altar. In fact, the Church no longer allows priests to offer more than one Mass at the same altar at the same time as principle celebrants with their own individually visible ceremonies. This used to be allowed in the Western liturgies of Syria and Ethiopia.7 While no one could reasonably suggest there are multiple Christs offering the Mass, a concelebrated Mass will certainly make it harder to envision Christ offering the Mass than when one priest alone is present at the altar in sacred vestments reciting the Consecration by himself. This is the reason for the sign value of Gothic and Roman vestments that are adorned with a Cross. It is less fitting to have multiple ministers at one altar vested in chasubles adorned with a Cross rather than one minister at the altar with a cross on his chasuble. In the Traditional Latin Mass, the Deacon and Subdeacon never have a cross on their dalmatic or tunicle, but only the celebrating priest. It also looks confusing to have more than one large Host on the altar for concelebrants. When a man is ordained to the priesthood according to the Old Rite of Mass, he does not have his own large Host. Rather, he receives a small Host reserved for the faithful.
Part IV: Res et Sacramentum and Concelebration
Finally, we will look at another way to consider the sign value of concelebration according to sacramental theology. Every sacrament is composed of an outward material sign, the sacramentum tantum, and the inward reality the sign signifies, the res tantum.8 There is no sacrament without both the sacramentum and the res tantum, which together we call the res et sacramentum.9 God could cause the res tantum without the sacramentum since He is God. Nevertheless, He has chosen the sacraments as instruments of grace. First and foremost He is the causal power of each specific graces we need for salvation. Each sacrament gives one of these particular graces we need.
It would be wrong to overemphasize either the res tantum or the sacramentum at the expense of the other since they both compose the sacrament. In the ordinary course set in place by God, there is no res tantum without the sacramentum. Although, as mentioned above, God can give us the effects of the sacraments without using the sacraments, He has chosen to require the sacraments for our salvation so we are bound to use them. Every element of the ceremonies in which a sacrament is celebrated should provide a balanced and organized focus on both. Nevertheless, if one ought to be emphasized more than the other, it would be the sacramentum since it is more visible and indicative of the nature of the sacrament to our human nature, and a mentioned above, the sacramentum must be in place for the res tantum to be present. In fact, the sacramentum is itself the primary emphasis on the res tantum. Therefore, the ceremonies should allow the sacramentum to speak for itself. For example, in baptism, the pouring of water with the appropriate words of baptism are themselves the strongest sign of the inward and invisible cleansing that is happening to the soul.
The sacramentum or outward sign of the Eucharist is bread and wine, and the res et sacramentum, or the reality of the sacrament effected by the sacramentum is the Real Presence. The res tantum, the ultimate effect of the sacrament, is unity in the Church among Christians, “The reality of the sacrament, (ie. the res tantum) is the unity of the mystical body” (ST, III, 73, 3, emphasis added). The Mass should emphasize the importance of the separation of body and blood, which is essentially in the sign value of bread and wine.10 All other ritual observances should point to this, such as the one priest, the one offering and the one altar that point to Christ the one primary Priest, Victim, and Altar.11 Inevitably, this signification will point by its nature to the res tantum of the unity of the Mystical Body of Christ, since this is the worship of all Catholics everywhere and always in a communal assembly.
How does concelebration point to the visible sign and invisible reality of the Eucharist? The emphasis of concelebration is on the unity of the priesthood.12 It draws attention to unity, the res tantum of the Eucharist, but so much that it distracts from the sacramentum, which emphasizes the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist and the Mass. The sacramentum of bread and wine sufficiently emphasizes the res tantum of unity. Additionally, one priest points more directly to the sacrificial nature of the Mass since the ordained minister of the Mass is standing in the place of the one Person of Christ. More than one priest, as stated already, distract from the notion of one High Priest, Jesus Christ, and His one Sacrifice.
Therefore, according to the Church’s teachings on the sign value of the sacraments and the sacrificial nature of the Mass, concelebration, in its effort to put on display the res tantum of unity among the priesthood seems to confuse the sign value of the Sacrifice of the Mass.
Catechism of the Council of Trent, Part II.
“The effect of this sacrament ought to be considered, first and principally, from what is contained in this sacrament, which is Christ…Secondly, it is considered on the part of what is represented by this sacrament, which is Christ’s Passion…Thirdly, the effect of this sacrament is considered from the way in which this sacrament is given” (Summa Theologiæ, III, 79, 1).
Nicholas Gihr, The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, I, 2.
The Mystery of Faith II, Thesis XXIII.
B. Botte, Note Historique sur la concélébration dans l’Eglise ancienne, in LMD 35 (1953), p. 9, quoted in footnote in Concelebration, by Hendrik Manders.
“In the case of a concelebration in the proper sense of the word, Christ, instead of acting through one minister, acts through several” (Pope Pius XII, Address On the Liturgy, II (1956), 1.
“In certain circumstances the Western Syrians and Ethiopians celebrate ‘synchronized Masses:’ several priests celebrate at separate altars or the same altar, each having his own gifts that he consecrates” Robert Cabie, The Church at Prayer: An Introduction to the Liturgy, vol II (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1986).
“Sacramentum tantum is the sensible sign (sacramentum) or exterior rite which directly signifies and causes two effects, and is not itself signified in any way. The rite of baptism or confirmation is such a sacramentum. Res tantum is the ultimate and principal effect, sacramental grace. It is signified and caused by both the sacramentum tantum and the res et sacramentum, but is itself neither a sign nor a cause of any further sacramental effect” (Thomas Donlan, Francis Cunningham, and Augustine Rock, Christ, and His Sacraments, IX, 4, c).
“Res et sacramentum is the first effect (res) signified and caused by the sensible sign”, (Christ, and His Sacraments, IX, 4, c).
“In making choice of these words, He would not merely signify the true Sacrifice of His sacramental Body and Blood, but He would, at the same time, designate that the mode and manner of this Sacrifice by the mystical shedding of blood under the separate species should represent syimbolically the violent separation of His body and blood, the real shedding of His blood on the Cross” (Nicholas Gihr, The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, I, 16).
“As Christ is Himself the Priest and the Victim, so too He is the Altar” (Hesychius, from Maurice de la Taille, The Mystery of Faith I, 5, §2, b).
In every form of its celebration, no matter how simple, all those marks and properties are present that belong to the Mass intrinsically and necessarily. But there is good reason for singling out the following elements. The first is the unity of the sacrifice of the cross. The second is the unity of the priesthood. The third is the more striking expression of an activity that belongs to the entire people of God (SC Rites: Ecclesiæ semper; promulgating the editio typica of the rites of concelebration and of communion under both kinds, 7 March 1965: AAS 57 (1965) 410-412).