... courtesy of Fr Alvin Kimel, who considers the different approaches to the Blessed Sacrament found in Alexander Schmemann's The Eucharist and Dom Anscar Vonier's 
A Key to the Doctrine
of the Eucharist:
But my concern here is whether Schmemann has done justice to the traditional sacramental teaching of the Western Church. Unlike Schmemann, Abbott Vonier, for example, does not speak of sacraments as revelations of creation. He does not address the iconicity of the world. His focus is different. For Vonier, as for Thomas Aquinas and most theologians in the Latin Catholic tradition, sacraments are first and foremost symbolic enactments of redemption. They are rooted in the sacred history of God’s work of salvation, beginning with Israel and culminating in the consummation of the kingdom. Just as the nation of Israel celebrated its faith in ritual and sacrament, so the people of the New Israel celebrate their faith in ritual and sacrament—but with a critical difference: the sacraments of the Old Law prefigured the coming of Christ and attested to the faith of Israel, but were not in themselves causes of grace; the sacraments of the New Law not only attest to the faith of the Church, but they make present the passion of Christ and effectively apply to believers its benefits. Every sacrament is a symbolic re-presentation of the mystery of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Good stuff (ht: The Examined Life). Read it all here.
• Abbot Vonier and the Christian Sacrifice | Introduction to Abbot Vonier's A Key to the Doctrine of the Eucharist | Aidan Nichols, O.P.
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