In Matthew 1:16-20 Jesus approaches a group of commercial fishermen, who are casting their nets, and offers to change their occupation from being catchers of fish to being fishers of men. I live in a fishing village called Sambro and some of my neighbours are commercial fishermen. They do not fish as a pastime; they fish to survive. They are out in all sorts of weather and to be successful they need to develop a deep and intuitive knowledge of the environment they are working in for, in fishing, the real action is happening far below their surface awareness of things.

In the New Testament narrative, there are several characters: Jesus, the Disciples, the Pharisees, the woman at the well, etc. etc. but there is one prominent character that we don’t often think about and that is the mob. It is mob who try and throw Jesus off the brow of the hill in Luke 4 and because of their fear of the mob, the Pharisees ‘self censored’ themselves in Mark 11. The agents of Jesus’ crucifixion were the Religious leaders, the mob, and the Pagan authorities. In the Old Testament, Joseph’s brothers acted like a mob when they ganged up against him and sold him into slavery.

I would like to explore the nature of a sacrament and use the Sacrament of Marriage as a working example.

In the Catholic tradition, marriage is seen as one of the seven sacraments, but in some other traditions marriage is seen, only in procreative and social terms.

What are the ingredients of a sacrament and how are they combined prior to being baked in the "theological oven”?