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“To live, we must daily break the body and shed the blood of Creation. When we do this knowingly, lovingly, skillfully, reverently, it is a sacrament. When we do it ignorantly, greedily, clumsily, destructively, it is a desecration. In such desecration we condemn ourselves to spiritual and moral loneliness, and others to want.”
― Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays

“The liturgy of the Eucharist is best understood as a journey or procession. It is the journey of the Church into the dimension of the Kingdom. We use the word 'dimension' because it seems the best way to indicate the manner of our sacramental entrance into the risen life of Christ. Color transparencies 'come alive' when viewed in three dimensions instead of two. The presence of the added dimension allows us to see much better the actual reality of what has been photographed. In very much the same way, though of course any analogy is condemned to fail, our entrance into the presence of Christ is an entrance into a fourth dimension which allows us to see the ultimate reality of life. It is not an escape from the world, rather it is the arrival at a vantage point from which we can see more deeply into the reality of the world.”
― Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy

“Beauty, then, is not mere decoration, but rather an essential element of the liturgical action, since it is an attribute of God himself and his revelation. These considerations should make us realize the care which is needed, if the liturgical action is to reflect its innate splendour.”
― Pope Benedict XVI

“Centuries of secularism have failed to transform eating into something strictly utilitarian. Food is still treated with reverence...To eat is still something more than to maintain bodily functions. People may not understand what that 'something more' is, but they nonetheless desire to celebrate it. They are still hungry and thirsty for sacramental life.”
― Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy

“A marriage which does not constantly crucify its own selfishness and self-sufficiency, which does not ‘die to itselfâ€� that it may point beyond itself, is not a Christian marriage. The real sin of marriage today is not adultery or lack of ‘adjustmentâ€� or ‘mental cruelty.â€� It is the idolization of the family itself, the refusal to understand marriage as directed toward the Kingdom of God. This is expressed in the sentiment that one would ‘do anythingâ€� for his family, even steal. The family has here ceased to be for the glory of God; it has ceased to be a sacramental entrance into his presence. It is not the lack of respect for the family, it is the idolization of the family that breaks the modern family so easily, making divorce its almost natural shadow. It is the identification of marriage with happiness and the refusal to accept the cross in it. In a Christian marriage, in fact, three are married; and the united loyalty of the two toward the third, who is God, keeps the two in an active unity with each other as well as with God. Yet it is the presence of God which is the death of the marriage as something only ‘natural.â€� It is the cross of Christ that brings the self-sufficiency of nature to its end. But ‘by the cross, joy entered the whole world.â€� Its presence is thus the real joy of marriage. It is the joyful certitude that the marriage vow, in the perspective of the eternal Kingdom, is not taken ‘until death parts,â€� but until death unites us completely.”
― Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy

“Most people live for love and admiration. But it is by love and admiration that one should live. If any love is shown us we should recognize that we are quite unworthy of it. Nobody is worthy to be loved... or if that phrase is a bitter one to bear, let us say that everyone is worthy of love, except him who thinks he is. Love is a sacrament that should be taken kneeling..”
― Oscar Wilde, De Profundis

“You cannot sodomize a Sacrament and expect God to say, 'Well done.”
― E.A. Bucchianeri

“In the Eucharist we can find all the dimensions of communion: God communicates himself to us, we enter into communion with him, the participants of the sacrament enter into communion with one another, and creation as a whole enters through man into communion with God. All this takes place in Christ and the Spirit, who brings the last days into history and offers to the world a foretaste of the Kingdom.”
― John D. Zizioulas, Communion and Otherness: Further Studies in Personhood and the Church

“Consumerism is a restless spirit that is never content with any particular material thing. In this sense, consumerism has some affinities with Christian asceticism, which counsels a certain detachment from material things. The difference is that, in consumerism, detachment continually moves us from one product to another, whereas in Christian life, asceticism is a means to a greater attachment to God and to other people. We are consumers in the Eucharist, but in consuming the body of Christ we are transformed into the body of Christ, drawn into the divine life in communion with other people. We consume in the Eucharist, but we are thereby consumed by God.”
― William T. Cavanaugh, Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire

