We have just completed two series of catechetical articles in this column. There were 18 articles from Sept. 12 to Jan. 23 on the Creed, and there were 11 articles from Jan. 30 to April 9 on the Commandments. You can read these articles on my website, www.fatheranthonyho.ca.

This week we are launching the third and last series of catechetical articles on the sacraments and prayer.

In order to achieve eternal salvation, we need to keep the Commandments; but in order to keep the Commandments, we need the grace of God. The easiest ways of obtaining grace are prayer and the sacraments.

A sacrament is an outward sign, instituted by Christ, which gives grace. There are seven sacraments. The sacraments of initiation: baptism, confirmation, and Holy Eucharist, enable us to enter the community of the Church. Penance and anointing of the sick are sacraments of healing. Holy orders and matrimony are sacraments at the service of communion.

Baptism, confirmation, and holy orders can be received only once, for they imprint on the soul a spiritual mark or character, which consists in a special dedication to Christ.

Bishop Louis LaRavoire Morrow, author of My Catholic Faith, explains that the sacramental character “is indelible, and is not effaced by anything, not even mortal sin. It will be borne by the soul for all eternity, for its greater glory if in heaven, and for its greater shame if in hell.”

Traditionally, baptism and penance are called “sacraments of the dead,” and the other five sacraments are called “sacraments of the living.”

Bishop Morrow writes, “Sacraments of the dead have for their chief purpose to give the supernatural life of sanctifying grace to souls spiritually dead through sin; sacraments of the living have for their chief purpose to give more grace to souls already spiritually alive through sanctifying grace.”

The Catechism of Catholic Doctrine states: “They who, knowing themselves to be in a state of mortal sin, receive a sacrament of the living, receive the sacrament unworthily and commit a mortal sin of sacrilege.”

Hence a person who is conscious of mortal sin should go to confession before receiving Holy Communion.

In order to gain basic knowledge of the sacraments, it is good to memorize the form, matter, minister, and effects of each sacrament.

In his book The Question and Answer Catholic Catechism, Father John Hardon, SJ, writes, “The form is the essential words pronounced by the one who administers or performs the sacrament. Thus in baptism the form is: ‘I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit’; and in Penance it is: ‘I absolve you from your sins.'”

“The matter of a sacrament is the external action performed by the minister of the sacrament. It normally involves the use of some material thing like oil, water, bread, or wine.”

Father Hardon also points out that “to constitute a sacrament, the matter and form must be joined together in a single action. The same person must unite the matter and form without notable interruption between using the matter and pronouncing the words.”

The minister of a sacrament is the one who has the power to administer it.

The effects of the sacraments are grace and the sacramental character. Regarding grace, the sacraments produce or increase sanctifying grace, and each sacrament has its distinctive sacramental grace.

According to Father Hardon, sacramental grace is “a special grace that gives a person the right to those actual graces necessary to attain the end for which the sacrament was instituted, since each of the sacraments produces what it signifies.”