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Sacramental Vision





With Christians, a poetical view of things is a duty. We are bid to color all things with hues of faith, to see a divine meaning in every event.

— Cardinal John Newman

The Sacramental  Vision is acquired, according to the Catholic Church when one is capable of seeing evidence of the divine in the world around us. This runs contrary to Gnosticism and encourages us to find the Self in Creation, to seek kinship with God and the rest of His Creation. 



Before the 20th century and the fragmentation of the Self and the "murder" of God,  prior to the development of vast urban, industrialised areas, man was in contact with nature and in synch with the seasons. Today we stare at screens and ignore the names of the flowers and plants that grow in parks and gardens. Or many of us do, anyhow.

A Sacramental Vision is a distinctive Catholic idea which asks that we see the world like stanzas in a poem, as Cardinal Newman suggests in the opening quote. That we become aware of the Divine Intelligence that is found in the world around us. Surely if we attain this Sacramental Vision and see Christ in the world and all the life forms that surround us, we will reach a charitable disposition. St. Isaac the Syrian [seventh century] defines a charitable heart as one “which is burning with love for the whole creation, for [humans], for the birds, for the beasts, for the demons—for all creatures.”

Let's break this down a bit: Sacraments are defined by the Catholic church as visible rites seen as "signs and efficacious channels of the grace of God to all those who receive them with the proper disposition."  Sacramentals, on the other hand, are "sacred signs, ritual acts or  ceremonies, which, in a certain imitation of the sacraments, have a spiritual effect and are obtained through the intercession of the Church."


Vision is, of course, the ability to "see" literally what lies before us with our eyes and is therefore a sensual faculty. But it's also a perspective, a worldview, an attitude before life and a theological and philosophical understanding of the cosmos. The term nous is an ancient Greek word that refers to the mind, to the intellect. Therefore we could also understand Vision  as nous. 

And the best way to train the mind is to practice meditation. The Japanese Zen masters differentiate between many different types of meditation and define the most basic one as meditation for health purposes. This is what people call mindfulness today, i.e.the practice of meditation detached from any spiritual or religious connection. A different level of meditation is the one that is attached to a spiritual and religious practice. And it's this type of meditation, I venture, the one that helps us attain the Sacramental Vision regardless of one's religion. 


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