Mass and the Sacraments

The Mass is not a recollection that the Cross once happened, and it is not a second cross. The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice. The Catechism gives the Church's words from the Council of Trent: "The victim is one and the same: the same now offers through the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross; only the manner of offering is different." And again: "In this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass, the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and is offered in an unbloody manner." The offering on Calvary was once for all. It is not repeated, and it is not added to. In the Mass that one offering is made present, its memory is kept until the end of the world, and its fruit is applied. That is what the Church means by a memorial. In the sense of Scripture a memorial is not a bare looking back. When the Church celebrates the memorial, the work is present.

This is why the Mass is the Church's greatest prayer. The Catechism calls the Eucharist the source and summit of the Christian life, and it calls the Eucharistic Prayer the heart and summit of the celebration. Every other prayer of the Church leads towards this one or flows from it. Christ himself is the principal agent. He is the high priest of the New Covenant, and he presides over every Mass, unseen. The bishop or the priest who stands at the altar acts in the person of Christ the Head. Only a validly ordained priest can preside at the Eucharist and consecrate the bread and the wine. The people are not an audience. Each has a part: the readers, those who bring the gifts, those who give Holy Communion as the rite allows, and the whole assembly, whose Amen is a real participation. The Pope is named, because he is the sign and servant of the unity of the whole Church. The bishop of the place is named, because the Eucharist belongs to his Church even when a priest presides.

The shape a person meets in a parish of England and Wales is the Order of Mass of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, from the Roman Missal. It is old in its bones. Saint Justin, writing around the year 155, already describes Christians gathering on the day of the sun, hearing the memoirs of the Apostles and the writings of the prophets, praying, bringing bread and a cup of wine mixed with water, and receiving from the one who presides what has been made Eucharist. The Catechism says that the substance of that celebration has not changed, through every difference of time and of rite, because the Church is bound by the command Our Lord gave on the night he was betrayed. In the Douay-Rheims, at the supper, he says: "This is my body, which is given for you. Do this for a commemoration of me." The parish Mass is that command kept. It is not a service the parish has designed.

The celebration has two main parts, and they are one act of worship. The Catechism names them as the gathering with the Liturgy of the Word, and the Liturgy of the Eucharist. The table set for the Church is the table both of the Word of God and of the Body of the Lord. A parish Mass walks from the sign of the cross to the dismissal in that order. What follows is that walk, as the Order of Mass sets it for the people. It is not every word the priest says in silence, and it is not every response printed in the leaflet. It is the shape a person can follow.

All stand. The priest comes to the altar with the ministers, and he venerates the altar while the entrance song is sung. Then comes the sign of the cross. The people make it with him as he says, "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit," and they answer, "Amen." The Mass opens under that name, the name into which Christians are baptised. One of the greetings follows. A form the Order of Mass gives is, "The Lord be with you," and the answer is, "And with your spirit." That answer is not a courtesy. It answers the spirit of the priest's ordination, the spirit given for this service.

The priest invites the people to the Penitential Act. One form is the Confiteor, which begins, "I confess to almighty God and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have greatly sinned," and which asks blessed Mary ever-Virgin, the Angels and the Saints, and the brothers and sisters present, to pray for the one who is speaking. Other forms are provided. The priest then says, "May almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life," and the people answer, "Amen." A person must hear what this moment is, and what it is not. It is the assembly asking mercy at the threshold of the Mass. It is not the sacrament of Penance. It does not take the place of confession. Anyone conscious of a grave sin must receive the sacrament of Reconciliation before coming to Holy Communion. The "I confess" at the beginning of Mass is true prayer. It is not absolution.

The Kyrie follows, in English or in Greek: Lord, have mercy; Christ, have mercy; Lord, have mercy. On the days the Missal indicates, the Gloria is sung or said, the ancient hymn that begins, "Glory to God in the highest." The priest then says, "Let us pray." There is a silence. He prays the Collect of the day, and the people answer, "Amen." The introductory rites have done their work. They have gathered one assembly, and they have made it ready to hear.

The Liturgy of the Word is that hearing. By the Word proclaimed in worship the faithful enter again the dialogue between God and his people, a dialogue that will be sealed in the food and drink of the Eucharist. There is a first reading. The reader ends, "The word of the Lord," and the people answer, "Thanks be to God." A psalm is sung or said, and the people make the response. On Sundays and on certain other days there is a second reading, and the same answer. The assembly stands for the Gospel. This is the high point of the Liturgy of the Word, and the people remain standing in honour of it. The deacon, or the priest, greets them, and they answer, "And with your spirit." He announces the holy Gospel. They answer, "Glory to you, O Lord." At the end he says, "The Gospel of the Lord," and they answer, "Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ." The homily follows. It is an exhortation to receive this Word as what it is, the Word of God, and to put it into practice. A brief silence afterwards is fitting. The homily is not a second scripture, and it is not optional decoration. It belongs to the dialogue.