“In the Orthodox ecclesial experience and tradition a sacrament is understood primarily as a revelation of the genuine nature of creation, of the world, which, however much it has fallen as "this world," will remain God's world, awaiting salvation, redemption, healing and transfiguration in a new earth and a new heaven. In other words, in the Orthodox experience a sacrament is primarily a revelation of the sacramentality of creation itself, for the world was created and given to man for conversion of creaturely life into participation in divine life. If in baptism water can become a "laver of regeneration," if our earthy food - bread and wine - can be transformed into partaking of the body and blood of Christ, if with oil we are granted the anointment of the Holy Spirit, if, to put it briefly, everything in the world can be identified, manifested and understood as a gift of God and participation in the new life, it is because all of creation was originally summoned and destined for the fulfillment of the divine economy - "then God will be all in all.”
― Alexander Schmemann, The Eucharist: Sacrament of the Kingdom

“This insistence on a degree of faith in the communicant is also illustrative of Wesley's belief in the necessity for the co-operation of an active faith in man with the gift of God's grace to make the sacrament effective, which is congruent with his whole theology of salvation, with it's blending of the objective and the subjective.”
― John R. Parris, John Wesley's Doctrine of the Sacraments

“You’re a mystery the way a sacrament is a mystery.”
― Anne Rice, The Wolf Gift

“we want every latter day saint to come to the sacrament table because it is the place for self-investigation, for self-inspection, where we may learn to rectify our course and to make right our own lives, bringing ourselves into harmony with the teachings of the Church and with our brothers and sisters.”
― Melvin J. Ballard

“When exactly did this all change, and what were the social and theological factors that led to the change? The answer seems to be in the second century and: (1) because of the consolidation of ecclesial power in the hands of monarchial bishops and others; (2) in response to the rise of heretical movements such as the Gnostics; (3) in regard to the social context of the Lord’s Supper, namely, the agape, or thanksgiving, meal, due to the rise to prominence of asceticism in the church; and (4) because the increasingly Gentile majority in the church was to change how second-century Christian thinkers would reflect on the meal. Thus, issues of power and purity and even ethnicity were to change the views of the Lord’s Supper and the way it would be practiced.”
― Ben Witherington III, Making a Meal of It: Rethinking the Theology of the Lord's Supper

“Beginning in 1519 and continuing until the end of his life, Luther expounded a theme that the Sacrament brings and means a fellowship of love and mercy: "This fellowship consists in this, that all the spiritual possessions of Christ and his saints are shared with and become the common property of him who receives this sacrament. Again all sufferings and sins also become common property; and thus love engenders love in return and [mutual love] unites . . . It is like a city where every citizen shares with all the others the city's name, honor, freedom, trade, customs, usages, help, support, protection, and the like, while at the same time he shares all the dangers of fire and flood, enemies and death, losses taxes and the like. For he who would share in the profits must also share in the costs, and ever recompense love with love . . ." For Luther, unity with respect to the Sacrament meant both doctrinal agreement and love. When the prerequisite to church fellowship is defined merely (however important!) in terms of doctrinal fellowship, it can end in a Platonic pursuit of a frigid and rigid mental ideal. Doctrinal unity, true unity in Christ's body and blood, is also a unity of deep love and mercy. If I will not lay down my burden on Christ and the community, or take up the burdens of others who come to the Table, then I should not go to the Sacrament. Close(d) Communion is also a fellowship of love and mercy with my brother and sister in Christ as Luther taught in the previous citation.”
― Matthew C. Harrison, Christ Have Mercy: How to Put Your Faith in Action

“Has Christ provided such a blessed banquet for us? He does not nurse us abroad—but feeds us with His own breast—nay, with His own blood! Let us, then, study to respond to this great love of Christ. It is true, we can never parallel His love. Yet let us show ourselves thankful. We can do nothing satisfactory—but we may do something out of gratitude. Christ gave Himself as a sin-offering for us. Let us give ourselves as a thank-offering for Him. If a man redeems another out of debt—will he not be grateful? How deeply do we stand obliged to Christ—who has redeemed us from hell!”
― Thomas Watson, The Lord's Supper

“However grand our sacramental downsittings and updressings may be, they remain only and precisely sacraments: real presences, under particular signs, of the happier order that faith can discover under any and all signs. They're a bit like the church. As long as we see them as an earnest of the kingdom, they're all right; when we put on airs and act as if they were the kingdom itself, they look just silly.”
― Robert Farrar Capon

