What a Sacrament Is
The seven sacraments are signs Christ gave his Church that do what they show. What that means, how they are grouped, and how sacramentals differ.
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Catholics speak of "the seven sacraments" so often that the word can wear smooth. The idea behind it is simple and quite wonderful. God made us bodies as well as souls, and he does not reach us only through thoughts and feelings. In the sacraments Christ meets us through things we can see, touch and hear: water poured, oil rubbed into skin, bread broken, hands laid on a head, a few plain words spoken aloud. Through them he gives what they show.
A definition in one sentence
The Catechism puts it compactly: the sacraments are "efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church" (CCC 1131). Each part is worth unpacking.
- Signs. A sacrament points beyond itself, as a handshake or a wedding ring does. Water speaks of washing and of life; bread and wine speak of food and of a shared meal.
- Efficacious. This is the surprising part. An ordinary sign only points. A sacrament does what it points to. Baptism does not just picture cleansing; it cleanses (CCC 1127).
- Grace. Grace is God's free, undeserved help, and above all a share in his own life (CCC 1996–1997).
- Instituted by Christ. The sacraments are not the Church's inventions. They come from what Jesus did and commanded (CCC 1114).
- Entrusted to the Church. Christ handed them to his Church, which over the centuries discerned that seven of her celebrations are sacraments in the strict sense, and which guards and celebrates them (CCC 1117–1118).
A sign and a word
Because we are body and spirit, we express and grasp spiritual things through physical signs (CCC 1146). So each sacrament joins something done to something said, and the two belong together (CCC 1153–1155). In Baptism, water is poured while the minister baptises in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. In the Eucharist, bread and wine are taken up with the words Christ himself spoke at the Last Supper.
Theologians have long called the sign the matter of a sacrament and the words its form. You do not need the vocabulary, but it explains why the Church cares about details: real water, wheat bread, grape wine, the right words. This is not fussiness. It is how we can be sure we are doing what Christ asked.
The seven, in three groups
The seven sacraments touch every stage of a Christian's life, and the Catechism notes a likeness between them and the stages of natural life: birth and growth, healing, and service to others (CCC 1210). It gathers them into three groups (CCC 1211):
- Sacraments of Christian initiation: Baptism, Confirmation and the Eucharist. Together they lay the foundations of the Christian life (CCC 1212).
- Sacraments of healing: Reconciliation, also called Penance or confession, and the Anointing of the Sick (CCC 1421).
- Sacraments at the service of communion: Holy Orders and Matrimony. They are directed to the salvation of others, and it is through that service that they sanctify the one who receives them (CCC 1534).
Among the seven, the Eucharist holds a unique place: all the others are ordered to it as to their goal (CCC 1211).
Three that are given only once
Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Orders give, besides grace, a character or seal: a permanent spiritual mark that sets a person apart as Christ's for good. Because it cannot be erased, these three are never repeated (CCC 1121). The others can be received again, and some, like the Eucharist and Reconciliation, are meant to be received often.
Christ is the one who acts
An old Latin phrase says the sacraments work ex opere operato, "by the work worked". Put simply, a sacrament does not depend on the personal holiness of the priest or of anyone else present. When it is celebrated as the Church intends, Christ himself is at work in it, and it gives the grace it signifies (CCC 1127–1128). A Mass offered by a tired, distracted or even sinful priest is still the Mass. That is a mercy: no one ever has to wonder whether their minister was good enough.
It does not make the sacraments magic. The Catechism adds at once that the fruit they bear in us depends on the disposition of the one who receives them (CCC 1128). They are sacraments of faith: they presuppose faith, and they nourish and strengthen it (CCC 1123). Think of sunlight on a house. The sun shines whether or not the shutters are open, but it warms only the rooms where they are. Coming with faith, with sorrow for sin and with a real desire for God is how we open the shutters.
Sacramentals: holy water, blessings and the like
Catholic life is also full of smaller holy things: holy water at the church door, the sign of the cross, blessed candles, ashes on Ash Wednesday, palms on Palm Sunday, rosaries and medals, the blessing of a home or a meal. These are called sacramentals (CCC 1667–1668).
They differ from the sacraments in two ways. They were instituted by the Church rather than by Christ, and they do not give grace in the way the sacraments do. Instead, through the Church's prayer, they prepare us to receive grace and help us to cooperate with it (CCC 1670). Used with faith, they carry God into the ordinary corners of a day. Treated as lucky charms, they slide into superstition, which the Church warns against (CCC 2111).
Going deeper
- Begin with Baptism, the doorway to all the others.
- See how the Mass joins the worship of heaven in The Mass as biblical prayer.
- Read The Church on the community Christ entrusted them to.
- In the Catechism: CCC 1113–1134 on the sacraments in general, CCC 1210–1212 on the seven, and CCC 1667–1679 on sacramentals.