On Sundays and Solemnities the Profession of Faith follows. The Nicene Creed is the ordinary text. In Lent and Easter Time especially, the Apostles' Creed may be used. At the words of the Incarnation the people bow. The Creed is the Church's confession, handed on, not a personal summary. The Prayer of the Faithful comes next, the intercessions for the Church and for the world, in the line of the Apostle's charge that prayers be made for all. A response the Order of Mass provides is, "Lord, in your mercy," and "Hear our prayer." The priest closes the prayer. The people sit. The Liturgy of the Word is complete.

The Liturgy of the Eucharist then begins. Bread and wine are brought to the altar, sometimes in procession, while a song is sung. The bread is wheat bread. The wine is grape wine. Those are the essential signs, and no other food and drink may be put in their place. If the priest says the blessing prayers aloud, the people's acclamation each time is, "Blessed be God for ever." The gifts are what creation has given, placed in the hands of Christ. From the beginning, Christians have also brought help for those in need, and the collection continues that custom. It is not a pause in the sacrifice. It belongs to the offering. The priest then says, "Pray, brethren (brothers and sisters), that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father." The people answer, "May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands for the praise and glory of his name, for our good and the good of all his holy Church." He prays the Prayer over the Offerings. They answer, "Amen."

The Eucharistic Prayer is the centre. The priest begins, "The Lord be with you." They answer, "And with your spirit." "Lift up your hearts." "We lift them up to the Lord." "Let us give thanks to the Lord our God." "It is right and just." In the Preface the Church gives thanks to the Father, through Christ, in the Holy Spirit, for creation, redemption, and sanctification, and joins the praise of the Angels and the Saints. The people sing or say, "Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of hosts." The priest continues. He asks the Father to send the Holy Spirit upon the gifts, so that they may become the Body and Blood of Our Lord. He takes the bread and the wine and speaks the words of Christ. The Catechism gives those words in this short form: "This is my body which will be given up for you.... This is the cup of my blood...." The power is not the priest's eloquence. Saint John Chrysostom says that it is not man who causes the gifts to become the Body and Blood of Christ, but Christ himself. The priest pronounces the words in the role of Christ. Their power and grace are God's.

The people are then invited, "The mystery of faith." One acclamation the Order of Mass gives them is, "We proclaim your Death, O Lord, and profess your Resurrection until you come again." The prayer goes on. The Church calls to mind the Passion, the Resurrection, and the return of Christ, and offers to the Father the offering of his Son. The Church prays in communion with the whole Church in heaven and on earth, with the Pope, with the bishop, and with the living and the dead. At the end the priest takes the chalice and the paten and says, "Through him, and with him, and in him, O God, almighty Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honour is yours, for ever and ever." The people's Amen is the great Amen. It assents to what has been done.

What has been done must be said plainly. By the consecration the whole substance of the bread is changed into the substance of the Body of Christ, and the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his Blood. The Church calls that change transubstantiation. Under the appearances of bread and wine, Christ himself, living and glorious, is present in a true, real, and substantial manner: his Body and his Blood, with his soul and his divinity. The Catechism, receiving the Council of Trent, says that in the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist "the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained." This presence is called real not because every other presence of Christ is unreal, but because this is presence in the fullest sense. He is wholly present. The Eucharist is not a symbol only, and not a reminder only. The appearances remain, and they still look and taste as they did. Faith does not take its report from taste. Saint Thomas says that in this sacrament the true Body and Blood of Christ cannot be grasped by the senses, but only by faith, which relies on the authority of God. Our Lord said, "This is my body." He is the truth, and he cannot lie.

The presence begins at the consecration and lasts as long as the appearances last. Christ is present whole and entire under each appearance, and whole and entire in each part, so that the breaking of the bread does not divide him. Communion under the form of bread alone is therefore a true receiving of the whole Christ. Communion under both kinds shows the sign of the meal more fully, and a parish may give both when the rite provides it. Neither way makes a half-Christ. Because he remains, the Church reserves the consecrated hosts with the greatest care. The tabernacle was first for taking the Eucharist to the sick and to those who could not be at Mass. Faith also learned to stay and adore. The Church offers the worship of adoration to the Blessed Sacrament during the Mass and outside it. A genuflection, or a deep bow, is the body's answer to that presence. To visit the Blessed Sacrament is an act of gratitude and of love, and a duty of adoration towards Christ Our Lord.

The same presence is the presence of the victim. The Mass is offered in reparation for the sins of the living and the dead, and to obtain from God blessings for soul and body. The faithful departed who have died in Christ and are not yet wholly purified are prayed for while this Victim is present. The Saints are not absent from the offering. In the Eucharist the Church is, as it were, at the foot of the Cross with Our Lady, united to the offering and the intercession of Christ. The lives of the faithful, their praise, their sufferings, their work, are joined to his offering. Nothing of that adds a second sacrifice. It lets this generation stand inside the one sacrifice.

