Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception Parish, Freeland, PA

The Sacramental Economy

1076 The Church was made manifest to the world on the day of Pentecost by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.Cf. SC 6; LG 2. The gift of the Spirit ushers in a new era in the "dispensation of the mystery"—the age of the Church, during which Christ manifests, makes present, and communicates his work of salvation through the liturgy of his Church, "until he comes."1 Cor 11:26. In this age of the Church Christ now lives and acts in and with his Church, in a new way appropriate to this new age. He acts through the sacraments in what the common Tradition of the East and the West calls "the sacramental economy"; this is the communication (or "dispensation") of the fruits of Christ's Paschal mystery in the celebration of the Church's "sacramental" liturgy.

It is therefore important first to explain this "sacramental dispensation" (chapter one). The nature and essential features of liturgical celebration will then appear more clearly (chapter two).

Chapter One

The Pascal Mystery in the age of the Church

THE LITURGY—WORK OF THE HOLY TRINITY

1110 In the liturgy of the Church, God the Father is blessed and adored as the source of all the blessings of creation and salvation with which he has blessed us in his Son, in order to give us the Spirit of filial adoption.

1111 Christ's work in the liturgy is sacramental: because his mystery of salvation is made present there by the power of his Holy Spirit; because his Body, which is the Church, is like a sacrament (sign and instrument) in which the Holy Spirit dispenses the mystery of salvation; and because through her liturgical actions the pilgrim Church already participates, as by a foretaste, in the heavenly liturgy.

1112 The mission of the Holy Spirit in the liturgy of the Church is to prepare the assembly to encounter Christ; to recall and manifest Christ to the faith of the assembly; to make the saving work of Christ present and active by his transforming power; and to make the gift of communion bear fruit in the Church.

THE PASCHAL MYSTERY IN THE CHURCH'S SACRAMENTS

The whole liturgical life of the Church revolves around the Eucharistic sacrifice and the sacraments.Cf. SC 6. There are seven sacraments in the Church:

Cf. Council of Lyons II (1274) DS 860; Council of Florence (1439) DS 1310; Council of Trent (1547): DS 1601.

Chapter Two

The Sacramental Celebration of the Pascal Mystery

CELEBRATING THE CHURCH'S LITURGY

1136 Liturgy is an "action" of the whole Christ (Christus totus). Those who even now celebrate it without signs are already in the heavenly liturgy, where celebration is wholly communion and feast.

The book of Revelation of St. John offers insights to this eternal, heavenly liturgy. John describes events and participants in his vision of heavenly liturgy.

1139 It is in this eternal liturgy that the Spirit and the Church enable us to participate whenever we celebrate the mystery of salvation in the sacraments.

LITURGICAL DIVERSITY AND THE UNITY OF THE MYSTERY

1200 From the first community of Jerusalem until the parousia, it is the same Pascal mystery that the Churches of God, faithful to the apostolic faith, celebrate in every place. The mystery celebrated in the liturgy is one, but the forms of its celebration are diverse.

Although liturgical tradition may vary, the sacraments maintain fidelity to apostolic Tradition and the catholicity of the Pascal mystery.

The Seven Sacraments of the Church

1210 Christ instituted the sacraments of the new law. There are seven: Baptism, Confirmation (or Chrismation), the Eucharist, Penance, the Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders, and Matrimony. The seven sacraments touch all the stages and all the important moments of Christian life:Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, STh III, 65, 1. they give birth and increase, healing and mission to the Christian's life of faith. There is thus a certain resemblance between the stages of natural life and the stages of the spiritual life.

1211 Following this analogy, the first chapter will expound the three sacraments of Christian initiation; the second, the sacraments of healing; and the third, the sacraments at the service of communion and the mission of the faithful. This order, while not the only one possible, does allow one to see that the sacraments form an organic whole in which each particular sacrament has its own vital place. In this organic whole, the Eucharist occupies a unique place as the "Sacrament of sacraments": "all the other sacraments are ordered to it as to their end."St. Thomas Aquinas, STh III, 65, 3.

Chapter One

The Sacraments of Christian Initiation

THE SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM
Baptism