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This podcast is brought to you by Ascension. To discover even more free Catholic podcasts, videos and resources to help you live your faith every day, visit ascensionpress.com hi, I'm Edward Sri, and welcome to All Things Catholic, where real faith meets real life. Do we really need the sacraments? The Catholic Church talks about seven sacraments, but some people in the world may wonder, why do you need all this ritual? If I want to encounter God, do I really need all these sacraments? It just seems so complicated, you know, can I just have a spiritual relationship with God? Why do I need to go through all this ritual? Why do you need to go find some priest and go to some church and have this ceremony performed where he reads words out of some book and there's bread and wine and water and oil? If I want to encounter God, do I really need all that? I mean, can I just have a personal relationship with Jesus? Why do I need all this ritual and getting a priest and all these ritual words and these ritual actions? Does God really need all that to work powerfully in my life, to fill me with his love, to fill me with his grace? Does God really need all that? And doesn't that limit God's power? Isn't God able to work apart from the sacraments? Does he really need us to perform all these rituals before he'll act powerfully in our lives? These are questions that I've heard from many friends over the years, whether it was second secular friends or Protestant friends. And I think they're fair questions. But I also think there's some great answers. And that's what we're going to take a look at in this week's podcast. So welcome to All Things Catholic. I'm your host, Edward Sri. And you know, I love the sacraments. I love looking at them from scripture, I love teaching about them, and certainly I love receiving the sacraments. But over the years, I've heard these questions. These are the questions many people have out there. And there's even good Catholics that may wonder, huh? I wonder why we do all these sacraments. And this is one of those topics that we explore in this new faith formation program that I've been talking about the last couple months. It's called Foundations of a Journey through the Catechism. And I can't tell you how important it is that we as Catholics know our faith rooted in the catechism. It's not enough to just go with our 8th grade Catholic school education. If we're going to be adult Catholics, mature Christian disciples, we need to know What God has revealed and that is past on to us through Scripture. And the Catechism of the Catholic Church brings in all of the wisdom of the saints, the church councils, the theologians, as the tradition has developed over the years. What do we really believe as Catholics and why? And this is one of those big questions we explore in that study. So you can check it out. It's called Foundations of Faith. You can find more information@ascensionpress.com but let's take a look at this here. You know the idea of a sacrament. You may have heard the traditional textbook definition of a sacrament. A sacrament is an outward sign instituted by, to confer grace. I just want to unpack that for a moment. That traditional definition, and it's a good one. It's an outward sign. It does involve visible, physical things we can see, we can hear, we can touch. So they're outward, visible signs, first of all. Secondly, they're instituted by Jesus. These weren't just randomly made up by early Christians or medieval popes or some Vatican official in our own lifetime. No, no, these go all the way back to Jesus. Jesus established these, and he established them to confer grace. Now let me zoom in on that last point. The sacraments aren't just random rituals. They were instituted by Christ, and they're God's way for giving us grace, for giving us his life. All that he won for us on the cross in his death and resurrection. The treasure of salvation that he won for us, that's how he passes it on to us, is through baptism, through the Eucharist, through confirmation, through the seven sacraments. And I think about it this way. When I teach this in class, I often draw on a marker board. I draw a timeline, and I draw a cross at the beginning of the timeline. And I write 30 A.D. jesus dies around 30 A.D. and I draw a big cross there on the timeline. That's when Jesus died. That's when he rose from the dead. That's when he won for us the gift of salvation. He won for us the treasure of his grace, his very life that he wants to pour out into our hearts. But that's just it. He has to pour it out into our hearts. So if all Jesus did was die and rise from the dead and the story ends there, we're not saved. Because all Jesus won for us in the gift of salvation has to be given to us. The gift has to be entrusted to us. It has to be applied to our lives. And that's how the sacraments come into play, you see. So if I draw on the marker board, the beginning of the timeline, 30 AD and I had the big cross. That's when Jesus died and rose. Then I have, at the end of the timeline, over on the right hand side of the board, I draw a stick figure, and that's like us. And then I write the year. And if it was teaching it this year, I'd write 20, 25. And I write today. So this is where we are today. So Jesus died for us 2,000 years ago, but here we are today. How do we receive all that Jesus won for us? Then I draw a big arrow connecting the cross to the stick figure. So an arrow connecting the cross to the stick figure. And I write the word sacraments on top of that arrow. That the sacraments are the way Christ's work on the cross and in his resurrection, his work of salvation is applied to our lives. And so some of these sacraments lay the foundations for our Christian life. These are what we call the sacraments of initiation. In baptism, we're born into the family of God. We're filled with the life of the Son of God himself, Jesus. That's the beginning of our Christian life. And then that life is strengthened in us through confirmation. This is kind of a maturing