Sacramentals

The starting point must be the official text. The Catechism of the Catholic Church opens its treatment of sacramentals by quoting the Second Vatican Council word for word:

"Holy Mother Church has, moreover, instituted sacramentals, which are sacred signs which bear a resemblance to the sacraments. They signify effects, particularly of a spiritual nature, which are obtained through the intercession of the Church. By them men are disposed to receive the chief effect of the sacraments, and various occasions in life are rendered holy." — Second Vatican Council, Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 60^[1]

The 1983 Code of Canon Law takes up the same definition in one compact sentence, which must be read closely:

"Sacramentals are sacred signs by which effects, especially spiritual ones, are signified in some imitation of the sacraments and are obtained through the intercession of the Church." — Code of Canon Law (1983), canon 1166^[2]

Every member of this definition counts. A sacramental is a sacred sign; it acts "in imitation of the sacraments"; it produces effects that are "especially spiritual"; and these effects are obtained "through the intercession of the Church". Let us take up these traits, for they suffice to dispel most confusions.

"In imitation of the sacraments": resemblance and difference

The key formula is "in a certain imitation of the sacraments" (Latin: ad quamdam sacramentorum imitationem). The sacramental resembles the sacrament: like it, it is a sensible sign — a water, an oil, a gesture, a word — which points to an invisible reality and puts it into play. But this imitation remains a certain imitation: it is analogical, not identical. The sacramental is not a cut-price sacrament; it belongs to another order.

The difference lies in two points, developed below. First, institution: the seven sacraments were instituted by Christ himself, whereas sacramentals were instituted by the Church^[3]. Second, mode of action: a sacrament confers grace ex opere operato, by the very fact that the rite is validly accomplished; a sacramental, for its part, "disposes" to grace without conferring it automatically^[4]. The whole doctrine of sacramentals lies in this carefully maintained gap: enough resemblance for the sacramental to be truly effective, enough difference for it never to become an automatism or a magic.

Sacred signs instituted by the Church

Since sacramentals belong to the Church and not to a direct institution by Christ, it is the Church that has full disposal over them: she can create, modify or suppress them. Canon law reserves this power to the highest level:

"The Apostolic See alone can establish new sacramentals, authentically interpret those already received, and abolish or change any of them." — Code of Canon Law (1983), canon 1167 § 1^[5]

This reservation has a practical consequence: a layman, a group, or even an isolated priest does not "manufacture" a sacramental at will. The rites and formulas of sacramentals are fixed by the approved liturgical books, and canon 1167 § 2 asks that they be "carefully observed"^[6]. Here we find again the requirement laid down at the Council of Trent against the arbitrariness of ministers:

"If anyone says that the received and approved rites of the Catholic Church, customarily used in the solemn administration of the sacraments, may be despised or omitted without sin and at the pleasure of the ministers, or may be changed into other new ones by every pastor of the churches: let him be anathema." — Council of Trent, session VII, canon 13^[7]

The issue is not fussy formalism. If the sacramental draws its strength from the prayer of the Church, then it must indeed be the Church that prays — according to her formulas, under the authority of her pastors — and not an individual cobbling together a private rite. The sacramental is an ecclesial act before being an object.

Here is the heart of the doctrine, and the point most often misunderstood. The decisive question is this: by what power does a sacramental produce its effect? The Church's answer draws a clear line between sacraments and sacramentals.

The great difference from the sacraments

A sacrament acts ex opere operato — "by the very fact of the action's being performed": validly posited, it truly confers the grace it signifies, independently of the holiness of the minister^[8]. A sacramental, for its part, does not act in this way. The Catechism is remarkably precise:

"Sacramentals do not confer the grace of the Holy Spirit in the way that the sacraments do, but by the Church's prayer, they prepare us to receive grace and dispose us to cooperate with it." — Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1670^[9]

Everything is said in these two verbs: they prepare and they dispose. The sacramental does not pour grace into the soul as baptism or the Eucharist do; it prepares the ground, it disposes the heart to welcome and to make fruitful the grace that, elsewhere, the sacraments give. Drinking holy water does not remit a mortal sin — only the sacrament of penance remits it, in the ordinary way; but holy water, received with faith, can dispose the soul to the repentance that will lead it to the confessional. This point is developed in detail in What is a sacrament? and, for the mechanism proper to the sacraments, in The matter and form of the sacraments.