The Communion Rite turns the sacrifice towards the meal, and the meal is not a different event. The altar is both the altar of the sacrifice and the table of the Lord. The people stand and pray the Lord's Prayer in the words the Missal gives, introduced by the priest: "At the Saviour's command and formed by divine teaching, we dare to say." The prayer for peace follows, and the people offer one another the sign of peace in the manner the parish uses. The bread is broken while the Lamb of God is sung or said. The priest then shows the host to the people: "Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world. Blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb." The people answer with the words of the centurion, which the Order of Mass prints in this form: "Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed." They come forward in procession. Before receiving, each makes a bow of the head, in honour of Christ's presence in the Sacrament. The minister says, "The Body of Christ," or, "The Blood of Christ." The communicant answers, "Amen." That Amen is a confession. It says that this is truly the Body of Christ, and that the one who receives is in communion with the Church that believes it.

Holy Communion is not given before the person is Catholic and prepared. That rule is the Church's, and it is the same rule already given in the file on becoming a Catholic. A person who is not yet Catholic comes to Mass, stays to the end, and does not receive. Saint Justin told the emperor that no one may take part in this food unless he believes that what the Church teaches is true, has been baptised for the forgiveness of sins and for new birth, and lives in keeping with what Christ taught. The Eucharist is the sacrament of unity with Christ and with his Church. To receive it is to say Amen to that unity as the Catholic Church holds it. Communities that came from the Reformation and are separated from the Catholic Church have not preserved the reality of the Eucharistic mystery in its fullness, above all because they lack the sacrament of Holy Orders. For that reason Eucharistic intercommunion with those communities is not possible. The Eastern Churches not in full communion with the Catholic Church do possess true sacraments and a true Eucharist, and the Catechism speaks of a sharing that can be encouraged in suitable circumstances with the approval of the Church's authority. Even there, the ordinary Sunday is not a moment for a visitor to decide. There is a narrow provision for grave necessity, judged by the bishop, when a Christian not in full communion asks of his or her own will for the Eucharist, or for Penance, or for the Anointing of the Sick, and gives evidence of holding the Catholic faith about that sacrament and of having the dispositions the Church requires. That provision is not an open door, and it is not the visitor's to open. The person who is asking how to become a Catholic does not receive Holy Communion on the way in. The person receives when the Church has received him or her, and when he or she is prepared.

Preparation is required of the Catholic as well. Anyone who desires to receive Christ in Holy Communion must be in a state of grace. Anyone aware of having sinned mortally must not receive communion without having first received absolution in the sacrament of Penance. Deep contrition does not by itself make an exception, unless there is a grave reason to receive and no possibility of going to confession. The fast required in the Church is to be kept. The body, in clothing and in bearing, ought to show the respect, the solemnity, and the joy of the moment. A person examines his or her conscience before coming, because to eat and drink without discerning the Body is to eat and drink judgement, as Saint Paul taught and as the Catechism repeats. Venial sin does not by itself bar a person. Holy Communion forgives venial sins and strengthens the communicant against grave sin. It increases union with Our Lord, and it tightens the charity that makes the Church one Body. The Church obliges the faithful to take part in the Mass on Sundays and on holy days of obligation, and, prepared by Reconciliation, to receive the Eucharist at least once a year, if possible in the Easter season. The Church warmly urges reception every Sunday, and even daily, when the dispositions are there. The obligation is a floor, not the measure of love.

After Holy Communion a silence may be kept, or a psalm or a hymn sung. The priest says, "Let us pray," and prays the Prayer after Communion. The people answer, "Amen." The Concluding Rites send them out to live what they have received. The priest blesses them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. The deacon, or the priest, dismisses them. One of the forms is, "Go forth, the Mass is ended." The people answer, "Thanks be to God." The thanks is not relief that an hour is over. It is the thanks of people who have been given the sacrifice of the Cross and are now sent to carry it into the week.

The seven sacraments are efficacious signs of grace. They were instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, and by them divine life is given. The visible rite signifies the grace, and it brings about the grace it signifies. The fruit depends on the dispositions of the one who receives, and the gift itself is Christ's, not a reward the person has manufactured. The Holy Spirit prepares the receiver by the Word of God and by the faith that welcomes that Word. Three of the seven begin the Christian life: Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist. Two heal: Penance, and the Anointing of the Sick. Two are given for the communion and the mission of the others: Holy Orders, and Matrimony. A person studies them one by one. They are not seven isolated ceremonies. They are one economy, and the Eucharist is the end towards which the others move.

Baptism is the basis of the whole Christian life, the gateway into life in the Spirit, and the door which gives access to the other sacraments. It is the sacrament of regeneration through water and the word. By it a person is freed from sin and reborn as a child of God, becomes a member of Christ, is incorporated into the Church, and is made a sharer in the Church's mission. Only a person not yet baptised can be baptised. The sacrament is not repeated, and the Church's refusal to repeat it is faith in what Christ has already done, not a rule of tidiness.

