Bliss (Blessed Life in Seven Sacraments)

By Rev. Fr. Oluoma Chinenye J.

BLISS is a faith-provoking book. Scripture says in Ephesians 2: 8, By the grace of God you have been saved through faith. Faith is the activator and receptor of the graces of salvation; without faith we are at the risk of losing the grace of salvation. Romans 10: 17 says, Faith comes by hearing the word of Christ. The quality of a believers faith is proportional to the amount of Gods Word heard, believed, and practised. The sacraments are treasures and containers of the powers of salvation; they contain power for forgivingness, healing, deliverance, freedom, victory, breakthrough, and sundry favours. Faith is the ability and disposition to receive and enjoy these blessings. Faith is necessary for the experience of the awesome powers of the sacraments. Faith releases the sacraments from habitual and conditioned confinement to mere ritual to a life-giving cistern of reality. BLISS is a handy, helpful, and practical book of faith that leads all Christians to tap the abundant powers in the sacraments. BLISS is about getting more and all out of the sacraments as it ought to be.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Feb 25, 2013
• ISBN: 9781479776016

Rev. Fr. Oluoma Chinenye J.

Rev. Fr Oluoma Chinenye John is a Catholic priest of the Catholic Archdiocese of Abuja, Nigeria. He hails from Eziachi, Orlu Local Government Area of Imo State. He presently works as the parish priest of St John the Beloved Catholic Church, Tunga Maje, FCT, Abuja. Fr Chinenye believes in the efficacy of the sacraments as fountains of inexhaustible blessings and the absolute power of the Word of God as the source of faith.

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BLISS

    (Blessed Life in Seven Sacraments)

Rev. Fr. Oluoma Chinenye J.

Copyright © 2013 by Rev. Fr. Oluoma Chinenye J.

Imprimatur: His Eminence, John Cardinal Onaiyekan, Catholic Archbishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Abuja.

Nihil Obstat: Rev. Fr (Dr) Victor Onwukeme

Rector, National Missionary Seminary of St Paul

Gwagwalada

Library of Congress Control Number: PENDING

ISBN: Hardcover 978-1-4797-7600-9

Softcover 978-1-4797-7599-6

Ebook 978-1-4797-7601-6

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter One

More Explorations

Chapter Two

Signs And Symbols

Chapter Three

The Testimony Of History

Chapter Four

Different Approaches To The Sacraments

Chapter Five

The Faith Fact And Factor

Chapter Six

Number Musing

Chapter Seven

Ex Opere Operato And Ex Opere Operantis

Chapter Eight

The Bride And Bridegroom

BOOK II Seminar

Chapter Nine

A Resume Of Sacrament

Chapter Ten

First Door: Baptism

Chapter Eleven

Second Door: Confirmation

Chapter Twelve

Third Door: Holy Eucharist

Chapter Thirteen

Fourth Door: Penance (Sacrament Of Reconciliation) Day One: Sunday—General Knowledge

Chapter Fourteen

Door Five: Anointing Of The Sick

Chapter Fifteen

Door 6: Holy Orders

Chapter Sixteen

Door 7: The Sacrament Of Matrimony

Chapter Seventeen

Mystical Marriage

References

Dedication

This book is dedicated to those who believe in the fullness of salvation grace in the Catholic Church and proactively tap it, especially, my mum, Mrs Martina Oluoma, Barr. Nkechi Mba, Mr Ben Okoko, Mr and Mrs Ifeanyi Nwajiaku, Adaora Umeoji Nwokoye.

Acknowledgements

‘No man is an island’ goes the age-long aphorism. Gratitude and appreciation are the veritable expressions and demonstrations of the veracity of that statement. What we are and what we achieve are pivoted and piloted by the kindness of others around us, and appreciation is our recognition of this fraternal dependence on others. The success of this book could not be without the immeasurable contributions of friends, colleagues, and family. To all of them my heart reels out sincere and silent rhythms of appreciation.

I want to appreciate Rev. Fr (Dr) Victor Onwukeme, MSP, the amiable young rector of the National Missionary Seminary of St Paul, Gwagwalada, who scrutinised this book to rid it of any overt or covert scriptural, doctrinal, and theological errors, as well as wrote the foreword. These are besides the invaluable encouragement he gives me. Thank you, Padre. Same gratitude goes to Professors Mr and Mrs Okwudishu for painstakingly arresting and removing the grammatical errors that invaded the book in the course of writing. I ask God to bless you more.

