YOUCAT Lesson 193
YOUCAT the catechism for Catholic youth
Section Two--The Seven Sacraments of the Church
193 Is there some inner logic that unites the
sacraments with each other?
All sacraments are an encounter with Christ, who is himself
the original sacrament. There are
sacraments of initiation, which introduce the recipient into the faith:
Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist.
There are sacraments of healing: Reconciliation and the Anointing of the
Sick. And there are sacraments of
communion and mission: Matrimony and Holy Orders. [1210-1211]
Baptism joins us with Christ. Confirmation gives us his Spirit. The Eucharist unites us with him. Confession reconciles us with Christ. Through the Anointing of the Sick, Christ
heals, strengthens, and consoles. In the
sacrament of Matrimony, Christ promises his love in our love and his fidelity
in our fidelity. Through the sacrament
of Holy Orders, priests have the privilege of forgiving sins and celebrating
the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Initiation (from Latin initium=beginning): the term for the
introduction and integration of an outsider into an already existing community
or fellowship.
We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so
that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too
might walk in newness of life. Romans 6:4
“Through Baptism each child is inserted into a gathering of
friends who never abandon him in life or in death…This group of friends, this
family of God, into which the child is now admitted, will always accompany him,
even on days of suffering and in life’s dark nights; it will give him
consolation, comfort, and light.” Pope
Benedict XVI, January 8l, 2006
…….THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS OF THE CHURCH
…….1210 Christ
instituted the sacraments of the new law. There are seven: Baptism,
Confirmation (or Chrismation), the Eucharist, Penance, the Anointing of the
Sick, Holy Orders and Matrimony. The seven sacraments touch all the stages and
all the important moments of Christian life: (compare St.
Thomas Aquinas, SummaThologiae III,65,1.)1 they give birth and increase, healing and
mission to the Christian's life of faith. There is thus a certain resemblance
between the stages of natural life and the stages of the spiritual life. –Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second
Edition
.......1211 Following this analogy, the first
chapter will expound the
three sacraments of Christian initiation; the second, the sacraments of
healing; and the third, the sacraments at the
service of communion and the mission of the faithful. This order, while not the
only one possible, does allow one to see that the sacraments form an organic
whole in which each particular sacrament has its own vital place. In this
organic whole, the Eucharist occupies a unique place as the "Sacrament of
sacraments": "all the other sacraments are ordered to it as to their
end." (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III,65,3)2 --CCC
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