Efficacy of The Rite
Western eucharistic tradition generally follows St. Augustine of Hippo in teaching that the efficacy of the sacraments as a means of divine grace does not depend on the worthiness of the priest of minister administering them. Augustine developed this concept in his controversy with the Donatists.
Read more about this topic: Eucharistic Theology
Famous quotes containing the words efficacy and/or rite:
“For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous dragon’s teeth; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men.”
—John Milton (1608–1674)
“[T]he Congregational minister in a neighboring town definitely stated that ‘the same spirit which drove the herd of swine into the sea drove the Baptists into the water, and that they were hurried along by the devil until the rite was performed.’”
—For the State of Vermont, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)