Efficacious

This beautiful, precious, unused and underrated word is boundlessly reassuring and inspiring, richly ecclesial, deeply Catholic, Tridentine, anti-Protestant-subjectivism, yet ecumenically gracious.

The dictionary has it as an action that is successful in what it intends; as synonymous with effective. But the later is used normally in regard to human endeavors; the former has, to the Catholic mind, a heavenly meaning.

Opus Operatum

Specifically, it refers to our  "opus operatum" (Latin for "work worked") understanding of the seven sacraments which achieve what they signify and intend by virtue of the very act itself, independent of the performer (normally priest) or recipient. A sacrament has its effect, even when done by a vile priest and received by an indifferent, inattentive Catholic.

A Case Study

Imagine two mafia hitmen are both mortally wounded in a murder attempt. They mutually confess that each has secretly believed in Christ and desired baptism and the Catholic life. They know about efficacy. They take turns baptizing each other, gasping for life, with correct intention (union with Christ in his Church, absolution of all sin, infusion of grace), proper matter (water, however dirty), and form (the words "I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.")  Whatever the depth and purity of their intentions, the baptisms are absolutely valid and efficacious. They are saved. They are Catholics in good standing. They are on their way to heaven. God's grace is active within them for as short or as long as they live. It is likely that with whatever strength remains, they make acts of contrition, forgiveness, amends, kindness, thanksgiving and praise.  Should they miraculously recover from the wounds and return to their life of crime, they remain Catholics; the effect of the act cannot be removed or retracted; as it cannot be repeated; it leaves an indelible seal on the soul; it will be acting in their conscience in regard to their sins; it will be drawing them to conversion.

Magic or Miracle?

We see here an entirely different meaning from the effectiveness or efficiency of a human endeavor. This is not about human control. It appears, certainly to the secular mind, like an act of magic, something out of Harry Potter. But it is not magic. Indeed what distinguishes magic from the miraculous is that magic is a human performance, like that of the engineer, but the miraculous is an action from heaven. It is supernatural. An action of God, who uses human intentions and words as well as creaturely things.

Encounter of Finite with Infinite Freedom: Neither Subjectivist nor Objectivist

Magic is mechanical, external, coercive, and purely objective. In this it resembles science in its mastery over the material in medicine and surgery. The miraculous, the efficacious and mysterious, is organic-spiritual, interior, liberating, and engages the subjectivity of the recipient, without falling into subjectivism. It is dramatic, interplay of two freedoms, in the manner of a romance. 

Imagine a man crazy in love with a woman who has no interest in him. Patiently, sensitively, gently he courts her. Learns all about her: her fears, preferences, desires. He is fierce and persevering in his pursuit, but tender, courteous, diplomatic, patient, hopeful, prudent, generous, confident and entirely delighted in the adventure. If he is a gentleman of virtue, his attention will be in some degree efficacious. He will surely elicit respect and affection from his Beloved, as well as her family and friends. Whether he captivates her heart into spousal desire will depend upon the movements of her own heart, intellect and will. It is a dramatic event, an encounter between two freedoms. Nothing mechanical, external, coercive or objective here. Certainly, his love as reverent, tender and true will achieve, if not a romance, a lasting friendship. It will be efficacious, while leaving intact the freedom of his Beloved.

Catholicism, wrongly practiced and understood, can tend to objectivism: follow the program, obey the commandments, receive the sacraments, accumulate merit and you get to heaven. The focus here is on human effort, obscuring the prior-prevenient-ever-present action of grace, efficacious grace.

Protestantism is in large part an disordered subjectivist reaction to an unbalanced objectivism. "Salvation by faith alone" is a disastrous, isolating, introverting program. It opened the path to the modernist bifurcation into the objectivism of the technocracy and the subjectivism of the isolated individual. 

Christ, the Sacrament of Encounter with God, by Hans Kung (1963) precisely outlined the Catholic Vatican II correction by using the dramatic, personalist language of "encounter" to avoid the imbalances of objectivism/subjectivism. The teachings and magisterium of John Paul and Benedict solidified this accomplishment. Unfortunately, progressive theology after the Council (including that of Kung) mimicked the subjectivism, nominalism and individualism of the Reformation. 

Broader Catholic Meaning of Efficacy

Beyond the nature of the seven specific sacraments, this word unveils the Catholic vision of life on every level.

1. Creation. God spoke, efficaciously, and Being and all beings came into existence. Our universe and all of life, all that is good-true-beautiful, is a result of the efficacious Word of God.

2. Salvation. The Passover of Christ, his death and rising, is efficacious for the salvation of the entire world, of everyone (who in freedom accepts), of history, of the universe.

3. Church. The life of the Church in her entirety, quintessentially but not exclusively the Catholic Church, is efficacious in a marvelous symphony of life and love: clergy, family life, friendship, good works, art, culture, industry, and the life of piety. The seven sacraments are efficacious in the highest, purest degree, but all elements (some of which we will mention below) achieve, inexorably, what they intend.

