The document outlines the significance of the seven sacraments in the Catholic Church, emphasizing their role in sanctification, the building up of the Church, and facilitating worship. Each sacrament, including baptism, confirmation, and matrimony, is explained in terms of its theological basis, effects, and the essential role of faith. It addresses the sacramental character conferred through these rites, their indelible nature, and the communal aspect of sacramental celebrations.

1. THE SACRAMENTS
ANSWERING A FEW
QUESTIONS

2. ONLINE RESOURCES
• Diocese of Fortworth : Historical Guidelines
– http://www.fwdioc.org/worship/Pages/sacramental_gu
• Catechism of the Catholic Church:
– http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM
• Ordinatio Sacerdotalis (on Ordination to the
Priesthood)
– http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_l

3. ONLINE RESOURCES
Vatican II Today: Seven Sacraments
V
http: //www. ameri cancathol i c. org/News l etters /VAT
sp
Contact Maria Covarrubias in Diocese of San
B
Bernardino
https : //s i tes . googl e. com/s i te/d s bocm/marri age- s
se

4. SACRAMENTAL
CHARACTER/SEAL
• 1121 The three sacraments of Baptism,
Confirmation, and Holy Orders confer, in addition to
grace, a sacramental character or "seal" 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,40 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.
Therefore these sacraments can never be repeated.

5. Sacraments Pre-suppose faith
• "The purpose of the sacraments is to
sanctify men, to build up the Body of
Christ and, finally, to give worship to God.
Because they are signs they also instruct.
They not only presuppose faith, but by
words and objects they also nourish,
strengthen, and express it. That is why
they are called 'sacraments of faith."'44

6. CHRIST & SPIRIT (EPICLESIS)
• CCC1127 Celebrated worthily in faith, the
sacraments confer the grace that they signify.48
They are efficacious because in them Christ
himself is at work: it is he who baptizes, he who
acts in his sacraments in order to communicate
the grace that each sacrament signifies. the
Father always hears the prayer of his Son's
Church which, in the epiclesis of each sacrament,
expresses her faith in the power of the Spirit. As
fire transforms into itself everything it touches, so
the Holy Spirit transforms into the divine life
whatever is subjected to his power.

7. SACRAMENTAL CELEBRATION:
SIGNS & SYMBOLS
• CCC1145
– A sacramental celebration is woven from
signs and symbols. In keeping with the divine
pedagogy of salvation, their meaning is rooted
in the work of creation and in human culture,
specified by the events of the Old Covenant
and fully revealed in the person and work of
Christ.

8. SACRAMENTS RESEMBLE
STAGES OF NATURAL AND
SPIRITUAL LIFE
• 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: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.

9. BAPTISM
• CCC 1213 Holy Baptism is the basis of the
whole Christian life, the gateway to life in
the Spirit (vitae spiritualis ianua),4 and the
door which gives access to the other
sacraments.

10. BAPTISM
• CCC 1250 Born with a fallen human nature and tainted
by original sin, children also have need of the new
birth in Baptism to be freed from the power of
darkness and brought into the realm of the freedom of
the children of God, to which all men are called.50 The
sheer gratuitousness of the grace of salvation is
particularly manifest in infant Baptism. the Church and
the parents would deny a child the priceless grace of
becoming a child of God were they not to confer
Baptism shortly after birth.51
• CCC1251 Christian parents will recognize that this
practice also accords with their role as nurturers of the
life that God has entrusted to them.52

11. OIL
• ANOINTING WITH OIL
– SIGN OF SPIRITUAL SEAL
– ABUNDANCE AND JOY
– CLEANSING BEFORE/LIMBERING AFTER
– HEALING
– BEAUTY HEALTH AND STRENGTH

