Reflections from the Heart – May 18, 2025

Fifth Sunday of Easter
by Fr. Ivan Olmo

“Behold, I make all things new.” Most of us, given an opportunity to do so, can from our early childhood years of catechetical instruction and teaching or through the sacramental formation we received, easily recite, probably word for word, the classical definition of what is a sacrament: “The sacraments are efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us.” Nevertheless, what does that mean? What does that mean to you? How would you respond to the text? How would you describe what a sacrament is in your own words? Where is God leading you in thought and heart to consider explaining a sacrament to a child, a neighbor, a person who does not believe or to a person who has lost all hope but wants and needs to believe? Where is God graciously inviting you today to grow, know, change or simply be inspired? Given my own lack of intellectual wisdom, knowledge, and comprehension and in the little ways that I can provide any sort of explanation or can claim any confidence of understanding a textbook definition, I probably would complicate the matter and add further confusion to any definition. Thankful that God has graciously helped me to understand sacraments in simple terms and in a simple language that I can understand and in a language I can share: a sacrament is simply a life giving, lifesaving and life-changing gift from God to make us new again. When we encounter Jesus in his real presence and the gift of sacramental grace, we simply are not the same. How can anyone who truly encounters the real presence of Jesus remain unchanged? We are touched by God, changed by grace, transformed by love, made into a new creation. God makes all things new. He renews us and makes us new in, through and with the sacraments. The Church teaches us that Jesus himself, through and in the power, peace and unity of the Holy Spirit, graciously bestows himself and celebrates the sacraments with and in us. It is Jesus who truly baptized and confirmed you. In and through his poor priests, Jesus consecrates you and gives himself freely as gift to you. Jesus sanctifies you and sacramentally feeds and nourishes you in Holy Communion and through special graces in, and through and with the Blessed Sacrament, the Holy Eucharist, with his Precious Body and Blood conforms you, heals you, loves you, transforms you, restores you, makes you good, holy and new once again; a living sacrament.