Cathal BarryThe Church teaches that the sacraments are both ever-living and life-giving, writes Cathal Barry
The whole liturgical life of the Church revolves around the Eucharistic sacrifice and the sacraments, according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
There are seven sacraments in the Church: Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Penance, Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders and Matrimony.
The Church teaches that Jesus’ words and actions during his hidden life and public ministry were already salvific “for they anticipated the power of his Paschal mystery”. “They announced and prepared what he was going to give the Church when all was accomplished,” the Catechism states.
Sacraments, according to the Church, are “powers that comes forth” from the Body of Christ, “which is ever-living and life-giving”. “They are actions of the Holy Spirit at work in his body, the Church,” the Catechism says. They are “the masterworks of God” in the new and everlasting covenant.
Recognised
The Church, by the power of the Spirit, has “gradually recognised this treasure received from Christ” and, as the steward of God’s mysteries, has determined its “dispensation”.
Thus, the Church has discerned over the centuries that among liturgical celebrations there are seven that are sacraments instituted by the Lord, the Catechism states.
The document also notes that the sacraments are “of the Church” in the double sense that they are “by her” and “for her”. They are “by the Church”, for she is the sacrament of Christ’s action at work in her through the mission of the Holy Spirit. They are “for the Church” in the sense that “the sacraments make the Church”, since they manifest and communicate the mystery of communion with the God.
Community
Forming “one mystical person” with Christ the head, the Church acts in the sacraments as “an organically structured priestly community”. Through Baptism and Confirmation the priestly people are enabled to celebrate the liturgy, while those of the faithful “who have received Holy Orders, are appointed to nourish the Church with the word and grace of God in the name of Christ”.
The ordained ministry or ministerial priesthood is at the service of the baptismal priesthood, the Catechism states. The ordained priesthood “guarantees that it really is Christ who acts in the sacraments through the Holy Spirit for the Church”.
“The ordained minister is the sacramental bond that ties the liturgical action to what the apostles said and did and, through them, to the words and actions of Christ, the source and foundation of the sacraments.”
The three sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Orders confer, in addition to grace, a “sacramental character by which the Christian shares in Christ’s priesthood and is made a member of the Church according to different states and functions”.
“This configuration to Christ and to the Church, brought about by the Spirit, is indelible, it remains for ever in the Christian as a positive disposition for grace, a promise and guarantee of divine protection, and as a vocation to divine worship and to the service of the Church,” the Catechism states. “Therefore these sacraments can never be repeated.”