What Baptism does is entire. Original sin is forgiven, and all personal sins, and all punishment for sin. Nothing remains in the newly baptised that would keep them out of the Kingdom of God. Certain consequences of sin remain in this life: suffering, illness, death, weakness of character, and the inclination to sin which tradition calls concupiscence. That inclination is left for the battle. It is not itself a sin, and it does not undo the new birth. The baptised person is a new creature, an adopted child of God, a member of Christ, a temple of the Holy Spirit. Sanctifying grace is given, and with it the theological virtues, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and the power to grow in the moral virtues. The whole of the Christian life has its root here. The baptised are built into the Church as living stones, and they share in the common priesthood of the faithful, which is not the same thing as the ordained priesthood. They no longer belong to themselves. They have duties in the Church, and they have rights, among them the right to the other sacraments when they are prepared for them. Baptism is also the sacramental bond among all Christians, including those not yet in full communion with the Catholic Church. A person properly baptised is truly Christ's, and is not treated as a stranger to him.

Baptism seals the person with an indelible spiritual mark, a character, the seal of belonging to Christ. No later sin erases that mark, even when sin blocks the fruit of the sacrament. This is why Baptism is given once. The mark consecrates the person for the worship of God and for a life of charity.

The ordinary ministers are the bishop, the priest, and, in the Latin Church, the deacon. In necessity any person may baptise, even a person who is not baptised, if he or she intends to do what the Church does and uses the Trinitarian formula, with true water. The Church allows this because God wills all to be saved and because Baptism is necessary for salvation. The emergency is not the ordinary path. The ordinary path is the Church at the font. Water is poured, or the person is immersed, so that the water truly washes, while the minister names the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Where water, those words, and the intention to do what the Church does are present, there is Baptism. Where one of them is missing, there is not.

The Church baptises infants, and has done so from the early centuries. A child is born with a fallen nature and needs the new birth. Parents and the Church would deny the child the grace of becoming a child of God if they delayed without reason. Adult Baptism is the common practice where the Gospel is still new, and the adult is prepared through the catechumenate for Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist together. That preparation, and the difference between a person never baptised and a person already validly baptised, belong to the files already written on becoming a Catholic. This file does not retell them. It only fixes what the sacrament is. Faith is required, and for an infant the faith is the faith of the Church, which the parents and godparents undertake to nurture. For an adult the faith must be the person's own, professed and ready for the water.

Confirmation completes Baptism. With Baptism and the Eucharist it belongs to Christian initiation, and that unity is to be kept. The Catechism says that the faithful must be taught that Confirmation is necessary for the completion of baptismal grace. By it the baptised are more perfectly bound to the Church and enriched with a special strength of the Holy Spirit, and so, as true witnesses of Christ, they are more strictly obliged to spread and defend the faith by word and by deed. Without Confirmation and the Eucharist, Baptism is valid and it does what Baptism does, but initiation remains incomplete. Every baptised person not yet confirmed can and should receive this sacrament. The Latin tradition looks to the age of discretion as the point of reference, and the diocese sets the pastoral age. Danger of death does not wait for that age. A child in danger of death is confirmed. Confirmation is sometimes called the sacrament of Christian maturity. That phrase does not mean that a person must have reached adult years, or an adult calm, before the Holy Spirit may seal him or her. The grace of Baptism is a free gift. It does not wait to be ratified by growing up.

The effect is the full outpouring of the Holy Spirit, as once given to the Apostles at Pentecost. Confirmation roots the person more deeply in the life of a child of God, unites the person more firmly to Christ, increases the gifts of the Holy Spirit, makes the bond with the Church more perfect, and gives a special strength to confess the name of Christ and never to be ashamed of the Cross. Like Baptism, it is given once. It imprints a character, the seal of the Holy Spirit, clothing the Christian with power from on high so as to be Christ's witness. The confirmed person receives, in Saint Thomas's phrase which the Catechism keeps, the power to profess faith in Christ publicly and as it were officially.

The sign is oil, and the oil means consecration. The bishop consecrates the sacred chrism for his diocese at the Chrism Mass of Holy Thursday. When Confirmation is celebrated apart from Baptism, as in the Roman Rite, it begins with the renewal of baptismal promises, so that everyone can see that Confirmation follows Baptism. The bishop extends his hands over the candidates and prays for the sending of the Holy Spirit. The essential rite, in the Latin Church, is the anointing with chrism on the forehead, done by the laying on of the hand, with the words, "Be sealed with the Gift of the Holy Spirit." In the Eastern Churches the more significant parts of the body are anointed with the holy myron, and each anointing carries the formula, "The seal of the gift that is the Holy Spirit." The sign of peace at the end shows communion with the bishop and with all the faithful.

The original minister is the bishop. In the East the priest who baptises ordinarily confirms at once, with chrism consecrated by the patriarch or the bishop, so that the bond with the Apostles remains visible. In the Latin Church the ordinary minister is the bishop. He may, for a grave reason, grant priests the faculty to confirm. The same discipline as the East applies when an adult is baptised, or when a person baptised in another Christian community that does not have valid Confirmation is received into full communion: the priest confirms in that celebration. In danger of death any priest should confirm. The Catechism says that the Church desires that none of the faithful, even the youngest, should depart this world without having been perfected by the Holy Spirit with the gift of Christ's fullness. No one who can still be confirmed should die unconfirmed.

