Good information on the Sacraments

Read the Catechism in a Year

Catechism in a Year: Day 159

Part Two: How We Celebrate the Christian Mysteries
- Section One: God Acts in Our Regard by Means of Sacred Signs
-- Chapter One: God and the Sacred Liturgy
Question 176: Which sacraments can be received only once in a lifetime?

Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders. These sacraments imprint an indelible mark on the soul of the Christian. Baptism and Confirmation make him once and for all a child of God and Christlike. Holy Orders similarly leaves an imprint on a Christian man.

Just as someone always is and remains a child of his parents (and not just “sometimes” or “a little bit”), so also through Baptism and Confirmation one becomes forever a child of God, Christlike, and a member of his Church. Similarly, Holy Orders is not a “job” that a man does until retirement; rather, it is an irrevocable charism (gift of grace). Because God is faithful, the effect of these sacraments is maintained forever for the Christian—as receptivity to God’s call, as a vocation, and as protection. Consequently these sacraments cannot be repeated.

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Question 177: Why is faith a prerequisite for the sacraments?

Sacraments are not magic. A sacrament can be effective only if one understands and accepts it in faith. Sacraments not only presuppose faith, they also strengthen it and give expression to it.

Jesus commissioned the apostles first to make people disciples through their preaching, in other words, to awaken their faith and only then to baptize them. There are two things, therefore, that we receive from the Church: faith and the sacraments. Even today someone becomes a Christian, not through a mere ritual or by being listed in a register, but rather through acceptance of the true faith. We receive the true faith from the Church. She vouches for it. Because the Church’s faith is expressed in the liturgy, no sacramental ritual can be changed or manipulated at the discretion of an individual minister or a congregation.

Dig Deeper: Corresponding CCC section (1121-1126) and other references here.
Recommended Reading in preparation for Easter: Jesus of Nazareth - Holy Week by Pope Benedict XVI