Faith itself cannot arise except under a ‘religious’ form, therefore institutional, therefore doctrinal, moral, ritual, and so on. Furthermore, the ‘word of God’ does not fall directly from the clouds. It too comes to us mediated in a body of scriptures (the Bible). Now, because it was produced in a culture very different from our own, the Bible resists every immediate appropriation and needs to be regulated by an ecclesial tradition lest it reveals to everyone only what she or he wants to find in it, as is proved by the multitude of sects that have flourished since the beginning of the church. … To oppose ‘prophethood’ to ‘priesthood,’ ‘word’ to ‘rite,’ ‘life’ to the ‘sacristy,’ and so on is merely an ideological delusion. One becomes Christian only by entering an institution, and the modes of Christian behavior which may appear the most ‘personal’ (meditative prayer, for example) or the most ‘authentic’ (concern for others) are always the expression of an apprenticeship interiorized for a long time and of habits inculcated by institutional and highly ritualized processes. By wanting to free oneself from these institutional mediations, one falls victim to an imaginary dream of immediacy whose harmful results are easily seen.
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From The Sacraments: The Word of God at the Mercy of the Body by Louis-Marie Chauvet (p. 112)
Class: Introduction to the Sacraments and Worship
