Sacramentals

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sacramentals are things (sacramentalia) set apart or blessed by the Catholic Church to manifest the respect due to the Sacraments, and so to excite good thoughts and to increase devotion, and through these movements of the heart to remit venial sin, according to the Council of Trent (Session XXII, 15). When the term is used in the singular it is preceded by an article ("a sacramental" or "the sacramental") as sacramental is also an adjective describing the Sacraments.

The Catholic Church recognizes two differences between the Sacraments and the sacramentals:

The Sacraments were instituted by Jesus Christ; most, but not all, of the sacramentals were instituted by the Church.
The Sacraments give grace of themselves and are always fruitful when the faithful place no obstacle in the way; the sacramentals excite pious dispositions, by means of which the faithful may obtain grace. It is not the sacramental itself that gives grace, but the devotion, the love of God, or sorrow for sin that it inspires, and the prayers of the Church that render sacramentals efficacious against evil.

Although the Church places restrictions on the reception by non-Catholics of Catholic Church-administered Sacraments, this is not true of the sacramentals. The pious use of sacramentals by non-Catholics is permitted. As blessed objects or rituals that represent sacred beliefs and persons, disrespect to sacramentals is considered a form of sacrilege.

[edit] Examples

Sacramentals used in the Catholic Church include:

Agnus Dei
Altars
Ashes
Bells
Blessed medals
Blessed palms
Blessing of people
Bowing the head
Bows
Candles
Church buildings
Churching of women
Crucifixes
Exorcism
Feet washing
Fire
Folding hands
Genuflection
Holy water
Icons
Incense
Liturgical hours
Liturgical vessels
Liturgical year
Mary gardens
Minor orders
Oil
Prostrations
Religious habits
Rosaries
Salt
Scapulars
Sign of the cross
Statues
Vestments
Wedding rings

[edit] Protestant usage

In Protestant usage, "sacramental" is used by some groups, in particular Anglicans and some Methodists, to refer to the "five commonly called sacraments" that are recoginzed as Sacraments by the Roman Catholic Church, but not by most Protestants: marriage, confirmation, ordination, confession, unction/annointing. This usage is intended to emphasize the Protestant belief that only Baptism and the Eucharist are explicitly ordained by Christ in the gospels with parallel rites in the Old Testament (in Circumcision and Passover), but that these sacramentals are nevertheless similar to sacraments in many respects and can be valuable means of grace for believers.