12. CONFIRMATION
• WHO CONFIRMS?
– God confirms that you are “configured” to God
• We belong to God
• Effects?
• - it roots us more deeply in the divine filiation which makes us
cry, "Abba! Father!";115
- it unites us more firmly to Christ;
- it increases the gifts of the Holy Spirit in us;
- it renders our bond with the Church more perfect;116
- it gives us a special strength of the Holy Spirit to spread and
defend the faith by word and action as true witnesses of
Christ, to confess the name of Christ boldly, and never to be
ashamed of the Cross:117
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P3T.HTM

13. Why a Bishop?
• 1313 In the Latin Rite, the ordinary
minister of Confirmation is the bishop.130.
……..They have received the fullness of
the sacrament of Holy Orders. The
administration of this sacrament by them
demonstrates clearly that its effect is to
unite those who receive it more closely to
the Church, to her apostolic origins, and to
her mission of bearing witness to Christ.

14. Penance and Reconciliation
• What is celebrated?
– Forgiveness
– Reconciliation: it imparts to the sinner the
life of God who reconciles: "Be reconciled
to God."7 He who lives by God's merciful
love is ready to respond to the Lord's call:
"Go; first be reconciled to your brother.“8
–Call to conversion

15. What’s an indulgence?
• CCC 1471"An indulgence is a remission before
God of the temporal punishment due to sins
whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the
faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under
certain prescribed conditions through the action of
the Church which, as the minister of redemption,
dispenses and applies with authority the treasury
of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints."81
"An indulgence is partial or plenary according as it
removes either part or all of the temporal
punishment due to sin."82 Indulgences may be
applied to the living or the dead

16. Anointing of the Sick
• CCC1511
• This sacred anointing of the sick was
instituted by Christ our Lord as a true and
proper sacrament of the New Testament.
It is alluded to indeed by Mark, but is
recommended to the faithful and
promulgated by James the apostle and
brother of the Lord.

17. ANOINTING OF THE SICK
• the "priests of the Church"132 - in silence -
lay hands on the sick; they pray over them
in the faith of the Church133 - this is the
epiclesis proper to this sacrament; they
then anoint them with oil blessed, if
possible, by the bishop.
These liturgical actions indicate what
grace this sacrament confers upon the
sick.

18. EFFECTS OF ANOINTING
• CCC 1520 …strengthening, peace and courage to
overcome the difficulties that go with the condition of
serious illness or the frailty of old age.
• strengthens against the temptations of the evil one,
the temptation to discouragement and anguish in the
face of death
• lead the sick person to healing of the soul, but also of
the body if such is God's will
• "if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven."

19. EFFECTS
• 1521 Union with the passion of Christ
• 1522: Church intercedes for the benefit of
the sick person,….sick person contributes
to the sanctification of the Church
• 1523 A preparation for the final journey.

20. VIATICUM = VIA TE CUM
• 1525 Baptism, Confirmation, and the
Eucharist…. " the sacraments of Christian
initiation,”
• Penance, the Anointing of the Sick and the
Eucharist as viaticum = sacraments that end
Christian life on earth:
• the sacraments that prepare for our heavenly
homeland" or the sacraments that complete
the earthly pilgrimage.
•

21. Sacraments in service of
communion
• 1534 Two other sacraments, 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.

22. SACRAMENT OF HOLY ORDERS
• CCC 1536
– it is the sacrament of apostolic ministry.
– It includes three degrees: episcopate,
presbyterate, and diaconate.
– “order” in Roman antiquity
• an established civil body, especially a governing
body.
• Ordinatio means incorporation into an ordo.

23. ORDERS
• TAXEIS OR ORDINES:
– In the Church there are established bodies
by Tradition, “not without a basis in
Sacred Scripture,”
– the liturgy speaks of the ordo
episcoporum, the ordo presbyterorum, the
ordo diaconorum.
– (Other groups also receive this name of
ordo: catechumens, virgins, spouses,
widows,..)

24. Ordination
• Integration into these bodies
• confers a gift of the Holy Spirit that permits
the exercise of a "sacred power" (sacra
potestas)
• Ordination is also called consecratio, for it
is a setting apart and an investiture by
Christ himself for his Church.