I cannot forget my brother and motivator in the Lord, Rev. Fr Eze Kenechukwu Celestine. Thank you for all you are to me. You are simply a blessing to me. My dear friend Taiwo and his sister, Titi, helped in no small measure during the typing. Remain blessed. My gratitude goes to the students and librarians of the National Missionary Seminary of St Paul, Gwagwalada, for their support during the period of research in the school library. I want to thank my printer, Mr Austin Uzoka, for a job well done.

It’s obvious that I cannot exhaust the list of names of the people who have contributed to make this work possible. My heart goes out in gratitude to everyone who has become part of my life in different ways.

Save the best for last. My best appreciation goes to my archbishop, Most Rev. Dr John OlorunFemi Onaiyekan. Your Grace, you are a father, a friend, and a motivator. Thank you for the incredible atmosphere of love you create for me and all your priests for pastoral productivity. Finally and most importantly, to him who sits on the throne and unto the Lamb! Blessings and glory and honour and power and worship be forever in the mighty name of Jesus.

Foreword

John Oluoma presents the seven sacraments as seven doors leading to God’s riches, the wealth which God has prepared for humanity. According to his words, the sacraments are the doors to the sacred. However, many Christians are not aware of the treasures, riches, and wealth hidden in these sacraments. He calls on all to embrace the sacraments and to explore them to the full. He takes up each sacrament and traces its origin and development. For instance, at baptism, one is immersed in the water of baptism and emerges washed clean (Rom. 6:1-14) as God’s life of grace is infused into the baptised. The sacrament of confirmation developed when bishops went around confirming those who had been baptised. Regarding the Eucharist, he notes that condemnation came through eating; salvation equally comes through eating of the body and blood of Christ. Christ is the fullness of God’s presence in the world, and so he is the sacrament of God. Christ has paid for our sins by dying on the Cross, and this is the reason our sins are forgiven through the sacrament of reconciliation without the penitent paying proportionately for the sins committed. Taking the sacrament of the sick, he notes that Vatican II changed the name from extreme unction to the sacrament of the sick. The council directed that it is not necessary to wait until one is at the point of death before calling on a priest, although it is for the seriously infirm and the aged. It is not meant to be a devotional practice for those who feel a need for healing. On the sacrament of orders, Oluoma indicates that Levitical priesthood foreshadowed priesthood of Christ, who not only lived for others but also died for others. Along this line, compassion is the hallmark of the priestly ministry. The priest should be able to show compassion to his flock. He should be hospitable, pouring out himself for his flock just like Christ did on the Cross. In this sense, he becomes alter Christus. Just as God was the portion of the Levites, so is Christ supposed to be the portion of priests today. Taking up the sacrament of matrimony, Oluoma underlines the fact that God is its author, and therefore, he should be the one to dictate how the sacrament ought to be lived. However, today our generation disregards God in decision-making. Instead of God telling man what should be done, man tells God what should be done. God made it in such a way that marriage should be between man and woman, but we tell God, ‘No, it should be between man and man,’ and yet experience indicates that it cannot work that way because man and man can never procreate. The author calls on all to respect the sacrament of matrimony and live it as nature, in fact, as God has ordained it to be lived. The couples are meant to complement one another and to be a blessing to one another.

This is a great piece of work. I praise the author for finding time to present the seven sacraments in such a lively and enriching way. The work is full of insight and inspiration, demonstrating a lot of creativity and originality. A great amount of energy, time, and research has gone into it. The historical surveys of the sacraments are really marvellous and enlightening. In this beautiful work, the author underlines the fact that if one approaches the sacraments with deep and strong faith, his or her effects will certainly be so abundant and the efficacy so great. The book can simply be called oluoma (good work). What a great work indeed! It will certainly benefit all who read it, and so I recommend it to all.

Victor Onwukeme, MSP

Rector

The National Missionary Seminary of St Paul

Gwagwalada, Abuja, Nigeria

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Evolution and revolution, as far as humanity, religion, science, technology, and education are concerned and, in fact, every aspect of life, are inevitable. The question would be the kind of evolution or revolution acceptable, welcomed, and needed at a particular epoch in history. A lot of people, especially those who have got so accustomed to the old ways and methods of doing things and saying certain things, almost always resist changes. They make every attempt to rock the boat and would rather prefer that the status quo be maintained. Even the Master acknowledged this very problem of the human mind (Matt. 9:16-17). There could, in fact, be two extremes in this whole thing: the first is to insist that everything must be turned upside down, obliterating totally any vestiges of the past. Whether this is possible is another thing. The second extreme is to insist that what has been must always be what should be. Period. Neither of these extremes is acceptable without critical and deeper reflection and appraisal. BLISS bridges the gap. It neither says everything must be turned upside down or inside out nor says the present status quo be maintained without psychological and spiritual appraisals. It rather states that we must go back to the past and bring out the positive things that have been abandoned and then look at the present practices with open mind and remove unnecessary details that have become spiritual obstacles.

