CHURCH AND WORSHIP - MID-TERM Study Questions
Prof. Michael Driscoll

Please prepare all eight questions. In preparation review the class notes and read (or reread) the salient chapters in both Martos and Noll.

1. Roger Caillois wrote “C’est la guerre, qui correspond à la fête” (It is war that best corresponds to festivals). What is the point that Pieper is making in regards to his essay on festivity?  What are the characteristics (ingredients) of festivity and how are feasts, even secular holidays, ultimately religious in nature?

2. What does it mean to say that “sacraments are for people”?  How are experiences important for understanding the sacramentality of life? How do we interpret life experiences (“hermeneutic of experience”)? How are “symbol,” “presence,” and “communication” linked with one another? (Cooke chapters in course packet)

3. The term sacrament is not found in the Bible. What are the origins of this term in the early Church? (Martos, chs 1 & 2)? How is sacramentality apparent in all religions?

4.  What was the relationship of the early Church to the pagan world in which it found itself? Can you speak to the possible influence of the Greco-Roman Mystery religions (principles of adaptation, assimilation and substitution)? The Greek term mysterion was translated into the Latin by the two terms, mysterium and sacramentum. How did this translation come about? (slide show, which is available on video --  reserved in Hesburgh 2nd floor.)

5. The Medieval contribution to sacramental theology saw the inclusion of the Greek philosophical categories of causality. Describe the development of the terminology as sacramentum tantum, sacramentum et res, and res tantum? Define ex opere operato vs. ex opere operantis? Give an assessment of this development (Martos, ch. 3).

6.  The Scriptures are one of the principle sources for our study of the Church and the sacraments. Nevertheless we recognize that they often raise many more questions than they resolve. Why in the first five centuries were there a series of ecumenical councils to resolve questions dealing with the Trinity and the nature of Christ as both human and divine?

7.  Analyze the Christological Hymn found in Paul's letter to the Philippians. What does the structure reveal about the Christology contained within this text? Trace the early four centuries in the Christological disputes which finally lead to the Council of Chalcedon (451 AD). How did the Christological heresies contribute to the statement about the “hypostatic union”?

8.  How can we say that Christ and the Church are sacraments? What does this do to our understanding of the sacraments? How does our understanding of Christ affect our appreciation of the Church? How does the notion of "mutual human availability" influence our sacramental appreciation ("full, active and conscious participation", Vatican II)? (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church course packet, Noll, chs. 2 &3)

Obviously you cannot say everything about these topics, so it is imperative that you pick and choose wisely those elements that you think are important, and organize these thoughts in an intelligible and concise way.