Sacraments

“People cannot be united in any religion, whether it be true or false, unless they are brought together through a common sharing of some visible signs or sacraments; and the power of these sacraments is so effective that scorning them is considered sacrilegious.”

St. Augustine

The term “sacrament’ comes from the Latin word sacramentum. In pre-Christian times, a sacramentum was a pledge of money or property which was deposited in a temple as part of a lawsuit or contract. A sacramentum was forfeited when one lost the suit or broke the contract. It later became also an oath of allegiance made by soldiers to their commanding officer and the gods of Rome. In both of these cases, the sacramentum involved a religious ceremony in a sacred space.

Christian writers in the Early Church borrowed the term to talk to their Roman contemporaries about the process of Christian Initiation. These early writers, when describing the ritual of Baptism, referred to it as a sacramentum wherein people began a new life of service to God. By the time of Augustine in the fifth century, any sacred ceremony was referred to as a sacramentum.
Augustine even defined the word as “a sign of sacred reality.” Christian usage of the word became more restricted and by the twelfth century it applied only to the seven church rituals that we today call the seven Sacraments.

The Catholic understanding of sacraments is rooted in the personal experiences and encounters that the faithful have with the person of Jesus. In a very real sense, Jesus is the sacrament of God among the people. These encounters with Jesus that we experience in the sacraments reassure us that we are not abandoned and the God cares, loves and even forgives us. Through the sacraments, Jesus becomes alive and active within our lives. As Catholics we celebrate the presence of Christ in the Word of God, in the observance of sacred liturgies and rituals, in hymns, in religious art and even in one another. But, nowhere do we celebrate the presence of Christ among us more completely than in the sacraments.