For many people, a really good movie is one that pulls them out of their chairs in the theater, right into the story line and the action of the film itself. For ninety minutes or so, we are fly fishing the northwest rivers in "A River Runs Through It," or coming to self-knowledge with "(Good) Will Hunting." Or we're rejoicing with Andy Dufresne and Red in "The Shawshank Redemption"; with them we learn that struggle, if rooted in hope, really does bring new life. When we go to a movie, many of us like the movie to draw us into the life of the characters, the emotions and actions that make up the movie. We tend not to be mere spectators, and we really don't like it when someone talks to us during the movie, because that reminds us that actually we are just sitting in a theater watching a film. Please, just let us be carried up into the magic of the film!

We must learn to think of sacraments in this same way. Sacraments make present to us now the mystery of Jesus' life and death as these were present in the very life of Jesus. Sacraments are certainly not magic, but they are indeed mystery. And that is the wonder of them; they present to us now the saving deeds of Jesus. The healing, the forgiving, the nourishing, and all the countless other ways in which Jesus gave life are made available to us through water, oil, bread, wine, and symbolic gestures.

In the sacraments we are brought into the realm of kingdom life-life as it will be in the end. In the sacraments I am united with all of God's Church in the common life of grace that we share. These marvelous actions whisk us out of this time and place and bring us into the timelessness and space of God. Please do not let the efficiency of time or the practicality of space interrupt these marvelous opportunities to be taken up into mystery. Always give thanks to God for the incarnation-Jesus' immersion into humanity out of which eventually comes our infusion into the divine.

© Harcourt Religion Publishers/BROWN-ROA