Catechism of the Catholic Church

Part Two: The Celebration of the Christian Mystery

Section Two: The Seven Sacraments of the Church

SECTION TWO - 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:^[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."^[2]

Chapter One: The Sacraments of Christian Initiation

1. Article One - The Sacrament of Baptism
   1. What is this Sacrament Called?
   2. Baptism in the Economy of Salvation
   3. How is the Sacrament of Baptism Celebrated?
   4. Who Can Receive Baptism?
   5. Who Can Baptize?
   6. The Necessity of Baptism
   7. The Grace of Baptism
2. Article Two: The Sacrament of Confirmation
   1. Confirmation in the Econony of Salvation
   2. The Signs and the Rite of Confirmation
   3. The Effects of Confirmation
   4. Who Can Receive this Sacrament?
   5. The Minister of Confirmation
3. Article Three: The Sacrament of the Eucharist
   1. The Eucharist - Source and Summit of Ecclesial Life
   2. What is this Sacrament Called?
   3. The Eucharist in the Economy of Salvation
   4. The Liturgical Celebration of the Eucharist
   5. The Sacramental Sacrifice Thanksgiving, Memorial, Presence
   6. The Paschal Banquet
   7. The Eucharist - "Pledge of the Glory to Come"

Chapter Two: The Sacraments of Healing

1. Article Four: The Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation
   1. What is this Sacrament Called?
   2. Why a Sacrament of Reconciliation after Baptism?
   3. The Conversion of the Baptized
   4. Interior Penance
   5. The Many Forms of Penance in the Christian Life
   6. The Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation
   7. The Acts of the Penitent
   8. The Minister of this Sacrament
   9. The Effects of this Sacrament
   10. Indulgences
   11. The Celebration of the Sacrament of Penance
2. Article Five: The Anointing of the Sick
   1. Its Foundations in the Economy of Salvation
   2. Who Receives and Who Administers this Sacrament?
   3. How is this Sacrament Celebrated?
   4. The Effects of The Celebration of this Sacrament
   5. Viaticum, the Last Sacrament of the Christian

Chapter Three: The Sacraments at the Service of Communion

1. Article Six: The Sacrament of Holy Orders
   1. Why is this Sacrament called "Orders"?
   2. The Sacrament of Holy Orders in the Economy of Salvation
   3. The Three Degrees of the Sacrament of Holy Orders
   4. The Celebration of this Sacrament
   5. Who can Confer this Sacrament?
   6. Who Can Receive this Sacrament?
   7. The Effects of the Sacrament of Holy Orders
2. Article Seven: The Sacrament of Matrimony
   1. Marriage in God's Plan
   2. The Celebration of Marriage
   3. Matrimonial Consent
   4. The Effects of the Sacrament of Matrimony
   5. The Goods and Requirements of Conjugal Love
   6. The Domestic Church

Chapter Four: Other Liturgical Celebrations

1. Article One: Sacramentals
2. Article Two: Christian Funerals
   1. The Christian's Last Passover
   2. The Celebration of Funerals