"Ex opere operantis Ecclesiae": the power of the Church's prayer

If grace does not spring from the rite itself, whence comes the real efficacy of the sacramental? From the prayer of the Church. Classical theology expresses it with a technical phrase: the sacramental acts ex opere operantis Ecclesiae, "by the work of the one who acts", that is, by the intercession of the whole Church, the Spouse of Christ, whose prayer is always heard^[10].

The distinction is luminous. The grace of the sacrament rests on the power of Christ acting in the rite: it therefore does not depend on the dispositions of the minister. The grace obtained through a sacramental rests on the prayer of the Church uniting itself to that of the faithful: it is certain, because the Church never prays in vain, but it remains of the order of intercession, not of automatic production. When a priest blesses a medal, it is not the metal that henceforth "contains" a power; it is the Church asking God, for the one who will wear it with faith, for the graces of protection and fidelity that this sign recalls.

Neither magic nor automatism: the role of dispositions

Hence follows the most important warning of the whole article. Because the sacramental does not act ex opere operato, its fruit depends largely on the interior dispositions of the one who uses it. To believe that a blessed object would act by its mere materiality, like a talisman, independently of faith and conversion of heart, is no longer religion: it is superstition. The Catechism says it bluntly:

"To attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand, is to fall into superstition." — Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2111^[11]

We will return at length, at the end of the article, to this boundary between fervour and superstition. But it had to be stated now: it is inscribed in the very mode of action of sacramentals. The sacrament, because it acts by the power of Christ, resists the lukewarmness of the minister; the sacramental, because it acts by the prayer of the Church and the cooperation of the faithful, requires a living faith in the one who uses it.

The category of "sacramentals" is ancient in practice, but relatively recent in vocabulary. For centuries the Church multiplied sacred rites — blessings, exorcisms, anointings, signs of the cross — without always clearly distinguishing them from the seven acts she would end up calling "sacraments". The history of this clarification sheds light on what a sacramental is.

The Fathers and the first sacred rites

From the earliest centuries, Christians accompanied their lives with sacred gestures. Tertullian, at the beginning of the 3rd century, attests that the faithful trace upon themselves the sign of the cross at every step of the day^[12]. Holy water, exorcised salt, the oil of anointings, the blessing of food and houses are attested very early. These rites extend a biblical intuition: in Scripture, to bless is both to praise God and to call down his favour upon beings and things. "In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed," God says to Abraham (Gen 12:3)^[13], and Saint Paul recalls that, in Christ, the Father has "blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing" (Eph 1:3)^[14]. The sacramental plunges its roots into this logic of blessing.

At that time, however, sacraments and sacramentals were not yet distinguished: every sacred rite could be called sacramentum or mysterium, in the broad sense of a sacred sign. Saint Augustine himself uses sacramentum for very diverse realities, from baptism to the sign of the cross. The distinction would come later.

Hugh of Saint-Victor and Peter Lombard: the birth of a category

It was in the 12th century, in the great schools of theology, that the distinction was fixed. The theologian Hugh of Saint-Victor (d. 1141) was one of the first to separate the rites necessary to salvation from those which, without being so, help sanctification — holy water, ashes, and other signs that tradition would soon rank among the sacramentals^[15].

But it is Peter Lombard (d. 1160) who gave the system its lasting form. In the fourth book of his Sentences, the manual of theology that would form the whole Latin West, he introduced a decisive criterion: causality. The sacrament is not only the sign of grace, it is also its cause; it "signifies and produces" what it shows. This criterion allowed him to fix the number of sacraments at seven and to distinguish these sacraments properly so called from the "minor" rites which signify grace without producing it — the sacramentals^[16]. The word sacramentale then spread among canonists and scholastic theologians.