“How I hate these follies of not believing in the Eucharist, &c.! If the Gospel be true, if Jesus Christ be God, what difficulty is there?”
― Blaise Pascal, ±Ê±ð²Ô²õé±ð²õ

“Sleep!â€� cried Father Brown. “Sleep. We have come to the end of the ways. Do you know what sleep is? Do you know that every man who sleeps believes in God? It is a sacrament; for it is an act of faith and it is a food. And we need a sacrament, if only a natural one. Something has fallen on us that falls very seldom on men; perhaps the worst thing that can fall on them.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Innocence of Father Brown

“If this most holy Sacrament were celebrated in only one place and consecrated by only one priest in the whole world, with what great desire, do you think, would men be attracted to that place, to that priest of God, in order to witness the celebration of the divine Mysteries! But now there are many priests and Mass is offered in many places, that God's grace and love for men may appear the more clearly as the Sacred Communion is spread more widely through the world.”
― Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ

“For if we see that the sun, in sending forth its rays upon the earth, to generate, cherish, and invigorate its offspring, in a manner transfuses its substance into it, why should the radiance of the Spirit be less in conveying to us the communion of his flesh and blood? Wherefore the Scripture, when it speaks of our participation with Christ, refers its whole efficacy to the Spirit. Instead of many, one passage will suffice. Paul, in the Epistle to the Romans (Rom. 8:9-11), shows that the only way in which Christ dwells in us is by his Spirit. By this, however, he does not take away that communion of flesh and blood of which we now speak, but shows that it is owing to the Spirit alone that we possess Christ wholly, and have him abiding in us.”
― John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion

“Wachawi hivi ndivyo wanavyoapishwa na kuikana imani ya Kikristo: Mwanafunzi hupelekwa kilingeni katika siku maalumu kuonana na Shetani, pamoja na jopo la wachawi. Shetani hutokea katika mwili wa hewa, mwili uliochanganyikana na hewa na mvuke mzito, wa mwanamume na kuwasihi waishikilie imani yao kwake kwa mioyo yao yote, huku akiwaahidi utajiri na maisha marefu kama hawatamkana. Kisha wachawi wanampendekeza mwanafunzi kwa Shetani. Shetani humuuliza mwanafunzi kama yuko tayari kuikana imani yake, kuachana na Ukristo na kutokumwabudu Mwanamke Aliyebarikiwa Kuliko Wanawake Wote Duniani Maria Magdalena, na kutoziheshimu sakaramenti za aina zote. Mwanafunzi atakapokubaliana na masharti hayo, Shetani atanyoosha mkono wake na kumsihi mwanafunzi anyooshe wa kwake. Kwa mkono wake mwenyewe, mwanafunzi ataapa na kuweka agano na Shetani mbele ya jopo la wachawi.

Baada ya hapo bila kuchelewa Shetani ataendelea na kusema kuwa hicho kiapo hakitoshi. Lakini mwanafunzi atakapouliza afanye kitu gani cha ziada, Shetani atahitaji kiapo kifuatacho kwa heshima yake na kwa heshima ya mashetani wote: Mwanafunzi ajikabidhi kwa Shetani kwa mwili na kwa roho yake yote daima dawamu, na afanye kila awezalo kuleta wanafunzi wengine wa kike na wa kiume katika ufalme wake. Kama hiyo haitoshi Shetani ataongeza kuwa lazima mwanafunzi atengeneze mafuta fulani kutokana na mifupa na viungo vya miili ya watoto, hasa watoto waliobatizwa, kwani kwa kufanya hivyo atamtimizia kila kitu atakachokitaka hapa duniani. Hiyo ni njia mojawapo ya kiapo.