4. Word of God.  We Catholics, of course, accept the infallibility of the Pope (under very limited conditions) and the general indefectibility of the Church in her hierarchy. We can trust, without suspending our critical faculties, the Magisterium. But even beyond the institutional Church, the Word of God, when proclaimed authentically and witnessed to in life is efficacious. This is VERY important. It is here that we learn from our Evangelical/Pentecostal friends, who fail to fully appreciate the sacramental economy, but greatly excel us in their zealous receptivity to the Word proclaimed, to the Word in the Bible, to the primacy of listening with docility. We Catholics tend to a monotony, a boredom, a disinterest in the proclamation of the Word. We have so much to learn from our Protestant friends.

5. The Poor.  D.L. Schindler, echoing Balthasar, sees that the presence of the poor and suffering efficaciously elicits in us poverty of spirit and therefore holiness. This is VERY IMPORTANT. Attention to, acceptance of , empathy for, tenderness towards one who is poor or suffering is efficacious of holiness; it is a sacrament of Christ. It is not that we overcome the suffering; not that we do works of mercy; not that we advocate for an agenda. It is that we receive, accept, contemplate and revere in tenderness. This is efficacious for our salvation and holiness! It is good for us to welcome and seek the suffering and the poor. How unhappy those who associate only with the successful, the healthy, the affluent. How happy those who in their weakness and poverty elicit the compassion, tenderness and reverence of others and thereby efficaciously elicit in them holiness.

6. Prayer.  We firmly believe that our prayers are efficacious. Whatever we request, we know that God listens and responds, always in love for us, not always to our liking. When we pray for a healing, that prayer is heard, in a mysterious manner. The other day on my flight to Antigua I pulled out my Magnificat for morning prayer and the elderly, attractive woman, Ellen, next to me, quietly asked me: "Will you remember my family in your prayers? There are so many things going on!" I continued to read on the flight but was obsessed with praying for her family. We talked a little. As we exited, she said "I feel happy and confident in your prayers." My wife and I have been praying for this family all week. I have no idea of the nature of the problems. But I am certain that in a manner I will only understand in the afterlife they are important, efficacious. 

7. Mimetic influence.  We are all of us, all the time (we learn from Rene Girard and Gil Baile), consciously and unconsciously, under the mimetic influence of those around us, those we observe, those we love, and even those we hate. I am who I hang around with. To be around, to listen to, to observe virtuous, holy people is to become good and holy myself. Even without deliberation, decision or effort, I become like those close to me. And so happy are we who find ourselves surrounded, in family and friendship, with the virtuous. Happy are we to seek and follow the same. Just this being with, prior to decision or agency, is efficacious of interior goodness.

8. Catholic life.  The entire universe and apparatus of Catholic life and culture is "sacramental" in the broadest sense. This includes all the sacramentals (medals, crucifixes, statues, scapulars, rosaries, stained glass windows, holy water), and pious practices (novenas, visits to the Blessed Sacrament, sign of the cross, family prayer, spontaneous aspirations, retreats, pilgrimages, etc.), spiritual reading, corporal and spiritual works of mercy, fasting, and habits of daily prayer. To be Catholic is to immerse oneself in an enchanted, miraculous, delightful, mysterious, boundlessly complex ambience.

9. Deliverance from Demons.  The disciples, and we ourselves, were given power over demons. They cast them out. This is not prayer, which is directed to God. It is the command: "Demon, be gone, in the name of Jesus Christ!" It is imperative. It is not done by our will power but by the efficacy of the name of Jesus. At that name, demons must flee. They cannot stand it. But this is not magic; it can take time; it requires the patience an persistence of the woman demanding justice for the evil judge. It works! It is efficacious. (To be clear, this is a charismatic, Pentecostal conviction; not widely held by Catholics.)

10. Beyond the Catholic Church.  God's grace is infallibly, inexorably, efficaciously active always/everywhere in the divine, but always-also-human-sinful Catholic Church. But it is not limited to those institutional boundaries. It abounds wherever there is life. Even in a world wounded and fractured by sin, God's grace has not abandoned us. The drama of warfare between good and evil occurs in every human heart, in every community. God's grace is present, efficacious even where, perhaps especially where, evil abounds. 

11. Being as True-Good-Beautiful.  Existence, life everywhere and in every dimension, coming from the hands of our Creator, as True-Good-Beautiful, is diffusive, manifest, expansive, revelatory. To be sure the hardened, sinful heart-intellect-will is resistant and even hostile to such; but this rebellion is finite, temporary and vulnerable.

12. Truth. In the chaos of the culture wars, in the wanderings of our youth, how encouraging it is to recall the inexorability, the eventual invulnerability of the Real, the Given, the Created, the True. This conviction leaves us with an inner serenity, a freedom from anxiety and rage, a joyous hope. It is not for us to win the argument or convince the doubting. It is for us to merely witness to the Truth. The journey to Truth is durational, slow, long...for all of us. So often, as my friend John Rapinich would assure me, we are "speaking into one's future." Those we love will eventually be captivated by the Beauty-Truth-Goodness that has grasped us. We can rest tenderly in it, as we witness to it gently.   

Clearly, this efficacy does not deny, but engages our freedom. But how comforting strengthening, and encouraging it is to consider the efficacy of God's movements within us and among us!