THE SACRAMENTS

ANSWERING A FEW QUESTIONS

ONLINE RESOURCES

• Diocese of Fortworth : Historical Guidelines– http://www.fwdioc.org/worship/Pages/sacramental

_guidelines.aspx• 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/ap

ost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_22051994_ordinatio-sacerdotalis_en.html

ONLINE RESOURCES

Vatican II Today: Seven Sacraments

http://www.americancatholic.org/Newsletters/VAT/aq0504.asp

Contact Maria Covarrubias in Diocese of San Bernardino

https://sites.google.com/site/dsbocm/marriage-specialization-course

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

OIL

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

•

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.

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.

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,..)

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.

Sacramental signs?

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

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:

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.

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

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-ii_apl_22051994_ordinatio-sacerdotalis_en.html

– 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]

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.

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.

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

Priests

• In each local assembly of the faithful they represent, in a certain sense, the bishop

• Promise of obedience & communion

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."

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

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,

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

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."

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

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.

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.

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)

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

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.

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

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

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

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)

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)