SACRAMENTS & SACRAMENTALS

A blessed Sunday to all! What i am about to tackle now is the subject of Sacraments & Sacramentals. For many, sacraments and sacramentals are the same. But there is a very big difference in meaning between the two words. From my cathechesis, a Sacrament is an outward sign instituted by Christ for the purpose of giving grace to souls. On the otherhand, a Sacramental is also an outward sign but the difference lies in the one who instituted it and the reason why it was instituted. Sacramentals are instituted by the Church and do not give of themselves give grace. Rather, they dispose us for grace by arousing in us sentiments of faith and love which make a claim upon God for answering grace. Whatever grace we may obtain through the use of the sacramentals comes to us because of our own interior dispositions and because of the power of the Church's prayers which backs up the sacramentals. Some of the more known sacramentals are the following : Holy Water, articles of devition such as candles, ashes, palms, crucifixes, medals, rasaries, scapulars, images of our LOrd and the Blessed Mother. Sacramentals are likewise actions and they are the various blessings and exorcism which the church imparts through her bishops and priests. some blessings are of dedicatory in nature, such as blessing of a chalice, an altar, Mass vestments or some other thing that is to be set aside and used exclusively for Divine worship. Other blessings are simply invocative, bespeaking God's bounty and protection in regard to the thing or the person (i.e. blessing of the home, automobiles, fields of crops, of infants.

There is a very special kind of sacramental action and that is Exorcism, in which the Church, in Christ's Name, commands the devil to leave/depart the body of the person whom he has taken possession of. It must be remembered that before Jesus's death on the cross, Satan's power over man and nature was much greater than it is now. That is why diabolical possession was much more common before Calvary than it is now. But by Jesus' death on the cross, we all know that we have been redeemed that because of it the dominion of Satan was broken. Rarely now that God permits diabolical possession.

That is why the Church, before allowing an official exorcism, is very careful to determine that it is a real case of possession and not just mere mental disturbance. Moreover, only a priest who has obtained faculty from a bishop can perfom an exorcism solemnly and after only a period of fasting and prayer in preparation for the attack of the father of lies.