Dr. Jojo Parecattil CMI

“I longed to see” is the repeated cry that we see in the third chapter of Ātmānutāpam, written by St. Chavara. The word kānākenam (I longed to see) is recurring there, sixty-five times: “Oh! how I wish to see the Son” (III 65); “Oh! Enlighten my vision, so that I could see, the Creator” (III 97); “Bless me, so I could in my spiritual eyes, perceive Thee who are the supreme most” (III Continued 1-2); “How I long to see this source of all treasures” (III Continued 5); “Allow kindly to gaze at it, at least for once” (III Continued 58). Through such lines, the poet is impressively expressing his earnest desire for Daiva-darśan (Vision of God). It is for the accomplishment of that intense wish, he started the Darśanavīt (House of vision) at Mannanam on 11 May 1831. This Indian name of that first indigenous religious house reminds of the earnest desire of St Chavara to adopt the good elements from the rich Indian sanyāsa tradition. The third chapter of Ātmānutāpam, indeed testifies the fact that while living as a member of Darśanavīt in each moment of his life his heart was longing to see the face of God.
Today, the craving of human heart to see God is sacramentally realised at the Altar, which is a Darśanavīt. A sacrament is generally understood and administered as the visual perception of the sacred. In sacramental theology, sacrament is defined as “a visible sign of an invisible reality;” it is a sacred sign that makes the grace perceptible. St. Augustine of Hippo explains it as, ‘an outward sign of an inward grace that has been instituted by Jesus Christ.’ The Catechism of the Catholic Church, also underlines the importance of the perceptibility of sacred signs for the fruitful administration of sacraments: “The sacraments are efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us. The visible rites by which the sacraments are celebrated signify and make present the graces proper to each sacrament” (CCC 1131). These various definitions make it clear that visibility is a constituent element of a sacrament. This article examines the visual experience of ‘matter and form’ in the Eucharist, which is the”source and summit of Christian Life.”

Matter and Form of the Sacraments
It is through various outward signs and symbols the invisible grace is made visible in all the seven sacraments of the Church. The outward signs of these sacraments have two parts: ‘matter’ and ‘form’ or ‘things and words’ (res et verba). The matter is the perceptible material object, such as water in baptism or wheat bread and grape wine for the Eucharist. The form is the sacred words used, the verbal statement that specifies the signification of the matter, such as, the baptismal formula, “I baptise you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” or the words of institution or consecration with regard to the Eucharist, “Take this, all of you, and eat of it, for this is my Body, which will be given up for you.” “Take this, all of you, and drink from it, for this is the chalice of my Blood, the Blood of the new and eternal covenant, which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Mt 26: 26-28).
The sacraments have a visible and invisible dimension, an exterior and interior aspect. The visible sign actually effects in us the invisible reality that it signifies. The exterior of a sacrament, i.e., the matter and form, or things and words, used in it, which our human senses can recognise, reminds us of its interior reality. We may not be able to physically see or hear God’s grace at work, but — through the things and words of sacraments — our senses engage our eyes and ears in an act of faith.
Through the material and formal elements, God conveys His unseen grace to human beings. Our physical bodies can perceive those things, words and gestures, and they appeal to our senses. They are observable to the participants and physically draw them into the inner reality of the dynamic work of Christ and the Spirit taking place through the Church to impart God’s grace. Thus, a valid and fruitful administration of sacrament involves the presentation of signs that are perceptible to the senses: “The sacraments are perceptible signs (words and actions) accessible to our human nature” (CCC, 1084).

‘Matter’ for the Visual Perception of the Sacred (Darsan)
Just as visibility is an important dimension of Christian sacraments, the rite of darśan is fundamental in Hindu methods of worship too. The Sanskrit word darśan is derived from the root drś, which means ‘to see,’ and its noun form is generally translated as ‘direct vision’ or ‘perception’ and sometimes translated also as the ‘auspicious sight’ of the divine. In the Hindu ritual tradition, it refers especially to the religious seeing, or the visual perception of the sacred. That is why, when the Hindu believers go to a temple, they commonly say, “We are going for darśan.” They go to ‘see’ the image of the deity, present in the Sanctum Sanctorum of the temple.
For example, people go to the famed Lord Ayyappa shrine in Sabarimala to get the darśan of the Lord. That is why, while there was an increase in footfall during the ongoing pilgrimage season, the Kerala High Court, a bench of Justices Anil K Narendran and P G Ajith Kumar held a special sitting and on 11 Sunday December 2022 and proposed an extension of the time of darśan by an hour on busy days, in consultation with the tantri of Sabarimala.

“Darsan is not just looking at the deity in the temple but also considered to be a matter of experiencing the deity and entering into an intimate, reciprocal exchange with the Supreme Reality.”

