Our Sacramental Life in Jesus Christ

O God, awho bring us to participate in the mystery of the Passion and Resurrection of your Son, grant, we pray, that, strengthened by the spirit of adoption as your children, we may always walk in newness of life. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Life-Giving Rituals which connect us to the Fruits of Jesus’ Paschal Mystery

“The Church was made manifest to the world on the day of Pentecost by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. 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.” 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.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1016).

“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: 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.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1210).

Introduction to Sacraments Video – by Sketchy Catholicism

Sacraments of Initiation

BAPTISM
In His Passover Christ opened to all men the fountain of Baptism. He had already spoken of his Passion, which he was about to suffer in Jerusalem, as a “Baptism” with which he had to be baptized. The blood and water that flowed from the pierced side of the crucified Jesus are types of Baptism and the Eucharist, the sacraments of new life. From then on, it is possible “to be born of water and the Spirit” in order to enter the Kingdom of God. See where you are baptized, see where Baptism comes from, if not from the cross of Christ, from his death. There is the whole mystery: he died for you. In him you are redeemed, in him you are saved. CCC 1225

Celebration of Baptism at our Parish Church
See Infant Baptism

 

CONFIRMATION
Like Baptism which it completes, Confirmation is given only once, for it too imprints on the soul an indelible spiritual mark, the “character,” which is the sign that Jesus Christ has marked a Christian with the seal of his Spirit by clothing him with power from on high so that he may be his witness.This “character” perfects the common priesthood of the faithful, received in Baptism, and “the confirmed person receives the power to profess faith in Christ publicly and as it were officially (quasi Ex officio). CCC 1304-1305

Celebration of Confirmation at our Parish Church
Sacramental Preparation for the sacrament of Confirmation is in addition to religious education carried out in elementary/middle school at our parish school or in our PSR program and is typically celebrated during the 8th-grade year or whenever the child is properly disposed. Beginning in the 2021 – 2022 spiritual year, we will require a child to be in a formal religious education program the year before a sacramental year for first penance & holy Communion or Confirmation.

Requirements for a Catholic Sponsor:

  • Person must be at least 16 years of age
  • Person must be a fully Initiated Catholic; that is, have received the sacrament of Baptism, Confirmation, and Communion
  • Person must be an active and participating Catholic; attending Mass each week and holy days of obligation and receiving the sacraments of Communion and Penance
  • Person must actively strive to live out his/her commitment to Christ in the world
  • If married, the person must not be in an irregular marriage
  • Sponsor cannot be the mother or father of the candidate to be confirmed

 

HOLY COMMUNION / EUCHARIST
The holy Eucharist completes Christian initiation. Those who have been raised to the dignity of the royal priesthood by Baptism and configured more deeply to Christ by Confirmation participate with the whole community in the Lord’s own sacrifice by means of the Eucharist. “At the Last Supper, on the night he was betrayed, our Savior instituted the Eucharistic sacrifice of his Body and Blood. This he did in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the cross throughout the ages until he should come again, and so to entrust to his beloved Spouse, the Church, a memorial of his death and resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a Paschal banquet ‘in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us. CCC 1322-1323

Reception of first Holy Communion at our Parish Church
Sacramental Preparation for the sacrament of holy Communion is done in addition to education in elementary school at our parish school or in our PSR Program and is celebrated after Penance in the 2nd grade year or whenever the child is properly disposed. Beginning in the 2021 – 2022 spiritual year, we will require a child to be in a formal religious education program the year before a sacramental year for first penance & holy Communion or Confirmation.

Sacraments of Healing

PENANCE / RECONCILIATION / CONFESSION
Only God forgives sins. Since he is the Son of God, Jesus says of himself, “The Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins” and exercises this divine power: “Your sins are forgiven.” Further, by virtue of his divine authority he gives this power to men to exercise in his name. CCC 1441

Confession is available every Saturday from 4 – 5pm in the Church (confessional in back – Blessed Sacrament Side) or by appointment.

ANOINTING OF THE SICK
The Church believes and confesses that among the seven sacraments there is one especially intended to strengthen those who are being tried by illness, the Anointing of the Sick. This sacred anointing of the sick was instituted by Christ our Lord as a true and proper sacrament of the New Testament. It is alluded to indeed by Mark, but is recommended to the faithful and promulgated by James the apostle and brother of the Lord. CCC 1511

For the celebration of Anointing in the home, hospital, care center, or at church, please contact the Parish Office or Fr. Eilerman.

Sacraments of Vocation

MATRIMONY
The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring; this covenant between baptized persons has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament.” CCC 1601

Please speak to a priest or deacon at least 6 months before the intended date to begin sacramental preparation.

Marriage Information:

NFP Instructor: Parishioner Maranda Patzkowsky is a certified instructor who teaches the SymptoPro NFP method which is a branch of the Symptothermal Method. This method uses physical biomarkers such as temperature, sensation, and cervical mucus that a woman charts daily to help a couple determine fertile and infertile times within the confines of Church teaching. Visit her website to learn more, see when classes are offered next, or make contact with Maranda. WEBSITE

** If you were married outside of the Catholic Church or have been married, divorced and civilly remarried without a decree of nullity for your prior marraige,  Fr. Eilerman or Dcn. Sullivan would be happy to meet with you about your marriage situation to see what can be done to regularize your marriage in the Church. Please speak with one of them about meeting to discuss this process by calling: 740.653.0997.

HOLY ORDERS
This is the sacrament through which the mission entrusted by Christ to his apostles continues to be exercised in the Church until the end of time: thus it is the sacrament of apostolic ministry. It includes three degrees: episcopate, presbyterate, and diaconate. The word order in Roman antiquity designated an established civil body, especially a governing body. Ordinatio means incorporation into an ordo. In the Church there are established bodies which Tradition, not without a basis in Sacred Scripture,4 has since ancient times called taxeis (Greek) or ordines. And so the liturgy speaks of the ordo episcoporum, the ordo presbyterorum, the ordo diaconorum. Other groups also receive this name of ordo: catechumens, virgins, spouses, widows,. . . .  Integration into one of these bodies in the Church was accomplished by a rite called ordinatio, a religious and liturgical act which was a consecration, a blessing or a sacrament. Today the word “ordination” is reserved for the sacramental act which integrates a man into the order of bishops, presbyters, or deacons, and goes beyond a simple election, designation, delegation, or institution by the community, for it confers a gift of the Holy Spirit that permits the exercise of a “sacred power” (sacra potestas)5 which can come only from Christ himself through his Church. Ordination is also called consecratio, for it is a setting apart and an investiture by Christ himself for his Church. The laying on of hands by the bishop, with the consecratory prayer, constitutes the visible sign of this ordination. CCC 1536-1538

Diocese of Columbus –Vocations: Seek Holiness

If you are a man who feels a calling to the priesthood or man/woman called to religious life, please speak with Fr. Eilerman.

Questions? Email Brian McCauley, Director of Religious Education