No. 224 What are the sacraments and how many are there?

Definition and Number of Sacraments
📌 There are seven sacraments, defined as sensible and efficacious signs of grace instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, through which divine life is given.
💧 The seven sacraments are: Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Penance, Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders, and Matrimony.
🛐 They are dogmatically defined as seven because they were instituted by Jesus Christ; the Church cannot add or remove any.

Institution by Christ
📜 While the institution of every sacrament is not explicitly detailed in a single Gospel passage, the Church recognizes their divine origin through tradition and the Holy Spirit.
🍞 The institution of the Eucharist is clearly found in the Last Supper narrative, where Christ asked his apostles to continue the practice in memory of Him.
💍 The presence of Christ at the Wedding at Cana of Galilee is cited as the basis for the institution of the Sacrament of Matrimony.
👐 For sacraments like Penance (forgiveness of sins), the institution is linked to Christ telling the apostles: "Whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven them."

Efficacy and Continuity of Christ's Ministry
✨ All the words and actions of Jesus during his earthly life were salvific, anticipating the power of the sacraments.
✝️ The life of Christ, especially his Paschal Mystery (death and resurrection), is transmitted to us through the sacraments, making Christ currently effective.
🌍 Christ, as the glorified Christ, is currently more efficacious through the sacraments than He was 2,000 years ago, as His actions now transcend specific time and location.
🌿 The Church is visualized as a tree, where Christ is the invisible roots, the Church is the visible trunk, and the seven sacraments are the seven fruits through which we receive Christ's hidden life.

Sacraments and the Church
⛪ Sacraments are sacraments of Christ, administered through the Church, and are also **sacraments *for* the Church.
🏗️ Citing Saint Augustine, the sacraments make the Church**; for example, the Eucharist builds up the Church, rather than the Church simply giving birth to the Eucharist.

Key Points & Insights
➡️ The seven sacraments are the visible means through which believers receive the divine life instituted by Christ.
➡️ While the Eucharist's institution is explicit in the Gospels, others, like Anointing of the Sick, are understood through Christ's ministry to the sick, rather than a single explicit instruction.
➡️ Christ, in His current glorified state, acts through the sacraments with greater efficacy than during his physical time on Earth.
➡️ A core concept is that the sacraments actively form and define the essence of the Church, encapsulated by the phrase: "the sacraments make the Church."

📸 Video summarized with SummaryTube.com on Feb 03, 2026, 15:14 UTC