To receive Confirmation a person must be in a state of grace. The sacrament of Penance is the cleansing that prepares for the gift of the Holy Spirit, and a more intense prayer should go before the day. A sponsor is fittingly chosen, and it is appropriate that the sponsor be one of the baptismal godparents, so that the two sacraments are seen as one initiation. Catechesis for Confirmation should lead towards a closer union with Christ and a living familiarity with the Holy Spirit, and it should awaken a sense of belonging to the Church, both the parish and the Church throughout the world. The parish has a particular responsibility for that preparation. The sacrament is not a leaving certificate, and it is not a promise the candidate makes in exchange for the Spirit. The Spirit is given. The life that follows is the witness.

The Eucharist is the sacrament towards which the others point, and it is the sacrament the Mass makes present. What the Mass is has already been said. Here the sacrament itself is named as a sacrament: what it is, what it does, who ministers it, and what the Church requires of the one who receives it.

It is the Body and Blood of Christ. The Catechism gathers the names the tradition uses. It is the Eucharist, that is, thanksgiving. It is the Lord's Supper, the Breaking of Bread, the Holy Sacrifice, the Holy and Divine Liturgy, Holy Communion, and the Holy Mass. It is the Blessed Sacrament, because it is Christ. In the Douay-Rheims, Our Lord says: "He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day." The Church has always heard those words of this sacrament, not of a metaphor the believer outgrows. The essential signs are wheat bread and grape wine. The priest invokes the blessing of the Holy Spirit and speaks the words of consecration. Only a validly ordained priest can do that. A deacon, a religious, a catechist, a lay person, however holy, cannot consecrate. Christ is the one who offers, through the ministry of the priest, and Christ is the one who is offered, present under the appearances of bread and wine.

What the sacrament does for the person who receives it worthily is union with Christ. Holy Communion increases that union, forgives venial sins, and preserves the communicant from grave sins. It commits the communicant to the poor, because the Body received is the Body given up for all, and a person who will not share bread with the hungry dishonours the table. It is the pledge of the glory to come. Having passed to the Father, Christ gives in the Eucharist the seed of eternal life. The Mass already joins the earthly Church to the liturgy of heaven. The one who receives is not feeding on a memory of someone absent.

The requirements have been stated in the account of the Mass, and they are restated here because they belong to the sacrament and not only to the hour. The communicant must be Catholic, in the sense already given: in full communion with the Catholic Church, or in that rare case of grave necessity which the bishop judges and which the person does not award to himself or herself. The communicant must be baptised, must believe what the Church believes about this sacrament, must be in a state of grace, and must keep the fast the Church requires. A person conscious of mortal sin goes first to confession. A person who is not yet Catholic does not receive, however welcome he or she is in the pew, and however real his or her love of Christ. Welcome is not the same gift as Holy Communion. The file on becoming a Catholic already says: hear Mass, and do not receive. This file says the same thing, because the sacrament itself requires it. Children who have reached the age of reason are not kept from the Eucharist once they are prepared, and their first Confession comes before their first Holy Communion. The parish, not a timetable in this file, sees to that preparation.

The Blessed Sacrament remains after Mass, in the tabernacle, for the sick and for adoration. A visit, a genuflection, a time of quiet before the tabernacle, is worship of Christ present, not a lesser substitute for the Mass. The Mass remains the sacrifice and the meal. Adoration prolongs the Amen.

Penance, also called Confession, or Reconciliation, or the sacrament of conversion, is the sacrament by which sins committed after Baptism are forgiven. Baptism does not make later sin impossible. It makes later sin a fall from a life already given. Christ instituted this sacrament for the members of his Church who have fallen, above all for those who after Baptism have committed grave sin, lost the life of grace, and wounded their communion with the Church. The Fathers called it a second plank after shipwreck. Only God forgives sins. Because Jesus is the Son of God, he forgives, and he gave that power to men to exercise in his name. On the evening of the Resurrection he breathed on the Apostles. In the Douay-Rheims the words are: "Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained." The power of the keys, given to Peter and to the Apostles with him, is the same ministry. To be reconciled with the Church and to be reconciled with God are not two transactions. They are one.

The concrete discipline has varied, and the Church does not hide the variation. In the first centuries, certain very grave sins were reconciled only after a long public penance, rarely repeated. From the seventh century, through the Irish monks and the Eastern monastic tradition, the practice that is now ordinary came to the West: confession in secret, between the penitent and the priest, repeatable, covering both grave sins and venial sins. Beneath the change of discipline the structure is the same. The penitent does three things. The priest absolves. Neither half is the whole sacrament.

