Church as Sacrament

In his Models of the Church, however, Avery Dulles remarks that the understanding of the Church as sacrament is technical and sophisticated and cannot easily be popularised.[4] In his later work, A Church to Believe In, he identifies other difficulties in communicating an understanding of the Church as a sacrament:

The term ‘sacrament’ suggests either an impersonal reality, such as baptismal water, or a ritual action, such as anointing. It is hard to think of a social body as a sacrament. Further, the image suggests a conspicuousness which the Church as a whole does not possess, since most Catholics and Christians do not go about in uniform. And finally, there is some ambiguity about what the Church as sacrament or sign represents. Is the Church, as we commonly experience it, a convincing sign of the unity, love, and peace, for which we hope in the final kingdom? The Church in its pilgrim state is still far from adequately representing the heavenly Jerusalem, even in a provisional manner.[5]

Such difficulties of communication and credibility, however, do not cancel out the value of understanding the Church as a sacrament. They are rather a challenge to state as clearly and as convincingly as possible different dimensions of the concept. In attempting to do so here, it will be useful to begin with a presentation of some of the biblical background to this way of approaching the nature and purpose of the Church.

Read it all from Brian Gleeson in Australian EJournal of Theology