25. Sacramental signs?
• the laying on of hands by the bishop, with
the consecratory prayer, constitutes the
visible sign of this ordination.

26. Ministry exercised in different
degrees
• 1554 Exercised in different degrees by those who even from
ancient times have been called bishops, priests, and deacons."32
• there are two degrees of ministerial participation in the priesthood of
Christ: the episcopacy and the presbyterate .
• the diaconate is intended to help and serve them.
• sacerdos in current usage denotes bishops and priests but not
deacons.
• Yet Catholic doctrine teaches that the degrees of priestly
participation (episcopate and presbyterate) and the degree of
service (diaconate) are all three conferred by a sacramental act
called "ordination," that is, by the sacrament of Holy Orders:

27. BISHOP
• "Episcopal consecration confers, together
with the office of sanctifying, also the
offices of teaching and ruling
• the fullness of the sacrament of Holy
Orders is, ….called the high priesthood,
the acme (summa) of the sacred ministry.

28. Bishop
• take the place of Christ himself, teacher,
shepherd, and priest, and act as his
representative (in Eius persona agant).
• By virtue, therefore, of the Holy Spirit who
has been given to them, bishops have
been constituted true and authentic
teachers of the faith and have been made
pontiffs and pastors."38

29. Ordination of Women?
• Pope John Paul II in the apostolic letter "Ordinatio sacerdotalis",
– http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-i
– that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly
ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively
held by all the Church's faithful.”
– In 2007, the Holy See issued a decree saying that the attempted
ordination of women would result in automatic excommunication
for the women and priests trying to ordain them.[94]
– In 2010, the Holy See stated that the ordination of women is a
"grave delict".[95]

30. Bishops and Collegiality
• a member of the episcopal body
• the lawful ordination of a bishop requires a
special intervention of the Bishop of
Rome, because he is the supreme visible
bond of the communion of the particular
Churches in the one Church and the
guarantor of their freedom.

31. PRIESTS: co-workers of Bishops
• The ordination of priests - co-workers of
the bishops
• priests shares in the authority by which
Christ himself builds up and sanctifies and
rules his Body. Hence the priesthood of
priests, while presupposing the
sacraments of initiation, is nevertheless
conferred by its own particular sacrament.

32. Priests
• Depend on bishops for exercise of their
own power
• consecrated in order to preach the Gospel
and shepherd the faithful as well as to
celebrate divine worship as true priests of
the New Testament
• share in the universal dimensions of the
mission

33. Priests
• In each local assembly of the faithful they
represent, in a certain sense, the bishop
• Promise of obedience & communion

34. DEACONS IN ORDER TO SERVE
• who receive the imposition of hands 'not
unto the priesthood, but unto the
ministry."‘
• only the bishop lays hands on the
candidate, thus signifying the deacon's
special attachment to the bishop in the
tasks of his "diakonia."

35. TASKS OF DEACON
• to assist the bishop and priests in the
celebration of the divine mysteries, above all
the Eucharist,
• in the distribution of Holy Communion,
• in assisting at and blessing marriages,
• in the proclamation of the Gospel and
preaching,
• in presiding over funerals,
• in dedicating themselves to the various
ministries of charity

36. PERMANENT DIACONATE
• Western Church Restored it at Vatican II
• Eastern Church always had it.
• conferred on married men,
• constitutes an important enrichment for
the Church's mission: liturgical, pastoral
life, social & charitable works,

37. ORDERS
• configures the recipient to Christ by a
special grace of the Holy Spirit, so that he
may serve as Christ's instrument for his
Church. By ordination one is enabled to
act as a representative of Christ, Head of
the Church, in his triple office of priest,
prophet, and king

38. Matrimony
• CCC 1601 "The matrimonial covenant, by
which a man and a woman establish
between themselves a partnership of the
whole of life, is by its nature ordered
toward the good of the spouses and the
procreation and education of offspring; this
covenant between baptized persons has
been raised by Christ the Lord to the
dignity of a sacrament."