Contrition comes first. It is sorrow of soul and detestation of the sin committed, with the resolution not to sin again. When that sorrow springs from the love of God above all things, it is perfect contrition. Perfect contrition obtains forgiveness of mortal sins if it includes the firm resolution to go to sacramental confession as soon as possible. It does not make the confession optional. When the sorrow springs from the ugliness of sin or from the fear of damnation and of punishment, it is imperfect contrition, and it is still a gift of the Holy Spirit. By itself it does not obtain forgiveness of grave sins. It disposes a person to receive forgiveness in the sacrament. A person prepares by an examination of conscience in the light of the Word of God, not by a vague sense of being generally sorry.

Confession of sins is the second act, and it is essential. The Catechism says that confession to a priest is an essential part of the sacrament of Penance. All mortal sins of which a person is conscious after a careful examination must be confessed, even the most secret, and even those that touch thoughts and desires rather than public acts. A person who tries to remember, and confesses what he or she remembers, places those sins before the mercy of God. A person who knowingly withholds a mortal sin places nothing before that mercy, because the priest cannot absolve a wound he has been refused leave to see. Venial sins may be confessed, and the Church strongly recommends the practice. Regular confession of everyday faults forms the conscience, heals, and trains a person in mercy. It is not required in the same way. Mortal sin is required. Confession of mortal sin is to a priest. It is not a conversation with a friend, and it is not a general admission to God made in private and then treated as finished. The private admission belongs inside perfect contrition, and perfect contrition itself points to the priest.

Satisfaction is the third act. The priest proposes a penance, a prayer or a work, so that the harm of sin may be repaired and the penitent may begin again to live as a disciple. Many sins have injured a neighbour, and the repair owed to that neighbour remains a duty. The eternal punishment of mortal sin is remitted by absolution. Temporal punishment can remain, and the penance, and a later life of charity, and the Church's indulgences, bear on that. The penance given in the sacrament is not a fine that purchases forgiveness. Forgiveness is the absolution. The penance is the beginning of a healed life.

The minister is a bishop or a priest. By Holy Orders they have the power to forgive sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Priests exercise that power to the extent that they have received the faculty from the bishop, from a religious superior where the law provides it, or from the Pope. In the ordinary parish the priest has that faculty, and the person asks him. Certain very grave sins carry an excommunication which only the Pope, or the bishop, or a priest they have authorised, can lift. In danger of death any priest can absolve from every sin and every excommunication. The confessor is not the master of God's forgiveness. He is its servant. He is bound by the sacramental seal. What he hears in confession he may not reveal, and he may not use it, and the seal admits of no exceptions. The penitent should know that, so that shame does not keep a necessary truth locked up. The priest is there as the Good Shepherd, and as the Father of the parable, and as a just and merciful judge. He is not there as a gossip, and he is not there as a prosecutor.

The effects are reconciliation with God and the recovery of grace, reconciliation with the Church, remission of the eternal punishment of mortal sins, remission at least in part of temporal punishment, peace of conscience, and new strength for the fight. Individual and complete confession of grave sins, followed by absolution, remains the only ordinary means of that reconciliation. The Church commands that, once a person has reached the age of discretion, serious sins be confessed faithfully at least once a year. Anyone conscious of mortal sin must not receive Holy Communion without absolution first, apart from the grave necessity already noted, when confession is impossible. Children go to this sacrament before first Holy Communion. An unbaptised person does not. Baptism itself is the forgiveness of all sin for the one who has never been baptised, and the files on becoming a Catholic keep that order clear. This file only insists on the priest. When a Catholic has fallen gravely, the way back is not a private resolution alone, and not the general intercession at the start of Mass. The way back is a priest, and the words of absolution, and the life that follows.

The Anointing of the Sick is the sacrament for a baptised person whom serious illness or the frailty of old age has begun to place in danger of death. It is not reserved for the last hour, and it is not a charm against death. The Catechism quotes the Council: as soon as any of the faithful begins to be in danger of death from sickness or old age, the fitting time to receive this sacrament has already arrived. If the person recovers and later falls into another grave illness, the sacrament may be given again. If during the same illness the condition becomes more serious, it may be repeated. It is fitting before a serious operation. It is fitting when old age grows markedly more frail. A mild sickness that does not bring danger is not the occasion. The sacrament is not cheapened by being given early to those who truly need it, and it is not broadened into a blessing for every discomfort.

The letter of James, in the Douay-Rheims, is the Church's foundation for it: "Is any man sick among you? Let him bring in the priests of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord." The next verse says that the prayer of faith shall save the sick man, and the Lord shall raise him up, and if he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him. Only priests minister this sacrament. That means bishops and priests, not deacons, and not lay people. The family and the parish should encourage the sick to ask for a priest, and they should not wait until speech has gone. The sick person prepares with good dispositions. If he or she can confess, confession belongs with this visit, because mortal sin is confessed to a priest. The anointing itself brings forgiveness of sins, as James says, and it is a mercy when illness has made a full confession impossible.

