193. The Seven Sacraments

YOUCAT Catechism + Catechism of the Catholic Church Lesson 193

Ave Maria series

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]

The Seven Sacraments: (Bottom to top) Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Reconciliation, Matrimony,  Holy Orders, and Anointing of the Sick. Montage by Don L. Bragg…..193

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 8, 2006

[1210-1211]

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: (compareSt. 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 theCatholicChurch, 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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