of our faith, a strengthening in our faith. And then we're nourished throughout our journey of faith with the sacrament of the Eucharist. So three sacraments of initiation, baptism, confirmation, and the Eucharist. But the catechism goes on and says in Catechism 14:20, that this new life that we've received in Jesus, that's strengthened in confirmation, that's nourished over and over again in the Eucharist, it's going to be tested in suffering, illness and death. And it's going to be weakened, maybe even lost through sin. And so we need sacraments to help us on this arduous journey. It's not an easy journey. This new life in Christ has to be cared for. And it's going to be tested. When we faced incredible suffering, when we faced serious illness, when we're approaching our death, we may be filled with doubts. We may be filled with such physical pain, we may be filled with such fear. We need a sacrament to strengthen us in that moment. We need special graces to help us. And that's why God gives us the sacrament of anointing, one of the sacraments of healing. But a second sacrament of healing is the sacrament of reconciliation. When we turn away from that gift of God's life within us, when we don't respond to it, well, when we fall short in our sins or we even turn away from God in serious and immortal mortal sin, we need a sacrament that brings forgiveness, that brings healing to our soul, and that's the Sacrament of Reconciliation. And by the way, just a side note here, I love that we call the Sacrament of Reconciliation this sacrament where we confess our sins. Confession, it's considered one of the sacraments of healing. I just can't tell you how important it is to keep this in mind, that when we go to confess our sins in the Sacrament of Penance, Sacrament of Reconciliation, we're not just forgiven of our sins. God is healing us. He's giving us special graces to help us to overcome those sins. That's why we want to go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Often the Church requires us once a year. But wow, if you don't have enough sin in a week or two's time to bring to confession, I want to meet you because you must be a really, really holy person. We all struggle. I mean, I know some of the great saints would go every day, sometimes not because they were scrupulous. No, no. They just wanted to love God more and they wanted his healing power more. So they turned to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. And then the catechism describes in 1534 the two sacraments of mission, two sacraments directed toward the salvation of others. That's the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony and the Sacrament of Holy Orders and matrimony, that it gives me special graces to love my wife, to serve her, to serve her good and her holiness and the good of the holiness of our marriage and the good of the holiness of our children. I lot of grace to be a good husband, a much better husband than I am, I need extra help. That's why God gives us the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony to draw upon that font of grace throughout our lives. And he gives us the Sacrament of Holy Orders to help us have those appointed priests, the anointed ones that are carrying on that apostolic mission going back to the 12 apostles, they're the ones that are teaching us, guiding us, shepherding us, and they're the ones that are leading us in the sacraments. So these are the seven sacraments. But let's go back to that fundamental question we were looking at earlier. Why? Why did God choose to communicate his graces, to give us his graces through all these rituals, through these prayers, through using material things like candles and smoke and water and oil and bread and wine? Does God really need all that? I mean, can I just say a Prayer. Hey, God, come into my soul right now. Why do I need to go to a priest or a deacon and have baptism? You know, why can't I just, you know, pray for my child right here at home? Just say this little prayer. Jesus, bless this child. Fill him with your life. And why wouldn't the Holy Spirit just come down right then? Why do I need all this ritual? I believe God is so much simpler than this. Someone might say. They might say, oh, God can strengthen me and fill me with his grace all on his own. He doesn't have to use bread and wine. He doesn't have to use water from that baptismal font at your church and wait for the priest or deacon to say some words like a magical formula. No, no. Why do we need all this? Isn't it too complicated? And I would just want to highlight that there's a certain truth here. God does not need all this. God doesn't need bread and wine to act. God could manifest his presence all on his own. He doesn't need a priest to work through. God has acted in history without priests. He doesn't need certain ritual words to be performed. God is God. He's all powerful. He can do whatever he wants. So all the rituals that we have in the sacraments are not there because God needs it. God doesn't need these prayers from the book. He doesn't need the smoke rising up to him and incense. He doesn't need all these rituals. No, we have the sacraments and all the rituals because we need it. It's good for us. I think this is what many people miss, is that God gave us the sacraments with these rituals to wake us up. It's good for our soul. We need this. Why we need to be alert to the amazing things happening when someone is being baptized, when they're being infused with the life of the Holy Spirit in their soul. We need to wake up and see how amazing this is. This grace that is being bestowed upon this person at the moment of baptism is amazing. It's amazing grace. And so God in His wisdom, realizes we're human and we have senses, sight, hearing, taste, touch. We need. We need to use physical things to wake us up, to make us more aware of. Of the deeper, invisible realities, the spiritual realities we can't hear or see or feel or touch. In other words, I like to say this, that the sacraments help us to see what's really happening. To see with a spiritual