The grace is first a particular gift of the Holy Spirit: strength, peace, and courage to meet the difficulties of serious illness or of old age. It renews trust in God and strengthens the person against discouragement and against the fear of death. It is meant for the healing of the soul, and also of the body if God wills. The Church does not promise that every anointing will be followed by recovery. The Church promises the grace. By that grace the sick person is united more closely to the Passion of Christ, and suffering, which entered the world through sin, is given a share in the saving work of Jesus. The sick who unite themselves freely to the Passion of Christ contribute to the good of the People of God. The Church prays for them, and they, by this sacrament, do something for the Church. If the anointing is given at the point of death, it completes the conformity to the death and Resurrection of Christ which Baptism began. It is the last of the holy anointings: Baptism, then Confirmation, then this.

Viaticum is distinct, and it should not be confused with the anointing. Viaticum is the Eucharist given to a person who is about to leave this life, food for the passing over to the Father. The Catechism calls it the last sacrament of the Christian. Together, Penance, the Anointing of the Sick, and the Eucharist as viaticum are the sacraments that prepare for the heavenly homeland. A parish that is called to a deathbed is being asked for Christ, not for a kind visit only. The priest should be called.

Holy Orders is the sacrament through which the mission Christ entrusted to the Apostles continues in the Church until the end of time. It is called Orders because there is an ordered body of ministers, into which a man is incorporated by ordination. There are three degrees, all three conferred by a sacramental act. The episcopate and the presbyterate are the two degrees of participation in the priesthood of Christ. The diaconate is the degree of service. The word priest, in ordinary Catholic speech, means bishops and priests, not deacons. Saint Ignatius of Antioch wrote, "For without them one cannot speak of the Church." The doctrine is the Church's, and the Catechism receives it. The divinely instituted ministry is exercised by those who from ancient times have been called bishops, priests, and deacons.

A bishop receives the fullness of the sacrament of Holy Orders. Episcopal consecration confers the offices of sanctifying, teaching, and ruling, and it marks the bishop so that he takes the place of Christ as teacher, shepherd, and priest, in an eminent and visible way. He is a member of the college of bishops by that consecration and by hierarchical communion with the head and the members of the college. The lawful ordination of a bishop requires the intervention of the Bishop of Rome, the visible bond of communion. A priest is the bishop's co-worker. He is ordained to preach the Gospel, to shepherd the faithful, and to celebrate divine worship, above all the Eucharist, acting in the person of Christ the Head. A deacon is ordained to serve, not to exercise the priesthood that consecrates. At Mass, as the Order of Mass shows, the deacon may proclaim the Gospel and may give the dismissal. He is an ordinary minister of Baptism, and he may assist at a marriage and receive the consent of the spouses in the name of the Church. He does not consecrate the Eucharist, he does not absolve, and he does not anoint the sick.

Only a bishop validly confers the three degrees. The sacrament is the sacrament of the apostolic ministry, and it belongs to the bishops, as successors of the Apostles, to hand on the gift of the Spirit. Only a baptised man validly receives ordination. The Lord Jesus chose men to form the Twelve, and the Apostles chose men as their co-workers. The Church holds that it is bound by this choice of the Lord. For this reason the ordination of women is not possible. The sentence is the Church's judgement, not a commentary on the gifts of women, which the Church depends on and honours. No one has a right to be ordained. The person who thinks he sees the signs of a call submits that desire to the Church, which has the responsibility and the right to call. The sacrament, like every grace, is an unmerited gift.

In the Latin Church the ordained ministers, except permanent deacons, are normally chosen from men who intend to remain celibate for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven. Celibacy is a sign of a life given wholly to the Lord and to his people. In the Eastern Churches a different and legitimate discipline has long been kept: bishops are chosen from among celibates, and married men may be ordained deacons and priests. In East and West, a man who has received Holy Orders may not afterwards marry. These are disciplines of the calling. They are not a second sacrament.

The effect is a configuration to Christ by a special grace of the Holy Spirit, so that the man may serve as Christ's instrument for the Church, in the triple office of priest, prophet, and king. An indelible character is given, as in Baptism and Confirmation. Holy Orders cannot be repeated, and it cannot be conferred for a time. A man may, for a just reason, be forbidden to exercise the office, or be discharged from its obligations. He cannot become a layman again in the strict sense. The character remains. Because it is Christ who acts through the ordained minister, the unworthiness of the minister does not stop Christ from acting. Saint Augustine says that what flows through a proud minister keeps its purity, and what passes through him remains dear and reaches the fertile earth. The people may grieve over a bad priest. They do not have to doubt the sacrament he was ordained to celebrate, when he celebrates it validly. They should still pray for priests, and priests should still fear to handle holy things with a light heart.

Matrimony is the sacrament of the covenant by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, ordered by its nature to the good of the spouses and to the procreation and education of children. Christ the Lord raised marriage between the baptised to the dignity of a sacrament. The covenant was not invented by the Church. The Creator founded it and gave it its own laws. Christ made the marriage of the baptised a sign of his union with the Church, and a means of grace. Saint Paul calls that union a great mystery. The Catechism receives his words as the key to this sacrament.

