The Seven Sacraments

An altarpiece, or retable (from the Latin retro tabula altaris "behind the altar") is a construction behind the altar bearing a sculpted or painted decoration. Here is a triptych (a set consisting of three panels) representing the seven sacraments. In the center, the Eucharist, represented behind the Crucifixion, which allows to link what the sacrament commemorates to the Eucharistic liturgy that takes place at the altar in front of the altarpiece. On the right, you can see baptism, confirmation and penance. On the left, holy orders, matrimony and extreme unction.

Collection of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp (Belgium).
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(08/12/2014)

Catechism of the Catholic Church

The Catechism of the Catholic Church is a text written in order to sum up the doctrine of the Catholic Church. It was written at the request of John Paul II (1978-2005) in order to take into account the decisions of Vatican II (see module Christianity, page 9). The wording has been achieved between 1987 and 1992 by a committee headed by the theologian Christoph Schönborn, supervised by a commission chaired by Joseph Ratzinger, the future Benedict XVI (2005-2013).

The whole liturgical life of the Church revolves around the Eucharistic sacrifice and the sacraments (cf. Sancrosanctum concilium). There are seven sacraments in the Church: Baptism, Confirmation or Chrismation, Eucharist, Penance, Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders, and Matrimony […].
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 mysteries of Christ's life are the foundations of what he would henceforth dispense in the sacraments, through the ministers of his Church, for "what was visible in our Savior has passed over into his mysteries [= sacraments]" (Saint Leo the Great, Sermons 74, 2). Sacraments are "powers that comes forth" from the Body of Christ (cf. Lk. 5:17; 6:19; 8:46), which is ever-living and life-giving. They are actions of the Holy Spirit at work in his Body, the Church. They are "the masterworks of God" in the new and everlasting covenant […].
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" (Saint Augustine, De civitate Dei; cf. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, III, 64, 2 ad 3) since they manifest and communicate to men, above all in the Eucharist, the mystery of communion with the God who is love, One in three persons.
Forming "as it were, one mystical person" (Pius XII, Mystici Corporis) with Christ the head, the Church acts in the sacraments as "an organically structured priestly community" (Lumen Gentium 11): […] that it really is Christ who acts in the sacraments through the Holy Spirit for the Church. the saving mission entrusted by the Father to his incarnate Son was committed to the apostles and through them to their successors: they receive the Spirit of Jesus to act in his name and in his person (Jn. 20:21-23; Lk. 24:47; Mt. 28:18-20). 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 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 (cf. Council of Trent), 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 […].
"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' " (Sacrosanctum Concilium 59) […].
Celebrated worthily in faith, the sacraments confer the grace that they signify (cf. Council of Trent). 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 […].
The Church affirms that for believers the sacraments of the New Covenant are necessary for salvation (cf. Council of Trent). "Sacramental grace" is the grace of the Holy Spirit, given by Christ and proper to each sacrament. the Spirit heals and transforms those who receive him by conforming them to the Son of God. the fruit of the sacramental life is that the Spirit of adoption makes the faithful partakers in the divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4) by uniting them in a living union with the only Son, the Savior […].
St. Thomas sums up the various aspects of sacramental signs: "Therefore a sacrament is a sign that commemorates what precedes it - Christ's Passion; demonstrates what is accomplished in us through Christ's Passion - grace; and prefigures what that Passion pledges to us - future glory." (Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica III, 60, 3).
The sacraments are efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us. the visible rites by which the sacraments are celebrated signify and make present the graces proper to each sacrament. They bear fruit in those who receive them with the required dispositions.

Catechism of the Catholic Church, Part 2, Section 1, chapter 1.
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