Christ instituted the sacraments of the new law.  There are seven: Baptism, Confirmation, 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:  they give birth and increase, healing and mission to the Christian’s life of faith.  Thus there is a certain resemblance between the stages of natural life and the stages of the spiritual life.

The sacraments of Christian initiation – Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist – lay the foundations of every Christian life.

The sacraments of Christian initiation, Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist, provide the foundations of Christian life.

Through the sacraments of Christian initiation, man receives the new life of Christ.  Now we carry this life “in earthen vessels” ( 2 Cor 4:7), and it remains “hidden with Christ in God” (Col 3:3).  We are still in our “earthly tent,” subject to suffering, illness, and death.  This new life as a child of God can be weakened and even lost by sin.

The Lord Jesus Christ, physician of our souls and bodies, who forgave the sins of the paralytic and restored him to bodily health, has willed that his church continue, in the power of the Holy Spirit, his work of healing and salvation, even among her own members.  This is the purpose  of the two sacraments of healing:  the sacrament of Penance and the Anointing of the Sick.

Holy Orders and Matrimony are directed towards the salvation of others; if they contribute as well to personal salvation, it is through service to others that they do so. They confer a particular mission in the Church and serve to build up the People of God.

The Eucharist is the heart and the summit of the Church’s life, for in it Christ associates his Church and all her members with his sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving offered once for all on the cross to his Father; by this sacrifice he pours out the graces of salvation on his Body which is the Church.  The Eucharist is the memorial of Christ’s Passover, that is, of the work of salvation accomplished by the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, a work made present by the liturgical action.

It is Christ himself, who, acting through the ministry of the priests, offers the Eucharistic sacrifice.  And it is the same Christ, really present under the species of bread and wine, who is the offering of the Eucharistic sacrifice.

(Excerpted from the Catechism of the Catholic Church)