Explore 58 questions and answers about The Eucharist and the Mass, answered by Dr. Robert Sungenis.
Catholics are often told that the seven sacraments are medieval inventions layered over a simpler gospel. The opposite is true. Nearly every one of them rests on a passage of Scripture the Church insisted on reading literally, at moments when spiritualizing it away would have been much easier. Unless a man is born of water and the Spirit. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven. This is my body. Let him call in the priests of the church and let them anoint him with oil. Take those sentences at face value, as the Fathers did, and the sacramental system is what Christianity looks like. Take them as metaphors and you end up with a religion of your own making. The answers below work through the seven sacraments one by one, with the Scripture, the councils and the early Fathers set out so you can check the work yourself.