Embodied Words, Spoken Signs: Sacramentality and the Word in Rahner and Chauvet

A Foundation for the Sacramentality of the Word

2 A Foundation for the Sacramentality of the Word Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas The mystery of God’s presence with and relationship to humanity is at the heart of theological discourse. This presence is often analyzed according to two different approaches: the revelatory communication of God on the one hand and the sacramental presence of God on the other. In this chapter we turn to the theology of Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas, whose works provide the foundations for contemporary theological work on the word of God in sacramental theology and the role of signs and symbols in theology of revelation. An examination of their work in these areas will demonstrate that the two theological approaches to the mystery of God’s presence to humanity are not easily distinguished from one another in the theological tradition. An awareness of the sacramentality of the word of God dates to Augustine of Hippo’s work on the sacraments in the fourth and fifth centuries. This awareness was later cultivated by Thomas Aquinas, who approached the sacramentality of the word from the perspective of revelation. Both Augustine and Aquinas attended to the significance of the word within the context of the sacraments. Their more philosophical works on language and epistemology also provide helpful frameworks for examining the ways in which word and symbol facilitate the revelatory relationship between God and humanity. Building on these frameworks, each recognizes ways in which God’s revelatory word operates symbolically in preaching and in the scriptures as well as in the sacraments. Intersections between word and symbol, and revelation and sacrament, occur frequently within these foundational theological systems. Augustine’s work on the significance of words and symbols for the sacraments and for revelation is done from his perspective as a former teacher of rhetoric and as a bishop. As a rhetorician, his work on language provides the 21 framework for his sacramental theology. This framework remains influential in the Western theological tradition.1 As a bishop, Augustine explored the meaning of the sacramental word in his homilies to catechumens and letters to those seeking his advice. For our purposes, Augustine’s sacramental theology offers an awareness of the centrality of the word of Christ spoken in the church. It is the word that makes sacraments efficacious and that conveys the symbolic events of biblical revelation. Building on the work of Augustine and others, Thomas Aquinas situates the sacraments within an overarching understanding of revelation, which culminates in the incarnation. Aquinas writes as a theologian and teacher, seeking to instruct beginners regarding the Christian religion.2 His reflections on the ways that human beings learn and know provide an epistemological framework for his theology of revelation. His sacramental theology is inherently christological; sacraments are the temporal extension of the incarnation. Aquinas builds on Augustine’s understanding of the sacraments as signs comprised of words and elements. He expands Augustine’s definition and connects the sacramental word to the sacramentality of the preached and prophetic word that is found outside of the sacramental rituals. In this chapter, we will examine the ways in which Augustine and Aquinas have contributed to a deepening theological awareness of the sacramentality of the word, found at the intersection of what is now referred to as sacramental theology and theology of revelation. Their reflections on language and epistemology explore the anthropological dimension of revelation; they seek to address the myriad ways in which the word is received through visible and verbal signs. Their reflection on the sacraments also emphasizes the importance of the sacramental word in the ritual context; this word is always understood in active and christological terms. By exploring symbolic aspects of revelation and the significance of the sacramental word, their work expands our understanding of the close relationship between word and sacrament. The Sacramentality of the Word in the Work of Augustine We turn first to the work of Augustine of Hippo, whose dual interests in rhetoric and in pastoral sacramental preparation established a foundation for 1. As we will see in chapter 4, Louis-Marie Chauvet disagrees with Augustine’s framework, but nevertheless feels compelled to refute it, fifteen centuries later. See Louis-Marie Chauvet, Symbol and Sacrament: A Sacramental Reinterpretation of Christian Existence, trans. Patrick Madigan and Madeleine Beaumont (Collegeville: Liturgical, 1995), 30–31. 2. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae (New York: Blackfriars and McGraw-Hill, 1963), foreword. 22 | Embodied Words, Spoken Signs subsequent...