Sacramental Matter And Form
According to Saint Thomas Aquinas the Sacraments may be described in terms of their matter and form. The idea seems to have been first proposed by William of Auxerre. Thus, for example, the matter for Baptism is water; the matter for the Eucharist is bread and wine. The form of a sacrament consists of the words by which the Sacrament is effected. Thus Saint Thomas held that the form of Penance was "I absolve thee."
The Catechism of Trent states it this way: "Every Sacrament consists of two things, matter, which is called the element, and form, which is commonly called the word."
The term "matter" should be taken broadly to mean that which underlies the sacrament in a manner similar that the way in which matter underlies substance. Thus the three acts of the penitent are taken to be the matter of Penance: repenting of one's sins, confessing them in words, and doing the penance assigned.
Secondly the form of a sacrament may take significantly different forms in different churches. Thus, for example, though Saint Thomas held the form of Confirmation to be "I sign thee with the sign of the cross..." the Byzantine Rite uses the form "The sign of the seal of the Holy Spirit."
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Famous quotes containing the words sacramental, matter and/or form:
“Oh! thou clear spirit of clear fire, whom on these seas I as Persian once did worship, till in the sacramental act so burned by thee, that to this hour I bear the scar; I now know thee, thou clear spirit, and I now know that thy right worship is defiance. To neither love nor reverence wilt thou be kind; and e’en for hate thou canst but kill; and all are killed. No fearless fool now fronts thee.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“The form of act or thought mattered nothing. The hymns of David, the plays of Shakespeare, the metaphysics of Descartes, the crimes of Borgia, the virtues of Antonine, the atheism of yesterday and the materialism of to-day, were all emanation of divine thought, doing their appointed work. It was the duty of the church to deal with them all, not as though they existed through a power hostile to the deity, but as instruments of the deity to work out his unrevealed ends.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)