BLISS is a wonderful blend of the wealth of the Church’s tradition as well as the inevitable need for a continued growth and renewal. Only the Godhead exists in perfection. Every other organism, for which the Church is one, cannot but expect evolution and revolution. BLISS specifically concentrates on the seven sacraments of the Church. The author, Rev. Fr John Chinenye Oluoma, begins by analytically, synthetically, and critically going through the historical developments of the sacramental life and practice of the Church in the different stages of her existential development. He gives a special flavour to his discourse, the Charismatic Pastoral flavour. A lot of books that deal with the sacraments of the Church often take the normal way of giving their dogmatic and theological analyses. BLISS, on the other hand, while not rejecting the usual way of doing and explaining the sacramental practice of the Church, delves farther to see how the Church can better impart the sacramental grace upon the people of God and how the people of God themselves can better receive these sacraments for deeper personal, spiritual experience and encounter with the Divine both for the nourishments of the recipients and the Church at large. I share this passion with the author. I had a ‘hard to forget’ encounter few years ago after a priestly ordination ceremony. It happened that one of the newly ordained approached me and said to me, ‘Father, is that all? Do you know I don’t feel anything?’ I still feel the same. The only thing I am convinced of is that I now have the licence to celebrate the Holy Mass and the sacraments and that people can now call me ‘Father,’ and that is it, or is there anything I am yet to know? Yes, people get baptised, confirmed, married in the Church, get professed religiously or ordained, and it still appears that the natural man still remains untransformed, and the question is, Why? Whose fault? Fr John is not apportioning the blame on the sacramental efficacy but on the disposition of the recipient and the theological and ritualistic overload, which sometimes deprive the recipient the psychological and spiritual disposition to expect a special divine encounter at each reception of the sacraments. That is why people go in and come out without appreciable visible signs of changes.

The grace of God cannot be reduced to intellectualisation, rationalisation, and speculation. Dogmas and theological formation and formulation are good enough for scholars and the institutional church but not sufficient enough for the simple believers, as emphasised by BLISS. Therefore, BLISS calls for a new approach both to the method of catechesis and catechising and, to the reception of the sacraments, an approach that would be characterised by deeper piety and spirituality, an approach that would make the recipient encounter the Lord personally and practically in the seven sacraments. The book is truthful in emphasising that we are not gaining much from the immeasurable and unfathomable divine riches and graces embedded in the sacraments basically because of the way we have been made to understand them for ages. There is then a call for a paradigm shift in our understanding, teaching, administration, reception, and appreciation of the sacraments. When the sacraments meet with a high quality of faith both in their administration and reception, we cannot but chorus together that ‘now God lives with men’.

The very paramount question that runs through the pages of this book is as follows: ‘Is there any way the sacraments can be better developed, explained, and celebrated to make them more meaningful to the Catholics and acceptable to the non-Catholics as truly the doors to the sacred?’ It is not as if we depend on another’s approval to prove the authenticity of our kerygma. Not at all! But we have a duty to teach well for the immediate and proximate purposes of enlightenment. The content of this book answers the question excellently. The author does not criticise the theological developments in the Church but does a scholarly study thereof. He sues for rediscovery and recovery of what got lost along the way in the Church’s history. Using the book of Acts of the Apostles, he is firm to state that the Church, along its theological formulation, underemphasised the charismatic dimension of the sacraments. To supply for certain defects, the Tridentine Church develops a theological database for the sacraments by her celebrated ex opere operato and ex opere operantis. These clearly state that the sacraments are in themselves effectual and efficacious once administered and that these do not depend on the worthiness of the ordained minister. This, the author strongly maintains, is our greatest faith and kerygmatic asset as well as our greatest evangelical and clerical commitment undoing. It has kept our people going as well as encouraged the spiritual indolence of the clergy.

