Iosif Iacob: The Meaning of Sacraments as “Signs of Faith” – Reciprocity between faith and sacraments

God, through the Church, enters into a personal dialogue with man out of his desire to save him. This dialogue is carried out in different ways and based on certain criteria. One of these is the sacramental reality. The sacraments are a concretization of the divine action that fully realizes the mystery of salvation.
In 2020, a document of the International Theological Commission was published with the title: Reciprocity between faith and sacraments in the sacramental economy. Here it is reaffirmed that the essence of faith is found in the principle of sacramentality. This principle represents the very nature of Christian revelation, namely, the dialogical response of the believer and the Christian community, such that there is no authentic sacramental celebration without faith.
The theological study has always linked the doctrine of the sacraments and their celebration to the gift of faith that the believer receives from God exclusively based on the merits of Jesus Christ.
On the other hand, Christ, giving birth to the sacraments, also gives them the ontological power that works on the inner plane in the human being. This gives the believer a certain spiritual experience that enables him to live and act as a person of faith. It is therefore important to understand the relationship between faith and sacraments, starting from the meaning of the notion of faith.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.53438/YKEE1324

 

 Dialog 52-10 Iacob

Petru Ciobanu: Rimessione della censura dell’aborto nei codici di diritto canonico della Chiesa cattolica

The value of the great gift of life has always been cherished and defended by the Church. Throughout the centuries, basing herself on Holy Scripture, she has condemned every form of violence directed against life, punishing such crimes with sanctions and penalties. Among these, abortion is considered one of the most serious offences, and the Church punishes it with the highest penalty: excommunication, a punishment included in the 1917 Code of Canon Law, the 1983 Code of Canon Law and the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches. But being both mother and teacher, the Church not only punishes but, following Christ’s example, forgives sins and censures. She does so even in the case of abortion, and this article presents the absolution of abortion censure in the three law codes of the Catholic Church.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.53438/FQAE2487

Dialog 52-4 Ciobanu

 

 

Iosif Iacob: Il vincolo matrimoniale, sacramento di una vita perfetta nell’amore e santità secondo la visione Del Concilio Vaticano II

The form of life by which the secular man finds the fullness of his purpose is that offered by the sacrament of marriage and family life. In this environment he is called to collaborate in order to realize the kingdom of God; here he is given the opportunity to be an image of Christ in the world. In the marital bond, the spouses, through the mission they have towards each other and together towards the children, prove a particular vocation that, by virtue of the sacrament of marriage, is a symbol of mutual love between Christ and the Church, love in which lies the impulse of a continuous and mutual perfection. Thus, the vocation to a holy life, materialized in the act of mutual dedication and love within the matrimonial covenant, represents the essence of the sacrament of marriage and of a life lived in the fullness of the human and Christian values proposed by the Church through the teaching of the Second Vatican Council that does not lose its actuality, especially in the context of a global crisis on the identity and mission of the family that arises through the matrimonial covenant.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.53438/YAQA3703

Dialog 48-7 Iacob

Petru Ciobanu: Non licere nascentem nocere: Cristianesimo del primo millennio contro l’aborto

This article is a review of the learning against abortion in the works of the Church Fathers, starting from the Apostolic and Apologetic Fathers till the golden age of patristics, both in the East and in the West. Another point is dedicated to the conciliar magisterium of the first Christian millennium, which condemns homicide, including abortion. The third part of the study refers to the Byzantine legislation, so that at the end some provisions of the legislation of the barbarian peoples are presented.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.53438/GVRD2649

Dialog 48-5 Ciobanu