From the Rituale Romanum (1614) to the Book of Blessings (1984)

Once the category was fixed, the Church codified its rites. The great reference collection was the Rituale Romanum, promulgated by Pope Paul V in 1614 following the Council of Trent: for three and a half centuries it gathered the formulas of blessings, exorcisms and sacramentals of the whole Latin Church^[17]. The Second Vatican Council asked for its revision:

"The rite for the sacramentals is to be revised […]. Care must be taken that the sacramentals be adapted to the needs of our time." — Second Vatican Council, Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 79^[18]

This reform produced in particular the De Benedictionibus (the Book of Blessings), whose typical edition appeared in 1984: it clearly distinguishes blessings, specifies which ministers may give them, and opens certain blessings to the laity^[19]. The history of sacramentals is therefore not frozen: the Church, which instituted them, continues to regulate them.

The Catechism groups sacramentals into great families. Knowing them avoids reducing everything to holy water and medals: the reality is far vaster.

Blessings: invocative and constitutive

Blessings come first. The Catechism stresses it:

"Among sacramentals blessings hold the first place. They include blessings of persons, meals, objects, and places. Every blessing is a praise of God and a prayer for his gifts." — Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1671^[20]

Theology distinguishes two types of blessings. Invocative (or simple) blessings call down God's favour upon a person or a thing without changing its status: blessing a meal, a house, a car, a sick person. Constitutive (or consecratory) blessings, on the contrary, have a "lasting effect": they withdraw a person or an object from profane use to consecrate it to God. The Catechism explains:

"Some blessings have a lasting importance because they consecrate persons to God, or reserve objects and places for liturgical use." — Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1672^[21]

On the nature, usefulness and objections concerning blessings, see the dedicated article Blessings and, for objects in particular, Why bless objects?.

Consecrations and dedications

Constitutive blessings take proper names according to their object. We speak of consecration for persons — the consecration of virgins, the blessing of an abbot or abbess, the rite of religious profession — which must above all "not be confused with sacramental ordination"^[22]. We speak of dedication for places and objects of worship: the dedication of a church or an altar, the blessing of the holy oils, sacred vessels, bells. These things, once consecrated, are protected by law: "Sacred objects which have been designated for divine worship by dedication or blessing are to be treated reverently and are not to be employed for profane or improper use even if they are owned by private persons"^[23].

Exorcisms

When the Church publicly prays that a person or an object be withdrawn from the grasp of the demon, we speak of exorcism. It is a sacramental of a particular kind, whose institution goes back to Christ himself:

"When the Church asks publicly and authoritatively in the name of Jesus Christ that a person or object be protected against the power of the Evil One and withdrawn from his dominion, it is called exorcism. Jesus performed exorcisms and from him the Church has received the power and office of exorcizing." — Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1673^[24]

We must distinguish simple exorcism, practised notably in the course of baptism, from the major exorcism or solemn exorcism, which can only be performed by a mandated priest. The law is strict:

"No one can perform exorcisms on the possessed legitimately unless he has obtained special and express permission from the local ordinary. […] The local ordinary is to give this permission only to a presbyter who has piety, science, prudence, and integrity of life." — Code of Canon Law (1983), canon 1172 § 1-2^[25]

The Catechism insists on prudence: before any exorcism, one must "make sure that it is a presence of the Evil One, and not an illness", whose care belongs to medicine^[26]. For detail, see Exorcism.

Blessed objects

Finally comes the family most familiar to the faithful: blessed objects. Holy water, candles, Ash Wednesday ashes, Palm Sunday palms, medals, scapulars, crucifixes, rosaries, holy images — so many signs that the Church's blessing has destined to sustain prayer and devotion. They are not amulets: their strength is that of the Church's prayer which they recall, and of the faith of the one who uses them. Each has its own history and theology, treated in the dedicated articles: Holy water, Why use holy water?, Why light candles?, The scapular and The Miraculous Medal.

