What is a Sacrament?

A sacrament is a saving act of Jesus Christ. In the celebration of every sacrament it is Jesus Christ who makes the first move in coming to lift up the person in need of salvation - just as he came to lift up his friend Lazarus in the village of Bethany.

It is an act celebrated in and through the Church which unites us with Christ’s worship of his Father. In the celebration of every sacrament of the Church, Jesus Christ lifts up those who believe in order to unite them with the Father - just as he revealed the glory of God when he raised up Lazarus with the words,  “Father, I thank you for hearing my prayer” (John 11:41).

It is an act by which we receive the Spirit of Christ and so are formed in his image, just as Lazarus was formed in the image of Christ when he emerged from the tomb with new life.

“Since the Lord is no longer visible among us,” wrote Saint Leo the Great about the year 450, “everything of him that was visible has passed into the sacraments.”

When we think about it, that really is a startling claim. But startling or not, it is harder to find anywhere a clearer expression of just what the sacraments mean to Catholics.

Our life of faith, of course, revolves around the belief that Jesus Christ, who walked the dusty roads of Palestine all those years ago, is still with us. It is obvious that any faith which rests secure in the belief that Jesus, who died twisted in the agony of torture, is still alive must be a joyous and exuberant affair. But the joy seems to elude us so often; and if our minds turn at all to Christ in the apparent drabness and weariness of the daily round, it is often simply to give way to nostalgia:

“Oh, it would be so much easier if I had actually seen Christ.

 Saint John wrote of the Jesus he saw with his own eyes and touched with his own hands:

 “The Word was made flesh, he lived among us, and we saw his glory” (John 1:14).

True, it is only natural to think it must have been so much easier for John. But it is much more to the point to try and discover in his writings the reason for his exuberant and joyful faith. And that can be summed up in one word: love. John saw the love of God revealed in Christ as a love which had no other object than to share its own delight. As St. Athanasius put it, “Christ became man that man might become God.” That belief was the mainspring of John’s life.

Perhaps it seems obvious and rather silly to say that Jesus Christ was the first to live the Christian life. But it does bring home to us that it meaningless to ask about a Christian life which is not an actual sharing and participation in Christ’s life. That is where the sacraments come in. Christ is continually seeking to share his divine life with us, to be born again in each one of us.

And the place of our meeting is in the sacraments. As Saint Ambrose expressed it:  “You have shown yourself to me, Christ, face-to-face. I meet you in your sacraments.”

In our Catholic Tradition there are seven Sacraments - Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Eucharist (Communion), Reconciliation (Penance), Marriage, Holy Orders and Anointing of the Sick and over the next weeks we will reflect on each of them to see how they unite us ever more closely to the person of Jesus and to the life of his Church.