The central act of Hindu worship, from the point of view of the lay person, is to stand on tiptoe and crane their necks to see, through the crowd, and to behold the image with one’s own eyes, to see and be seen by the deity. In the process of gazing upon these icons, the body, the mind and the senses of the devotee become spiritualised. Further, darśan is not just looking at the deity in the temple but also considered to be a matter of experiencing the deity and entering into an intimate, reciprocal exchange with the Supreme Reality.
There is a similar expression used by the faithful of Kerala, for going to the Church in order to take part in the Eucharistic celebration. They say, “We are going to see Qurbana.” According to this expression, it is ‘to see,’ which involves participating, receiving and living the Qurbana that the faithful come to the Church. As Jesus commanded, at the Altar the Church through the matter of wheat bread and grape wine celebrates the salvation event (Passover) in a tangible way. They are wonderful moments of encounter with God in the Church that can deeply affect our lives. The visual perception of them is the starting point of the experience of the sacred. The Church teaches that Sacraments are instituted by Christ (CCC, 1131). They are not human creations; they are not even the creations of the Church. For example, Christ instituted Baptism to make us the children of heaven. By birth, we become children of earthly parents, whereas by Baptism, we become children of the Heavenly Father. It is not the Church, which instituted Baptism to make us the members of the Church, though it is true that by it we become members of the Church, as well. Similarly, the Eucharist is also instituted by Christ for the salvific purpose of His becoming one with humanity, to provide us with the experience of ‘God is with us’ (Emmanuel experience). It is not the Church, which instituted the Eucharist, by which all its members can become one with God.
As we often claim, the other religions are the result of human search for God, whereas, Christianity is the result of God’s search for humanity. It is the uniqueness of Christianity. This basic theological perspective is very important, while we examine the visual experience of the sacrament of the Eucharist. Therefore, more than the traditions of the Church, what is important is, how Christ instituted it. With regard to all other matters of faith, always, we are very particular about establishing their Christological and biblical foundations. But unfortunately, when it comes to the matter of Eucharistic celebration, I think we are completely ignoring its Christological and biblical foundations. All of them are blindly surpassed by the traditions of the Church. The great leaders, theologians, liturgists, canonists or not even the so-called retreat preachers, who otherwise very particular about quoting from the Bible often neglect what the ‘Word of God’ says about the celebration of Eucharist in the New Testament. The rules of Old Testament liturgy were replaced and fulfilled by Jesus. We are the children of New Testament spirituality.

‘Form’ for the Dialogical Celebration of the Sacrament
The Second Vatican Council, in its Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, which is regarded as the Magna Carta of liturgy, emphasises the importance of greater participation by the laity in the celebration of Holy Mass and authorises significant changes in the texts, forms, and language used in the celebration of mass of the Holy Mass and the administration of the sacraments: “When the Church prays or sings or acts, the faith of those taking part is nourished and their minds are raised to God, so that they may offer Him their rational service and more abundantly receive His grace” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 33).
The Catechism of the Church also teaches that the celebration of the sacrament is an activity of dialogue: “A sacramental celebration is a meeting of God’s children with their Father, in Christ and the Holy Spirit; this meeting takes the form of a dialogue, through actions and words. Admittedly, the symbolic actions are already a language, but the Word of God and the response of faith have to accompany and give life to them, so that the seed of the Kingdom can bear its fruit in good soil. The liturgical actions signify what the Word of God expresses: both his free initiative and his people’s response of faith” (CCC, 1153). Actions and words are very closely linked in the celebration of the sacraments. Indeed, even if the symbolic actions are already in themselves a language, it is necessary that the words of the rite accompany and give life to these actions. “The liturgical words and actions are inseparable both insofar as they are meaningful signs and insofar as they bring about what they signify” (CCC, 1155).
Regarding priest’s identification with Christ, Robert Cardinal Sarah writes: “In every Mass, the priest finds himself face to face with Jesus. At that time, the priest is identified with Christ, configured to him. He does not become only an alter Christus, another Christ. He truly ipse Christus, he is Christ himself, configured by a specific and sacramental identification to the High Priest of the Eternal Covenant.” Benedict XV1 — Robert Cardinal Sarah, From the Depths of Our Hearts, San Francisco 2020, 113. (Quoted by Fr. Andrews Mekkattukunnel, “Word-oriented Formation for a Committed Life and Effective Mission,” National Conference on Spiritual Formation in Major Seminaries, Bengaluru: Dharmaram College, 31).
A priest is in persona Christi because he acts as Christ and as God. For example, in the Mass, the Words of Institution, by which the bread becomes the Body of Christ and the wine becomes the Precious Blood, the priest acts in the person of Christ in pronouncing the words (Presbyterorum Ordinis, 28). Pope John Paul II also underlines it: “The priest offers the holy Sacrifice in persona Christi… Awareness of this reality throws a certain light on the character and significance of the priest celebrant who, by confecting the holy Sacrifice and acting in persona Christi, is sacramentally (and ineffably) brought into that most profound sacredness, and made part of it, spiritually linking with it in turn all those participating in the eucharistic assembly” (Dominicae Cenae). A priest at Mass wears liturgical vestments in part to downplay his own personality. He represents and acts in persona Christi. The Catechism of the Church makes it clear: “Certain members are called by God, in and through the Church, to a special service of the community. These servants are chosen and consecrated by the Sacrament of Holy Orders, by which the Holy Spirit enables them to act in the person of Christ the head, for the service of all the members of the Church. The ordained minister is, as it were, an ‘icon’ of Christ the priest (1142). People go to Church not to see the ritual by a priest, rather the Mass of Christ. The Mass is the Pascal sacrifice of the New Law in which the priest stands in the ‘person’ of Christ, who alone celebrates every Mass from the rising of the Sun to its setting.
As a priest represents and acts in persona Christi, in all the sacraments, his presence is regarded as a sacramental presence of God for the people of God. Especially, in the Eucharist, while he utters the institutional verse, his presence is the presence of Christ for the community. In such important moments, the face-to-face contacts and the response of the gathering is truly essential and it is that which makes it a more sacramental and dialogical celebration.

Altar: A Darśanavīṭ (A House of Vision)

“Come and see” (Jn 1:39), was the invitation of Jesus to His first disciples. Today, the Church as a sacrament is a house of vision (Darśanavīṭ) and more specifically the Altar of the Church is a place of vision, where the people of God are sacramentally invited to see and experience His loving presence. In each Eucharistic celebration, the Lord is continuing this invitation and it is the birth-right and faith-right of every believer. Nobody can deny it.Henceforth, following the theology of incarnation and the spirit of Second Vatical Council, in the celebration of the Eucharist, a face-to-face contact between the priest and the faithful makes it sacramentally more meaningful and effective.