What the sacrament does is to give the spouses the grace to love each other with the love with which Christ has loved the Church. That grace perfects their human love, strengthens their indissoluble unity, and sanctifies them on the way to eternal life. The goods that belong to marriage by its nature, and that the sacrament does not cancel, are unity, indissolubility, and openness to children. Polygamy contradicts the unity. Divorce attempts to separate what God has joined. A refusal of children turns married life away from the child, whom the Second Vatican Council called the supreme gift of marriage. The consent of the spouses is the act that makes the marriage. If consent is lacking, there is no marriage. Consent is a human act by which the man and the woman mutually give and accept each other, freely, without coercion or grave fear, and without an impediment of the natural or ecclesiastical law. No human power can supply that consent for them.

In the Latin Church it is ordinarily understood that the spouses themselves are the ministers of the sacrament. They confer it on each other by expressing their consent before the Church. In the Eastern liturgies the minister is the priest or the bishop who, after receiving the consent, crowns the bridegroom and the bride. The difference of minister is a difference of liturgical tradition, not a difference about whether marriage is a sacrament. In the Latin Church the priest, or the deacon, who assists receives the consent in the name of the Church and gives the Church's blessing. The presence of the Church's minister and of the witnesses shows that marriage is a reality of the Church, not a private arrangement. The Church requires Catholics to marry according to the form the Church lays down: before the priest or deacon, or before a person the Church has authorised, and before witnesses. Several reasons converge. Sacramental marriage is a liturgical act. It creates rights and duties in the Church. The state of life needs to be certain. The public promise protects the "I do" once it has been given. A Catholic who attempts marriage outside that form, without a dispensation, has not done what the Church requires for a valid marriage. The consequences are not for the couple to deduce alone. They are for the priest to establish from the facts.

Preparation matters. The example of parents is the first preparation. The pastor and the parish have an indispensable part, especially in an age when many grow up without having seen a faithful marriage. It is appropriate for the couple to go to the sacrament of Penance before they marry. In the Latin Rite a marriage of two Catholics normally takes place during Mass, so that their consent is joined to the offering of Christ and sealed by Holy Communion. Where one party is not Catholic, or is not baptised, the celebration is arranged as the law provides, and Holy Communion is not pretended.

A marriage the priest must hear about is to be told at the start, not discovered later. This is the same insistence as in the file on becoming a Catholic, and it belongs in this file because it belongs to the sacrament. A person who has never married says so. A person who is married says where and how, and whether both were free. A person who has been divorced, or whose spouse has been divorced, says so in the first conversation, not in the week of a wedding and not in the week of reception into the Church. The Church teaches that a valid marriage cannot be dissolved by a civil divorce. The remarriage of persons divorced from a living, lawful spouse contravenes the plan and the law of God as Christ taught it. Such persons are not separated from the Church, but they cannot receive Eucharistic communion while they live in that state. They are still called to a Christian life, and to the Catholic upbringing of their children. Where there is a reason to think that what looked like a marriage was never a true bond, the Church can examine the facts. After that examination by the competent tribunal, the Church can declare the nullity of a marriage, which means that the marriage never existed. It is not a divorce under a different name. This file does not describe the steps of that examination. The priest does, when the facts require it. Some cases are simple. Some take a long time. Concealment helps none of them. Mercy begins with the truth told early.

A mixed marriage, between a Catholic and a baptised Christian not in full communion, needs the express permission of the Church's authority to be lawful. A marriage between a Catholic and a person who is not baptised needs a dispensation for validity. Both ask that the parties know and do not exclude what marriage is, and that the Catholic party promise to do all in his or her power to have the children baptised and brought up in the Catholic Church. Difference of faith is not always an absolute bar. It is never a small thing. The priest is told at the beginning, so that permission or dispensation, if it can be given, is sought in time, and so that no one walks into a wedding that the Church cannot recognise.

A person who has studied the seven sacraments has studied the ordinary ways Christ acts in the Church. The extraordinary ways are not denied. They are not the path a life is built on. The path is Baptism once, Confirmation once, the Eucharist often, Penance whenever grave sin requires it and regularly besides, the Anointing of the Sick when serious illness or frail old age has brought danger of death, Holy Orders for the man the Church calls, and Matrimony for the man and the woman who are free to consent. The Mass holds them together. It is the sacrifice of the Cross made present, and it is the prayer to which the others lead.

The next step for a person who is not yet Catholic is the parish Mass, not a date. Go to a Catholic parish. Stay through the Mass, from the sign of the cross to the dismissal. Do not receive Holy Communion. If the desire to go further is real, speak to the priest. Say whether you have been baptised, and say what is true about marriage, at the start. The files on becoming a Catholic and on the rites of initiation already say how the Church walks from that conversation. This file does not set a season, and it does not enrol anyone. The sacraments are ready when the person is ready and when the Church judges the person ready. Until then, the Mass is the right place to be.

Sources: the Catechism of the Catholic Church, on the Holy See's site, for the doctrine of the Mass and of the seven sacraments; the Order of Mass of the Liturgy Office of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, for the shape of the parish Mass and for the people's parts quoted here; the Douay-Rheims, for the short lines of Scripture.