Sign or Symbol?

Signs (def) are something that points to another reality and means what it signifies; the meaning is mostly fixed. For example, most people would interpret and understand a 'STOP' sign to mean only one thing = STOP.

Symbols (def) are multi-dimensional signs that point to another reality and manifest the reality to which they point. They are open to interpretation and can have multiple meanings. For example, something as simple as a kiss can manifest many different things to different people: love and affection, romance and seduction, greeting or farewell, betrayal and death, anger and frustration, or the rock band KISS.

Sacrament vs. sacrament

The term "sacrament" comes from the Latin world sacramentum. A sacramentum in pre-Christian history was a pledge, contract, or oath that parties would make to each other. Typically, two people would deposit a sum of money at the temple and if the contract we breached by one of the parties, then they would forfeit their deposit. Later on, a sacramentum was considered a pledge of allegiance to the emperor, a commander, of the Roman gods.

The African theologian and scholar Tertullian (d. 225) was one of the earliest Christian writers that used the term sacramentum in a religious context. He believed baptism was a type of sacramentum in the sense that the newly baptized were taking an oath of allegiance to Jesus Christ--"it was a ritual through which people began a new life of service to God" (Martos).

As polytheism died out in the Roman empire the term sacramentum gradually lost its original meaning and it was slowly used more often to describe the ceremony of initiation into the church, various blessings, and liturgical feasts, etc. Augustine once defined a sacramentum/sacrament "as a sign of a sacred reality" and he noted that "according to this general defintion anything in the world could be considered a sacrament since all of creation is a sign of God" (Martos). Eventually, the term sacrament was limited to refer to the seven sacraments in the catholic church.

Numerous places, actions, objects, and persons can be considered sacred if we use a broad definition of the term sacrament. There are sacred places such as temples, churches, mountains, shrines, and cities. There are sacred actions such as praying, singing, eating, fasting, and dancing. There are sacred objects such as pictures, statues, vestments, writings, foods, and tools. And there are sacred persons such as priests, kings, saints, shamans, virgins, gurus, and prophets. Martos points out that "any ritual or object, person or place, can be considered sacramental if it is taken to be a symbol of something sacred or mysterious."

A proper Sacrament in the catholic church is defined as "an efficacious sign of grace, instituted by Jesus Christ, entrusted to the church, by which divine life is dispensed to us." This definition refers to the seven sacraments in the church: baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, reconciliation, anointing of the sick, holy orders, and matrimony.

Sacraments of Initiation = baptism, confirmation, Eucharist
Sacraments of Healing = reconciliation, anointing of the sick
Sacraments of Vocation = holy orders, and matrimony (marriage)

Benedictine Monastery of Le Barroux (Watchers in the Night)

This documentary features a day in the life of Benedictine Monks at the Monastery of Le Barroux in France. Here are a couple of screenshots that I've borrowed from the New Liturgical Movement blog. We will watch most of this documentary in class.

(Ora)

(Labora)