This and the Menu Links that follow is a summary of Catechism of the Catholic Church’s teaching on the Sacraments (the numbers of the articles are indicated and the articles are quoted by sections of entirely).
(1131) “The Liturgy of the Catholic Church is about the Celebration of the Eucharist and of the Sacraments.
What are the Sacraments?
“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.
(1132) The Church celebrates the Sacraments as a priestly community structured by the baptismal priesthood and the priesthood of the ordained ministers.
(1133) The Holy Spirit prepares the faithful for the sacraments by the Word of God and the faith which welcomes that word in well-disposed hearts. Thus the sacraments strengthen faith and express it.
(1134) The fruit of sacramental life is both personal and ecclesial. For every one of the faithful on the one hand, this fruit is life for God in Christ Jesus; for the Church, on the other, it is an increase in charity and in her mission of witness.
(1210) Christ instituted the sacraments of the new law. There are seven: Baptism, Confirmation, 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 spiritual life.”
According to this above understanding, they are classified then in three group:
- The Sacraments of Christian Initiation: Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist.
- The Sacraments of Healing: Penance and Anointing of the Sick.
- The Sacraments of Communion: Holy Orders and Matrimony.
