By Deacon Mike Seibert
Connecting Liturgy and Life
Editor’s note: For 2026, the weekly Connecting Faith and Life column has been renamed Connecting Liturgy and Life. The columns consist of reflections on Part Two of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), which focuses on the Liturgy and the Sacraments.
cf. CCC 1113-1126
Paragraph 1116 of the Catechism might help: “Sacraments are ‘powers that comes forth’ from the Body of Christ.” Sounds too simple … you’re telling me that any time the power of God comes from the Body of Christ, it’s a Sacrament? Not quite. God can and often does reveal his power outside of the Sacraments. For example, it can be as simple as recognizing God’s power in an answered prayer or a miracle that happens through the intercession of the saints.
Sacraments are different; they are explicit “actions of the Holy Spirit” (CCC 1116) given to us by Christ in order to reveal God’s power … and Jesus himself is acting. “The ordained priesthood guarantees that it really is Christ who acts in the sacraments through the Holy Spirit for the Church” (1120). If Christ himself is the one acting through the ordained priesthood, doesn’t that give us assurance that he will act whenever we approach the Sacraments? The Holy Spirit draws us all toward the father by nudging us toward the very Sacraments he gave us to encounter him!
Where would we be without the Sacraments? Would the Church still exist? In Mathew 28:20, Jesus promised to be “with you always to the end of the age.” I propose that the Sacraments are precisely how Jesus fulfills that promise.
In paragraph 1120, we see a direct connection between what we do today and what Jesus did. “The saving mission entrusted by the father to his incarnate son was committed to the apostles and through them to their successors: They receive the Spirit of Jesus to act in his name and in his person.” There are a couple of key points to highlight.
First, our bishops/priests are given the very mission entrusted to Jesus. They do what Jesus did. Jesus forgave sins, invited people to follow him, he healed, he cast out evil spirits, and much more.
Second, our priests don’t just act “in the name” of Jesus, they uniquely act “in persona Christi,” meaning “in the person of Christ.” When you go to confession, the priest holds up his hand and absolves you of your sin, but it’s actually Jesus saying “I absolve you,” using the voice and hand of the priest. When Father says the words of consecration, it’s not father speaking, but Jesus himself standing there and saying “this IS my body.”
Going back to paragraph 1116, obviously, not every display of the power of God is a Sacrament. But what if the lay faithful imitate Christ, such as by helping out a neighbor? That’s not a Sacrament, because it lacks the specific rite, minister and assurance of Christ’s actions. However, it does maintain a “sacramental character” because it reveals the power of God, as Jesus said, “let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). Our good works make visible to the world the glory of our invisible God.
Through all human hands in the Church (including you and me), Jesus continues to pour out his love, mercy and grace to the world. Every baptized person is “priest, prophet and king,” and therefore every one of us has the power and responsibility to continue the work of Christ in our own sphere of influence.
So why do we need Sacraments? God created us and knows we’re more naturally inclined to experience supernatural reality when we have something tangible. In the Old Testament, every time the prophets turned around, the Israelites made idols or altars to false gods (e.g. the golden calf at Mt. Sinai). God knows our need for physicality and fulfilled it by coming in the flesh (incarnate) — giving us a tangible human person to relate to in the person of Jesus. He knows we need that physicality to continue to experience his presence to the end of the age; through the Church, the Sacraments provide that for us. The Sacraments don’t just communicate to us about God or make us feel God’s presence — the Sacraments are physical experiences of the invisible reality of God’s love, mercy and grace.