Cultivating a Sacramental Worldview: Priest Ponders Proper Outlook in ‘Mysterion’

By placing the sacramental worldview in direct conversation with modernism, Father Ayre turns what could be a dry ecclesiology into a true call and preparation for discipleship.

Because he is primarily focused on helping readers to see all things anew, Father Ayre begins his book not with truth or morality, but with beauty: a walk through the Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona, Spain.
Because he is primarily focused on helping readers to see all things anew, Father Ayre begins his book not with truth or morality, but with beauty: a walk through the Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona, Spain. (photo: Courtesy photo / Pauline Books)

Mysterion

The Revelatory Power of the Sacramental Worldview 

By Father Harrison Ayre

Pauline Books & Media, 2022

208 pages, $22.95

To order: paulinestore.com

 

In his new book, Canadian priest Father Harrison Ayre, host of the podcast “Clerically Speaking,” not only offers a new way of seeing the Church’s teaching and sacraments but also proposes steps for healing from the devastating modernism that infects our culture and Church.

Father Ayre wrote Mysterion: The Revelatory Power of the Sacramental Worldview “to help you see that this life in Christ is alive and active in all aspects of Christian living.” Mysterion is not simply a catechism or theology manual, although it could certainly serve in this capacity for a faith-formation series, but goes further in upholding the unity of theology and spirituality. 

He rearticulates the idea of the “sacramental” with a new excitement, showing how all things in creation and particularly in the Catholic Church are “always drawing us really and truly to the Father.” This is the radical vision that divine revelation provides. It is what Christ means when he says, “Behold, I make all things new” (Revelation 21:5).

Because he is primarily focused on helping readers to see all things anew, Father Ayre begins his book not with truth or morality, but with beauty: a walk through the Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona, Spain. Beauty — in the arts as well as in creation — leads us to wonder. “True beauty gives meaning to a core observation of philosophy: the whole is greater than its parts,” he writes. Beauty leads to wonder, which leads us “to see the ‘something more’ of the world.” It gives us meaning and, ultimately, leads us to behold the mystery of God.

Father Ayre’s chapter on the four essential elements of mystery — concealment, revelation, ritual and sacramentum — is a much-needed reset of the standard misunderstanding of the term. It’s not just “something we can’t understand,” but rather contains a rich tradition filled with meaning. Mystery, in the Catholic worldview, calls not for dismissal (“Oh, it’s too complicated for me!”) but rather for response.

The perfect mediator — or the one through whom God’s mystery comes to us — is Jesus Christ, to whom St. Paul refers as “the mystery of God” (Colossians 1:27; 2:2; 4:3). 

Created beauty also mediates God: It is the means by which the eternal reaches into time and space and tells us, “I am.” Mediation “means that God is able to communicate with creation through his creation. ... In other words, the ‘stuff’ of creation is the means by which creation and God relate to each other,” the author explains.

Father Ayre follows his discussion of mystery with an explanation of why there are so many Catholics ignorant of “mystery.” Why do so many see their Church as a set of rules? Why has the sacramental worldview — a worldview infused with wonder, joy and meaning — been largely abandoned or forgotten in the West? 

We have, he says, been overwhelmed by scientism, an Enlightenment philosophy that wants to break the world down into its component parts to see how they function. He has harsh words for this reductionism: “Scientism proposes life without beauty.” And life without beauty is a life without joy or salvation.

Scientism and its twin sister modernism resist any hint of mystery or “something more.” “Modernism undermines mediation in the most fundamental way because it argues that God and creation can’t interact with each other, that the physical and the spiritual are completely incompatible,” he explains. 

For a modernist, there is no “more” when you experience wonder at a beautiful sunset. There is just atmospheric dust, the angle of the sun’s rays, and your dopamine receptors firing away to produce good feelings in your brain. This is the dominant narrative in Western universities, governments and social institutions. Faith is nothing more than your subjective preference. There is no connection with God or transcendence. There is only whatever makes you “feel” happy at the moment. 

As Father Ayre writes:

“This litany is but a taste of what would happen if modernism were true. … If modernism is true, then Christianity is false. The danger is real.” 

We are all, he notes, infected to some degree or another by modernism. 

At this point in Mysterion, Father Ayre’s description of modernism becomes so chilling that it demands some solution. He asks, “So how can we clear the shadow of modernism from our vision and begin to see Christian living much more accurately and more beautifully? To do this, we need to engage in a discipline known as apologetics … a compelling defense for the Catholic sacramental worldview.” He spends the rest of the book doing just that, starting with the most fundamental question of the human person: “What does it mean to be human, and how do we fit into the world?”

From a discussion of the human person, he moves on in Part II to the Church. This is a refreshing catechesis and apologia (or defense) of what the Church is and why Christ founded it. Everything about the Church — her four marks, her hierarchy, her laws — rises organically from the sacramental worldview: 

“This is why the Church herself has a sacramental structure and life. She doesn’t have this as some sort of magical way of dispensing grace: rather, it’s based on how the world itself is structured.” 

By placing the sacramental worldview in direct conversation with modernism, Father Ayre turns what could be a dry ecclesiology into a true call and preparation for discipleship. 

Perhaps the most beautiful chapter in Mysterion follows from his discussion of the Church: “The Marian Stance.” Father Ayre speaks of his own experience of struggle with repetitive prayers, particularly the Rosary, and how a sacramental understanding transformed his relationship with Mary. 

“I finally understood that every time I said a Hail Mary, I wasn’t so much doing repetitive prayer as I was asking Mary to give me a share in her experience of the mystery of the Rosary I was meditating on — to let me have her pure, immaculate vision of the mystery.” 

Stories like these are the heart of Mysterion. Father Ayre’s theology and historical acuity are impressive and compelling, but it is his open heart that fills the book with life and inspiration. In his writing choices, he clearly practices what he preaches, for Catholics need both right understanding and rightly ordered hearts to correct any skewed vision of the Church and the Christian life. By drawing upon examples from his own conversion, as well as exemplars of beauty such as the Sagrada Familia, he opens his readers’ hearts and minds to be healed of the wound inflicted by modernism.

Mysterion is thus inherently practical without being pragmatic. Father Ayre offers specific advice for strengthening the sacramental vision in Christian daily living, the liturgy and Catholic community life. As such, it is the perfect book for a parish adult-formation series (it includes a chapter-by-chapter reader’s guide to facilitate discussion). It would also make a great gift for non-Catholics considering converting to the Catholic faith. A reading group or OCIA class could use it as an entire course of study alongside the Catechism and Scripture.

Mysterion is also a great solo read for Catholics who have become lukewarm or weary in the faith. If you’ve ever heard yourself echoing popular (modernist) sentiments such as “I have Catholic guilt” or saying “the Church should do something about XYZ,” this book will be a much-needed refresher.

Let Mysterion reawaken that wonder toward all things. Then we will “finally see the world as Christ intended us to see it: as a sign, a symbol of his love, and as the place of encounter with the God who created us.”