vision, to see with the eyes of the angels. Again, God doesn't need that priest performing the Baptismal ritual. He's not dependent on that. God is God. He could just infuse that child at baptism with. With His Holy Spirit all on his own. But we need the priest. We need the priest to recite these prayers, these beautiful prayers that remind us of what's really happening. I'm going to just paraphrase, but one of the prayers I love is, it talks about how God used water at the time of creation, and the Spirit hovered over the waters at the beginning of creation and created the world. God used the water at the time of the flood. God used water and parted the waters of the Red Sea so the Israelites could. Could be liberated. And then God used water at the Jordan river at the time of John the Baptist. And so, like it goes through all the stories of salvation history, when water is used by God for his great work of salvation. And that beautiful prayer is reminding us that that same water that God used at the beginning of creation at the time of Noah, the time of Moses, the time of John the Baptist, that same God is using water again to do something even more amazing than the creation of the world, more amazing than the flood in the time of Noah, more amazing than the parting of the Red Sea in the time of Moses, more amazing than the baptism that we have by John the Baptist. What's more amazing than even the creation of the universe is the new creation of this soul. This soul is being made new. This is more amazing than the creation of the stars, the sun, the moon, the animals, the trees, the mountains, the valleys, the seas. More amazing than God creating the universe is him making a new creation in this child. At baptism. This child is being born anew. He's being filled with the life of God himself. And so to wake us up, to help us to have a spiritual vision of what's really happening here, we don't just go, on the drive home, let's just say a little prayer for little Johnny in the backseat there in the car seat there. We'll just pray that God fills him with his life. I mean, that's a beautiful thing. And we should pray even in the midst of our ordinary life. But to help us to see how extraordinary this is, we go through these extraordinary ceremonies to wake us up to see this isn't just any ordinary little thing happening in this world. This is one of the most amazing things happening right now in the entire universe is this child is about to be filled with the life of God. He's going to be made a new creation. And so we have the image of water being used here because God used water all through the Old Testament in these times of salvation, saving people from the flood, saving people from Pharaoh and slavery in Egypt. And God is now going to use water for an even greater act of salvation, saving the soul from the devil, from sin, from death, and filling this soul with God's very life. And so we have these ritual words, we have these ritual actions, and it's all meant to wake us up, to see with the eyes of angels at baptism. What else do we do? The priest or the deacon traces the sign of the cross over the body of this person with oil. And it's. Why are we doing this? Well, because it's showing us visibly what's happening invisibly. We see a priest tracing the sign of the cross with oil on the body of this person. But what's really happening is it's pointing to the reality underneath that we can't see, the invisible reality that this person is marked with the cross on their soul. They're sealed, as the scriptures say, sealed in Jesus Christ. So it's a visual, physical reality that we can apprehend, we can come to know through our senses to help us to appreciate what's really happening underneath. So God uses the physical, the words that we hear, the oil that we smell, that we see, that we can feel, the water that we can hear and see and feel. He uses these things to show us what's really happening. That's the point of the sacraments. And it'd be fun. We could go through all of them and look at all the different symbols, the bread and the wine and the nourishing that it does for us, showing us the spiritual reality of Jesus in the Eucharist. But I want to move on, though. I want to just take one more question, though. Doesn't this limit God's power? That's what some people may wonder, isn't this putting restraints on God? You're forcing God to go through and only work his amazing work and give us his grace through these rituals. And I just want to be clear, this is not putting any constraint on God. First of all, God instituted the sacraments. But secondly, God can work apart from the sacraments. The church teaches this. God can work in extraordinary ways in other people's lives. You know, if there's somebody who's about to be martyred, but they didn't get to finish rcaa, you know, they'd gone through all this training. They were intending to go, you know, be baptized on the Easter vigil, but let's say they ended up being martyred. Do you think God is going to say, oh, shucks, you didn't get baptism, so we can't let you into heaven? No. We call this baptism of desire that the person desired baptism, so they were intending to be baptized. And you can also call it baptism of blood is for a martyrdom, like somebody that actually chooses Jesus even though they weren't baptized. The great tradition would say God would work there and infuse that soul with his life, and that soul will be with God forever in heaven. God can work. And I know he. I've got great Protestant friends, and they may not have all the seven sacraments, but they're really remarkable Christians and holier in many ways, you know, I know than I'll ever be because I see their incredible love for the Lord and God working with them. And so God. God can work outside of the sacraments in people's lives. And by the way, he is working through the sacraments. Many Protestants have baptism and some of the, you know, some sense of a sacramental life depending on which denomination they're in. But the point is, God is not confined to working through the visible