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The Sacraments of the Church are visible signs of the invisible reality of God and His love for us all. These signs of grace were instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church. Each sacramental event offers us an encounter with Christ leading us to the Father in the Spirit, in the context of the community of believers. In that experience of faith and grace, we share a deeper, loving union with the Lord and the community.
There are seven sacraments, which can be arranged into three categories according to the grace that they confer. Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist (Sacraments of Initiation) lay the foundation for every Christian life, and enable us to carry out the mission of Christ in the Church and in the world. Holy Orders and Holy Matrimony (Sacraments of Service) are directed toward the service of others. Penance and Anointing of the Sick (Sacraments of Healing) have healing as their purpose.
To learn more about each of the Sacraments of the Church, and how to access them, please click on the stained-glass images below.
The Sacraments of Christian InitationThe sacraments of Christian initiation - Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist - lay the foundations of every Christian life. "The sharing in the divine nature given to men through the grace of Christ bears a certain likeness to the origin, development, and nourishing of natural life. The faithful are born anew by Baptism, strengthened by the sacrament of Confirmation, and receive in the Eucharist the food of eternal life. By means of these sacraments of Christian initiation, they thus receive in increasing measure the treasures of the divine life and advance toward the perfection of charity." (CCC 1212)
Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist ground the common vocation of all Christ's disciples, a vocation to holiness and to the mission of evangelizing the world. They confer the graces needed for the life according to the Spirit during this life as pilgrims on the march towards the homeland.
The Sacraments At The Service Of Communion
The sacraments of Holy Orders and Matrimony, are directed towards the salvation of others; if they contribute as well to personal salvation, it is through service to others that they do so. They confer a particular mission in the Church and serve to build up the People of God. Through these sacraments those already consecrated by Baptism and Confirmation for the common priesthood of all the faithful can receive particular consecrations. Those who receive the sacrament of Holy Orders are consecrated in Christ's name "to feed the Church by the word and grace of God." On their part, "Christian spouses are fortified and, as it were, consecrated for the duties and dignity of their state by a special sacrament." (CCC 1533-1535)
The Sacraments Of Healing
The Lord Jesus Christ, physician of our souls and bodies, who forgave the sins of the paralytic and restored him to bodily health, has willed that his Church continue, in the power of the Holy Spirit, his work of healing and salvation, even among her own members. This is the purpose of the two sacraments of healing: the sacrament of Penance and the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick. (CCC 1421)
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The stained-glass windows displayed above are located at St. Peter's Cathedral Basilca.
