Sacraments
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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: 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.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1210
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WE BELIEVE THAT
we are both body and spirit.
It is the unity of body and spirit that defines our humanity.
"The body, and it alone is capable of making visible what is invisible, the spiritual and divine. It was created to transfer into the visible reality of the world, the invisible mystery hidden in God from time immemorial, and thus to be a sign of it.”
St. John Paul II
THIS TRUTH CAN BE SEEN
no more fully and perfectly than through Christ’s incarnation.
God assumed a human nature in order to accomplish our salvation in it.
“And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.”
John 1:14
THIS TRUTH IS EXPERIENCED EVERY DAY
We can see both a visible and invisible reality.
when parents embrace their children. The visible reality we see is the embrace. The invisible reality the embrace reveals is love. We cannot "see" the love the hug expresses, though sometimes we can see its nurturing effect in the child. In the same way, the Sacraments have a visible and invisible reality. The Sacraments themselves are carried out physically (visibly); whereas the grace received through the Sacraments cannot be seen (it is invisible).
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