Reviviscence of the Sacraments
In modern theology, a Sacrament which, although validly received, has not produced grace because of a moral impediment (lack of the state of grace or of attrition), and which, once the moral impediment is removed, confers grace by virtue of the rite previously administered, is said to revive.
From this principle, it follows that for reviviscence (r.) several conditions must be met: 1) on the part of the subject, the removal of the impediment or moral indisposition; 2) on the part of the Sacrament: a) that it be valid and unfruitful (validum et informe), i.e., without the supernatural effect of grace—because if the Sacrament is invalid, what does not exist does not act; and if it is fruitful, the case is no longer one of reviviscence but of immediate conferral of grace; b) that the external rite (matter and form of the Sacrament) be completed—for if the sacramental sign still remains (e.g., if one repents of mortal sins before the rite of Confirmation is finished), reviviscence does not occur, but rather the ordinary conferral of grace; c) that the external rite, already completed, leave some effect in the soul—because reviviscence implies a true efficacy of the external rite, which would be inconceivable if it did not leave some ontological imprint or vestige at the moment of administration: only an existing reality can produce an effect; 3) on the part of God, it is required that He will to confer grace even by this extraordinary means.
Therefore, reviviscence is proper only to those Sacraments in which the aforementioned conditions are realized. Since three conditions are verified in all Sacraments (except Penance): the removal of the moral impediment, the validity of the Sacrament as unfruitful, and the cessation of the external rite, it remains to be seen whether the other two (the persistence of some effect and God’s will to give grace by an extraordinary path) are also realized. The persistence of a real effect (the character) is verified in Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders; likewise, God’s positive will to confer grace by an exceptional means is inferred from the fact that otherwise original sin could not be remitted in one who receives Baptism unworthily (in this sense, St. Augustine and St. Fulgentius already expressed themselves: cf. Rouet de Journel, *Enchiridion Patristicum*, nn. 1621, 2269; St. Gregory the Great: cf. Denz.-U. 249) and that in Confirmation and Holy Orders the faithful would remain deprived of those graces which are morally necessary for the fulfillment of the duties of their state.
Even with regard to Extreme Unction and Matrimony, while on the one hand there persists an “interior unction” and a “conjugal bond” which affect the soul (for in every voluntary act there occurs a modification of the soul), on the other hand divine will is deduced, since in the hypothesis that reviviscence did not occur, the faithful would remain deprived of necessary aids at the moment of death and in conjugal life.
Only Penance and the Eucharist probably cannot revive: the former because, according to the more probable opinion, it cannot be a “valid and unfruitful” Sacrament; the latter because it would derogate from the norm of divine action. Indeed, in the hypothesis of the reviviscence of the Eucharist, a faithful person who throughout life receives Communion sacrilegiously would, at the end, by a simple act of attrition emitted in the Sacrament of Penance, receive as many increases of grace as the sacrileges committed: the repugnance of this conclusion is evident.
The Sacraments that revive produce grace *ex opere operato* (q.V. SACRAMENTS). It is debated whether such production occurs by physical or moral causality; the Thomist doctrine of a physical efficacy seems more probable, especially since in the five Sacraments that revive there is found an ontological element (character or real modification of the soul) which can become a physical instrument of God, the principal cause of grace.
In 1925, Marin-Sola offered a more elaborate theological explanation of reviviscence, starting from the Thomist principle of the baptismal character as a “receptive power” in relation to the other Sacraments. Every sacramental administration, validly performed, implies, according to this principle, an actuation of the “receptive power,” which thus remains ontologically modified. This modification follows the nature of the Sacrament received: perpetual in the non-repeatable Sacraments (Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Orders), temporary in Extreme Unction and Matrimony, momentary in Penance and the Eucharist. Thus it is explained why the three Sacraments of the character always revive; Extreme Unction and Matrimony only in the same illness or during the same marital bond; the last two never. This theory, though presenting some weak points, has been accepted by distinguished theologians.