39. MATRIMONY
• Marriage in the order of creation
• The intimate community of life and love
• image of the absolute and unfailing love
with which God loves humans
• an unbreakable union of their two lives by
recalling what the plan of the Creator had
been "in the beginning": "So they are no
longer two, but one flesh

40. Sin and Matrimony
• has always been threatened by discord, a
spirit of domination, infidelity, jealousy,
and conflicts that can escalate into hatred
and separation
• Their relations were distorted by sin:
mutual recriminations;6 their mutual
attraction, the Creator's own gift, changed
into a relationship of domination and lust.

41. Sin and Matrimony
• After the fall, marriage helps to overcome
self-absorption, egoism, pursuit of one's
own pleasure, and to open oneself to the
other, to mutual aid and to self-giving.

42. Matrimony as a Sign
• Of "the wedding-feast of the Lamb.“
• Jesus' presence at the wedding at Cana.
• Declared by Jesus to be indissoluble
• Represents mystery of God’s covenant
with the Church (St. Paul)

43. MINISTER OF SACRAMENT ?
• In the Latin Church: the spouses, as
ministers of Christ's grace, mutually confer
upon each other the sacrament of Matrimony
by expressing their consent before the
Church.
• In the Eastern liturgies the minister of this
sacrament (which is called "Crowning") is the
priest or bishop who, after receiving the
mutual consent of the spouses, successively
crowns the bridegroom and the bride as a
sign of the marriage covenant

44. Epiclesis
• The various liturgies abound in prayers of blessing
and epiclesis asking God's grace and blessing on
the new couple, especially the bride.
• In the epiclesis of this sacrament the spouses
receive the Holy Spirit as the communion of love
of Christ and the Church.124
• The Holy Spirit is the seal of their covenant, the
ever available source of their love and the strength
to renew their fidelity.

45. Who?
• 1625 The parties to a marriage covenant
are
– a baptized man and woman,
– free to contract marriage,
– who freely express their consent;
– "to be free" means:
- not being under constraint;
- not impeded by any natural or ecclesiastical
law
– free of coercion or grave external fear

46. Why Church Marriage?
•
- Sacramental marriage is a liturgical act. It is therefore
appropriate that it should be celebrated in the public
liturgy of the Church;
•
- Marriage introduces one into an ecclesial order, and
creates rights and duties in the Church between the
spouses and towards their children;
• - Since marriage is a state of life in the Church,
certainty about it is necessary (hence the obligation to
have witnesses);
- the public character of the consent protects the "I do"
once given and helps the spouses remain faithful to it

47. ADEQUATE PREPARATION
• Longterm, Immediate, Proximate and Post
– The example and teaching given by parents and families
– The role of pastors and of the Christian community as the "family
of God" is indispensable for the transmission of the human and
Christian values of marriage and family,133 and much more so in
our era when many young people experience broken homes
which no longer sufficiently assure this initiation
– It is imperative to give suitable and timely instruction to young
people, above all in the heart of their own families, about the
dignity of married love, its role and its exercise, so that, having
learned the value of chastity, they will be able at a suitable age
to engage in honorable courtship and enter upon a marriage of
their own.134

48. Mixed Marriage and Disparity of
Cult
• mixed marriage (marriage between a
Catholic and a baptized non-Catholic)
• disparity of cult (between a Catholic and a
nonbaptized person)

49. Permission for Mixed Marriages
and Disparity of Cult
• "For the unbelieving husband is consecrated
through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is
consecrated through her husband."138 It is a
great joy for the Christian spouse and for the
Church if this "consecration" should lead to
the free conversion of the other spouse to the
Christian faith.139 Sincere married love, the
humble and patient practice of the family
virtues, and perseverance in prayer can
prepare the non-believing spouse to accept
the grace of conversion. ( 1 Cor 7:14-16)