The medieval mnemonic: "Orans, tinctus, edens, confessus, dans, benedicens"

Medieval theology summed up the variety of sacramentals in a famous Latin verse, which lists six species according to the gesture performed: "Orans, tinctus, edens, confessus, dans, benedicens"^[27]. It can be translated and unfolded as follows:

This verse is useful for remembering that sacramentals are not reducible to objects: they also include gestures (praying, confessing, giving) and actions (sprinkling, eating, blessing). The sacramental is first of all a sacred act, of which the object is only the support.

Not all sacramentals are reserved to the priest. The rule depends on the nature of the rite: the more it touches the liturgical and sacramental life of the Church, the more its minister must be ordained; the more it belongs to ordinary Christian life, the more it can be entrusted to simple faithful.

Bishops, priests and deacons

Canon law distributes competences according to a clear hierarchy. Consecrations and dedications — the most solemn acts — are reserved to the bishop and to priests expressly authorised; ordinary blessings belong to every priest; the deacon gives only the blessings expressly permitted to him:

"Consecrations and dedications can be validly carried out by those who are marked with the episcopal character and by presbyters to whom this is permitted by law or legitimate grant. Any presbyter can impart blessings except those reserved to the Roman Pontiff or bishops. A deacon can impart only those blessings which are expressly permitted by law." — Code of Canon Law (1983), canon 1169^[28]

The share of the laity and the baptismal priesthood

But the administration of sacramentals is not the monopoly of the clergy. The Catechism attaches sacramentals to the baptismal priesthood of all the faithful:

"They are an extension of the baptismal priesthood: every baptized person is called to be a 'blessing,' and to bless. Hence lay people may preside at certain blessings; the more a blessing concerns ecclesial and sacramental life, the more is its administration reserved to the ordained ministry." — Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1669^[29]

The law confirms it: certain sacramentals "can also, according to the norm of the liturgical books and the judgment of the local ordinary, be administered by lay persons who possess the appropriate qualities"^[30]. Thus a father or mother blesses their children, a layman blesses the table, we trace the sign of the cross upon ourselves: these gestures are not rough imitations of a priest's act, but the real exercise of the priesthood received at baptism. On the distinction between ordinary and extraordinary minister, see The ordinary and extraordinary minister.

If sacramentals do not confer grace ex opere operato, they are not for all that without real effect. Tradition recognises in them several fruits, all suspended upon the prayer of the Church and the dispositions of the faithful.

Disposing to grace and sanctifying everyday life

The first effect, already cited, is to dispose the soul to receive grace and to cooperate with it (CCC § 1670). The second is to sanctify the circumstances of life. The Second Vatican Council expresses it magnificently, in a sentence the Catechism takes up in full:

"For well-disposed members of the faithful, the liturgy of the sacraments and sacramentals sanctifies almost every event of their lives with the divine grace which flows from the paschal mystery of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ. From this source all sacraments and sacramentals draw their power. There is hardly any proper use of material things which cannot be thus directed towards the sanctification of men and the praise of God." — Second Vatican Council, Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 61^[31]

This is the greatness of sacramentals: through them, the meal, the journey, work, the house, the field, the sickbed — "almost every event of life" — can become a place of grace and praise. Note however the express condition: "for well-disposed members of the faithful". Always the same reservation.

Remission of venial sins and actual graces

Traditional theology recognises still more precise effects in sacramentals. Received with fervour, they obtain actual graces (God's timely helps for acting well), the remission of venial sins and of the temporal punishment due to them, as well as temporal favours ordered to salvation^[32]. The path must be well understood: it is not the sacramental that absolves venial sin in the manner of a sacrament, but the act of contrition and love of God that the sacramental awakens in a fervent heart — holy water taken with compunction, the sign of the cross traced with faith. The sacramental is the occasion and the support of that interior act which, itself, remits venial sin. We measure once more how much everything depends on dispositions.

