The Seven Sacraments

Sacraments are about life. St Irenaeus described this when he said: “The glory of God is the human person fully alive.” A sacrament is a meeting with Christ. There are seven sacraments in the church, they symbolise what is really happening. When celebrated the sacraments can create a deep experience of God’s presence, and awareness of what God is doing for us. The sacraments are celebrated in the church’s liturgy.

Pope Francis wrote: In the Eucharist and in all the sacraments we are guaranteed the possibility of encountering the Lord Jesus and of having the power of his Paschal Mystery reach us. The salvific power of the sacrifice of Jesus, his every word, his every gesture, glance, and feeling reaches us through the celebration of the sacraments. I am Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman at the well, the man possessed by demons at Capernaum, the paralytic in the house of Peter, the sinful woman pardoned, the woman afflicted by haemorrhages, the daughter of Jairus, the blind man of Jericho, Zacchaeus, Lazarus, the thief and Peter both pardoned. The Lord Jesus who dies no more, who lives forever with the signs of his Passion continues to pardon us, to heal us, to save us with the power of the sacraments. It is the concrete way, by means of his incarnation, that he loves us. It is the way in which he satisfies his own thirst for us that he had declared from the cross. (John 19: 28) # 11 DESIDERIO DESIDERAVI.

The sacraments of initiation are Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist.

The sacraments of healing are Reconciliation and Anointing of the Sick.