signs and the rituals and the priests involved in the sacraments. He can work in extraordinary ways apart from the sacraments. But this is the ordinary way that God works. In other words. Psych. Is it possible that someone could be saved over here and God can touch this soul? Is it possible? Yes. But we know for sure God does work through the sacraments. This is the ordinary way that he works. In other words, this is the way he established. This is what he wanted. He wanted us to approach him in this way. This is the way Christians had followed him from the very beginning. You read about the sacraments in Holy Scripture, those original apostles. We're giving the people the sacraments we have in the next generation, right after the apostles. We read about the early church fathers, really the very first generation, people like Ignatius of Antioch and Clement of Rome. You see them writing about the sacraments. So this is the way Christians have followed Jesus from the very first century. When they wanted to seek him, they sought him in the sacraments. And so, yes, is it possible for God to work in extraordinary ways apart from the sacraments, of course. But this is the ordinary way. This is the way he intends us. He longs for us to come to him in baptism, in confirmation, in the Eucharist, and reconciliation, especially because those sacraments are repeated over and over again. This does not limit God's power in any way. I actually would argue it shows God's power even more. I mean, think of it this way. God can use even a weak, sinful human being. This priest, even if you have the best priest, he sins, he's got original sin. And we know many priests aren't perfect. And God can use and work through this weak, sinful priest or deacon. He can use little things like water. He can use things like the wine that were from grapes that were stepped on, smashed. God can use those things to communicate his grace to pass on his life to us. That doesn't limit his power. It shows how powerful he is. He can work through sinful human beings and use them as his instrument. He can use the things that he has created, like water and wine and bread, that God can use those things to pass on his grace to us. Last thing I'll say is this. Where do we see this in the Bible, this idea of ritual? Think about this. How did God establish personal relationship in the Old Testament even before Jesus came? How did he establish it in the New Testament when Christ came? You see over and over again throughout the Bible, God making covenants with his people. Deep, intimate, personal relationships. And all those covenants you see over and over again in the Bible, they involve ritual words and ritual actions. And in those ritual words and actions, the soul is calling out God for help to help them to be faithful to the covenant. Whether it's Abraham offering up animals and sacrifice, whether it's Moses gathering the people under God's presence to share a meal. These were ritual actions that also had ritual ceremonial words. I think about Moses at Mount Sinai. They sacrificed the animals, they read the Ten Commandments. The people responded, yes, we will do this. And then they share this, this meal with underneath God's holy presence. God comes down to the more mountain of Mount Sinai and his presence is manifest in the form of a cloud. And they're sharing a meal underneath. Notice all this ritual. There were ritual words spoken, the Ten Commandments. The people respond, all the Lord has spoken, we will do. And then there's the ritual ceremony of animal sacrifice. I didn't even get into it. But there's a blood ritual. They have, they have a communion meal. There's all these rituals that are there. And what Moses and the people are doing are calling out to God for help. Help me, Lord, to be faithful to these 10 commandments. That's what we have. Catechism 1210 says we're given all these sacraments at the stages of natural life and the stages of the spiritual life to help us to do what we can't do on our own. Baptism, entering into this life, as I said, at birth. Confirmation, the strengthening, the maturing of our faith, the Eucharist, nourishing the faith. You can go through all the sacraments, but they're there to help us. And it makes sense because when God in the Bible establishes personal relationship, we see him having ritual words and ritual actions. The night before Jesus died, He didn't just say, I want to be with you forever. He established a ritual called the Eucharist. He told the apostles, do this in memorial of me. Do this ritual. These ritual words. Say these very words. This is my body offered up for you. This is my blood being poured out. Ritual words. And then take the bread and the wine and bless them and say these words over them. Ritual words and ritual actions at the climactic moment of Jesus public ministry. This is the way God has always worked with his people, not just in the Old Testament, but continuing into the New. And so he knows how we work. He knows we need these rituals to wake us up, to see how serious the moment is. This isn't just a random ceremony. No, God is acting in a powerful way. His Holy Spirit is entering into our souls. He's nourishing us with his very body, blood, soul and divinity. In the Eucharist, he's bringing his healing power and forgiveness in the sacrament of reconciliation. And to wake us up, what do we find for this intense moment of encountering God in personal relationship with Him? We find the same pattern of how he wants us to approach him with ritual words and ritual actions. That's what you see from the very beginning of Genesis, all the way through the Book of Revelation. This is the pattern. This is what we see in the seven sacraments. The gift of Jesus giving Himself to us through these ritual words and through these ritual actions. Thanks for listening. And again, if you want to learn more about the roots of our Catholic faith, whether it's about the seven sacraments or anything, check out that program called Foundations of A Journey through the Catechism. You can find it@ascensionpress.com.