What is a Sacrament?

Imagery lies at the heart of human significance. Birthdays just wouldn’t be the same without candles and cakes, weddings without dresses and rings, the Fourth of July without fireworks, or Christmas without trees and presents. What are all of these things: the cake, the dress, the candles, the trees, and the fireworks? In and of themselves trees are trees. But a Christmas tree is both a tree and something more. Similarly, dresses are dresses, but a wedding dress isn’t just another dress; it’s something more. What is that extra thing, that “something more”? The wedding dress by its design and color suggests or bespeaks something else, namely pageantry, solemnity, grandeur, and purity. Thus, the wedding dress is an image of the significant qualities of the bride at her wedding. All imagery works like this, the natural object ordinary and meaningful in itself, but used as an image, suggesting something far more significant.