Njia nyingine ya kiapo ni kwa wale ambao hawajiamini au wana hofu ya kuonana na Shetani uso kwa uso kilingeni, akiwa na mwili wa kimazingaombwe na sauti ya kutisha kwani Shetani hana mapafu wala hana ulimi. Badala ya kilingeni mwanafunzi hupelekwa kanisani na jopo la wachawi ambapo mbele ya jopo atalazimishwa kuikana imani yake, kumkana Yesu Kristo, kuukana ubatizo na kulikana kanisa zima kwa ujumla wake. Mwanafunzi baada ya hapo atalazimishwa kutoa heshima kuu kwa Mfalme Mdogo, kwani hivyo ndivyo wanavyomwita Shetani ili kumwondolea mwanafunzi hofu, kisha atalazimishwa kunywa supu ya mtoto mchanga waliyemuua akazikwa kisha wakamfukua na kupika viungo vya mwili wake; na dakika hiyo mwanafunzi atapata maarifa, maarifa ya kichawi, kama walimu wake na watarudi nyumbani.”
― Enock Maregesi

“At that time I also had, for a short while, the strength to bear it. But all too soon I lost external sight of the shape of that beautiful man, and I saw him disappear to nothing, so quickly melting away and fusing together that I could not see or observe him outside of me, nor discern him within me. It was to me at that moment as if we were one without distinction.”
― Hadewijch, Hadewijch: The Complete Works

“Yet in the liturgical and spiritual tradition of the Church, the Church's essence as the incarnation of the Word, as the fulfilment in time and space of the divine incarnation, is realized precisely in the unbreakable link between the word and the sacrament. Thus the book of Acts can say of the Church: "the word. . .grew and multiplied" (Acts 12.24). In the sacrament we partake of Him who comes and abides with us in the word, and the mission of the Church consists precisely in announcing this good news. The word presupposes the sacrament as its fulfilment, for in the sacrament Christ the Word becomes our life.”
― Alexander Schmemann, The Eucharist: Sacrament of the Kingdom

“The theological function of hell â€� is to be a sacrament to the ultimate and real element of risk by which alone we can recognize a world ruled by love. Universalism, as an overriding theological principle, is a false start.

On the other hand, if you ask whether there is in fact a hell - whether specific persons will actually go so far as to insist on a second death in the face of their resurrection by the supreme Lover himself - that's another matter altogether.”
― Robert Farrar Capon, Between Noon & Three: Romance, Law & the Outrage of Grace

“The dynamic and poetic symbol of water offers to the celebrant and receiver the act of covenant and joining in both community and spiritual health. One need not look any further than our own water sources to picture a oneness with the universe, life on our planet, or other human beings. Water is a sharing in this, our universe, and the world in which we live. Water is a blessing to all known life.”
― L.B. Ó Ceallaigh, The Liturgical Sacramentary of Bealtaine

“You cannot know anything spiritually by saying it is a not-that: you can only know it by meeting it in its precise and irreplaceable thisness and honoring it there.”
― Richard Rohr, Just This

“There are indeed moments of spiritual ecstasy in the Christian life and in gathered worship. Powerful spiritual experiences, when they come, are a gift. But that cannot be the point of Christian spirituality, any more than the unforgettable pappardelle pasta dish I ate years ago in Boston's North End is the point of eating.

Word and sacrament sustain my life, and yet they often do not seem life changing. Quietly, even forgettably, they feed me.”
― Tish Harrison Warren, Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life

“The Eucharist—our gathered meal of thanksgiving for the life, death, and resurrection of Christ—transforms each humble meal into a moment to recall that we receive all of life, from soup to salvation, by grace. As such, these small, daily moments are sacramental—not that they are sacraments themselves, but that God meets us in and through the earthy, material world in which we dwell.”
― Tish Harrison Warren, Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life

“The sacraments of the Church are precisely the imagery in which she speaks of the world of the future, the coming kingdom of God. What sort of relationship is there to be among men? The kind that is hinted at, symbolized in the Eucharist; it is to be a political reality but not one that can be described in today’s political terms. A revolutionary is not merely one who tries to make political changes; he is out to change the meaning of the word politics. When the kingdom can be described in political terms, in its own political terms, the Eucharist will be no longer necessary. But until then we point toward it in symbolic terms. And, of course, there exists an equivalent of neo-capitalism to emasculate the revolutionary character of the Church. This takes the sacraments not as symbols of the future, but as literal realities. We may see the liturgical movement, the whole concentration on the parish community, the people of God gathered around the altar and so on, as in some danger of embodying this “neo-capitalistâ€� mistake. The sacramental life has been valued literally for its own sake—as somebody might value the nationalization of steel for its own sake—instead of seeing it as an image of the world at which we are trying to arrive.”
― Herbert McCabe