What are the sacraments?

Jesus often heals through something visible: he touches, takes by the hand, puts mud on the eyes of a blind man and sends him to wash.

He sends the apostles to baptise in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

At the Last Supper he takes bread, gives thanks, and tells the apostles to do this in memory of him.

After the Resurrection he gives the apostles the Holy Spirit and the power to forgive sins.

The apostles lay hands on the baptised so that they receive the Holy Spirit; James tells the sick to call the elders of the Church to pray over them and anoint them with oil.

Paul calls the union of husband and wife a great mystery, referring to Christ and the Church.

The Greek New Testament speaks of God's mystery; Latin writers translated it as sacramentum, a word also used for a soldier's oath of loyalty.

Saint Augustine described a sacrament as a visible sign of an invisible, sacred reality. This definition shaped all later teaching.

In the 12th century, theologians such as Peter Lombard listed the seven sacraments as they are known today.

The Councils of Florence (1439) and Trent (1547) taught that there are seven sacraments, no more and no fewer, instituted by Christ.

The sacraments are efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is given to us.

They act by the very fact that the rite is celebrated, because it is Christ who acts in them, not because of the holiness of the minister. Their fruit in each person also depends on how they are received.

The Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life; the other sacraments are bound up with it and directed towards it.

Christ also gave sacraments of healing, Penance and the Anointing of the Sick, and sacraments at the service of communion, Holy Orders and Matrimony.

God has bound salvation to the sacraments, but he himself is not bound by them: he can reach people in ways we do not know.