Protection against the Evil One

Finally, tradition attributes to sacramentals a function of protection against evil spirits. This is explicit for exorcisms (CCC § 1673), but the Church extends it to holy water, exorcised salt, blessed medals and the sign of the cross, by which the faithful place themselves under Christ's guard and invoke the victory of the Cross over the demon^[33]. Here again, the strength is not in the object as such, but in the prayer of the Church and the trusting call to God that the object recalls and sustains. For the protective gesture par excellence, see Why do Catholics make the sign of the cross?.

The following table sums up the central opposition, so as never again to confuse sacrament and sacramental:

Two neighbouring realities are attached to sacramentals without being confused with them: indulgences and popular piety. They must be situated.

Not confusing sacramentals and indulgences

We sometimes hear that a blessed medal or rosary "gives indulgences". The formula is imprecise. A sacramental is a sacred sign that disposes to grace; an indulgence is the remission before God of the temporal punishment due for sins already forgiven, which the Church grants under certain conditions by drawing on the treasury of the merits of Christ and the saints. They are two distinct realities. It is true that the pious use of certain blessed objects — a crucifix, a rosary, a medal — can be one of the conditions to which the Church attaches an indulgence; but the indulgence then comes from the Church's grant, not from the sacramental as such. On this point, see the dedicated article Indulgences.

Popular religiosity framed by the Church

Around sacramentals gravitates a whole world of popular devotions: pilgrimages, processions, the Way of the Cross, veneration of relics, the rosary, medals. The Catechism welcomes them with favour, but under condition:

"The religious sense of the Christian people has always found expression in various forms of piety surrounding the Church's sacramental life, such as the veneration of relics, visits to sanctuaries, pilgrimages, processions, the Stations of the Cross, the rosary, medals, etc." — Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1674^[34]

But these devotions "extend the liturgical life of the Church, but do not replace it": the liturgy, "by its very nature, is far superior to any of them"^[35]. The Church therefore asks for a "pastoral discernment" to sustain them while purifying them of possible deviations — superstition, sentimentalism, commercialisation^[36]. Popular piety is a treasure to be enlightened, never a substitute for the sacraments.

The whole article comes back to this practical question: how to use sacramentals without falling into superstition? Here doctrine becomes a pedagogy of Christian life.

The pitfall of superstition

The danger is real and the Church does not minimise it. As soon as we attribute to a blessed object an efficacy that is in some way magical, automatic, independent of faith and conversion, we have left religion for superstition (CCC § 2111). The Catechism is still more severe on frankly magical practices: "The wearing of charms is also reprehensible"^[37]. The difference between a blessed medal and an amulet does not lie in the metal, but in the intention: the medal recalls a prayer and calls upon God's protection; the amulet claims to capture an occult force at the service of its wearer. One is an act of faith, the other a deviation of religious sentiment.

A pedagogy of the Incarnation

Well understood, on the contrary, the sacramental is a school of incarnate faith. God, who created man body and soul and who himself became flesh, reaches man through sensible realities. The sacramental espouses this logic: it takes water, wax, ash, metal, gesture — the humblest things of everyday life — and orients them towards the praise of God and the sanctification of man. Far from materialising faith, it spiritualises matter. The faithful who dip their fingers in holy water and cross themselves on entering church do not perform a magical gesture: they renew their baptism, place themselves anew under the Cross, and dispose their heart to the grace awaiting them in the sacrament.

Such is the right use of sacramentals: not talismans from which a mechanical effect would be expected, but signs of the praying Church which, welcomed with faith, sow grace into every corner of existence. "There is hardly any proper use of material things which cannot be directed towards this end: the sanctification of man and the praise of God."^[38]

• What is a sacrament? — the nature of the seven sacraments, of which sacramentals are "a certain imitation".
• Blessings and Why bless objects? — the first and most important family of sacramentals.
• Holy water and Why use holy water? — the most widespread sacramental.
• The scapular and The Miraculous Medal — two blessed objects worn by millions of faithful.
• Exorcism — the sacramental that withdraws from the grasp of the Evil One.
• Indulgences — not to be confused with sacramentals.
• Why do Catholics make the sign of the cross? — the simplest and oldest sacred gesture.