Sacramental Grace

DRAFT

Argument for infant baptism - its not the one who is being baptized 

Sacraments are visible rites seen as signs and efficacious channels of the grace of God to all those who receive them with the proper disposition.  The sacraments according to Catholic theology were instituted by Jesus and entrusted to the Church.  According to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Sacraments have a visible and invisible reality, a reality open to all the human senses but grasped in its God-given depths with the eyes of faith. When parents hug their children, for example, the visible reality we see is the hug. The invisible reality the hug conveys is love. We cannot "see" the love the hug expresses, though sometimes we can see its nurturing effect in the child. USCCB

[  ] Celebrated worthily in faith, the sacraments confer the grace that they signify.

[  ] Sacranents are efficacious because in them Christ himself is at work: it is he who baptizes, he who acts in his sacraments in order to communicate the grace that each sacrament signifies CCC 1127


[  ] By virtue of the saving work of Christ, the sacramental graceis not a function of the celebrant or the recipient, but by the power of God. CCC 1128


[  ] The fruits of the sacraments also depend on the disposition of the one who receives them. CCC 1128


[  ]  The Church affirms that for believers the sacraments of the New Covenant are necessary for salvation
CCC 1129

From the moment that a sacrament is celebrated in accordance with the

1127 Celebrated worthily in faith, the sacraments confer the grace that they signify. They are efficacious because in them Christ himself is at work: it is he who baptizes, he who acts in his sacraments in order to communicate the grace that each sacrament signifies. The Father always hears the prayer of his Son's Church which, in the epiclesis of each sacrament, expresses her faith in the power of the Spirit. As fire transforms into itself everything it touches, so the Holy Spirit transforms into the divine life whatever is subjected to his power.


1128 This is the meaning of the Church's affirmation that the sacraments act ex opere operato (literally: "by the very fact of the action's being performed"), i.e., by virtue of the saving work of Christ, accomplished once for all. It follows that "the sacrament is not wrought by the righteousness of either the celebrant or the recipient, but by the power of God." From the moment that a sacrament is celebrated in accordance with the intention of the Church, the power of Christ and his Spirit acts in and through it, independently of the personal holiness of the minister. Nevertheless, the fruits of the sacraments also depend on the disposition of the one who receives them.

1129 The Church affirms that for believers the sacraments of the New Covenant are necessary for salvation. "Sacramental grace" is the grace of the Holy Spirit, given by Christ and proper to each sacrament. The Spirit heals and transforms those who receive him by conforming them to the Son of God. The fruit of the sacramental life is that the Spirit of adoption makes the faithful partakers in the divine nature by uniting them in a living union with the only Son, the Savior.