This book is divided into different sections. All the seven sacraments are explained, with their theological and historical import well addressed. They are each spaced into seven days with reflections and prayer. I call on those already baptised, confirmed, the communicants, the married, and the ordained to revisit their sacramental lives and fan into flames the gifts of God already received in the sacraments. I also call on those preparing for any of the sacraments to embrace this book with passion and be better prepared to reap the fruits of the sacraments. And may bishops, priests, deacons, religious brothers and sisters, seminarians, catechists, and all who teach catechism find in this book a treasure for self-examination and better rendering of catechetical services to God’s people.

I am quite sure that this book would enjoy criticisms from the learned. That too is part of our life. It is equally part of the reasons for the publication of this book. I want to believe the following: to engender criticisms that would lead to thesis, thesis that would lead to antithesis, and antithesis that would lead to synthesis. The most important thing is that it achieves its purpose ultimately: to lead all from a mere dogmatic and ritualistic understanding and celebration of the sacraments and their eventual reception to a more existential and experiential understanding, celebration, and appreciation thereof.

I thank Fr John Oluoma for this bold step and courage. He is a young priest who has always inspired me by the depth of his reasoning and expressions. May God sustain him. And may this book, BLISS, find a generous and appreciable welcome from Catholics and non-Catholics and both from the learned and the simple believers. Amen.

Rev. Fr Celestine-Marie Eze.

St Anthony’s Parish, Yangoji, Abuja

1 November 2010, the Solemnity of All Saints.

Introduction

Bliss resides in a mansion. This mansion has several rooms and doors; each room has one or more doors leading into it. The incredible epic story of salvation is a delicate adventure of mutual entry of stakeholders from disparate realms. Redemption is a drama of crossing over of concerned parties from one exclusive world into the other, and the climax of this drama is a successful location of the doors leading to these worlds—the eventual entry into these worlds and the reaping of the fruits of the worlds.

The discovery of fire opened the door of endless possibilities for man’s advancement in civilisation. These possibilities have always been in the world, but without a door, they were closed up and closed out of the reach of man. Stone Age and pre-Stone Age people could have cooked their meat to eat and enjoy a better taste, and they could have warmed themselves, enjoyed hot bath, and so on, but they were shut out of these possibilities and realities because the door (fire) leading to them was not discovered during their time. Yes, one could argue that it did not matter because they were ignorant or unconscious of the experience of these luxuries. They never knew about them and, therefore, they did not know about missing such comforts. That sounds good, but the fact is that we know about what they missed because of the absence of a door; it nudges us into reflective thoughts, conscious retrospection, and careful analysis of our own life. Could there be many possibilities of bliss here on earth that we are missing because we have not thoughtfully and carefully discovered doors that lead into them? The early man may have been spared the psychological trauma of actual possibilities missed but not the physiological pains and deprivations.

The bliss of easy access to information, speedy, and accurate computation of statistics and data, and other incredible mind-boggling activities of the computer are a testimony of what the discovery of a door into possibilities can do for the human race. The world is a place of possibilities, an inexhaustible mine of potentialities; we are only limited to few actualities because we are yet to discover the doors leading to other abounding possibilities. Think about the geniuses who discovered electricity, magnetism, automobiles, airplanes, drugs, mobile phones, computer, and so on. They did not create these things; they discovered them because they existed in nature. Their discovery opened the doors to possibilities and options in life people never knew existed.

It began from creation. God created the world and placed man and woman in a perfect garden, they erred and were ejected, and the door of paradise was closed. The closing of the door of paradise was a shutting up of the possibilities and actualities of paradise. Things spiralled out of control; man was shut out of God, shut out of the sacred, the source of bliss. God too was shut out of man’s life, a tragedy of which only man himself was the victim and the loser and in which God took no pleasure. Then came the plan for redemption. The process of redemption is getting God back into man and getting man back into God—getting the sacred to enter the profane and purify it and getting the purified into the sacred. God wanted to enter into man; man needed desperately to enter back into God, into life and bliss, and for this to happen, a door was needed. This is redemption in its subtlest definition, and this is what sacrament means in its most graphic illustration.

‘Jesus says I am the gate to the sheep fold’ (John 10:7). In John 14:6, he says, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life.’ If there is no door (way), there is no going into the truth, and if there is no life, there is no living; so the door leads into the truth and life with their endless possibilities. Jesus is God’s door of entry into our world and our door of entry into God’s Kingdom, grace, and life. Obviously, before Jesus and without Jesus, movement into both worlds was impossible, an impossibility not caused by God’s inability or limitation but by man’s inability and unworthiness to receive God. God himself had to