Sacraments

Sacraments are important, not as moments of time out of time, but as reflections and revelations of the God who is always mysteriously present to me and within me. The seven sacraments confer Grace, the simplest understanding of which is a conscious connection to God.

Grace is a binding to the sacredness of the person; the value of true religion is to bind oneself to one's real self, one person to another, one person to God. Sacramental Grace leads to personhood; and personhood leads to the Spirit. There is a triad between myself, other human beings and God; nothing or no one can be held in suspension of the other; as St. Thomas Aquinas has written, "Grace builds on nature."

Thus, it can be held that good spirituality leads to emotional health, and emotional health leads to good spirituality, that issues forth not merely in prayer and praise, but in social justice for the poor, the weak, and the homeless, wherever anyone is alienated or oppressed. Our God is in love with each of us, to such a degree, that life itself is the Spirit of God within each one of us; life tells us that we are loved, unconditionally and beyond measure, as sons and daughters of the one God, who is both our mother and our father, who is both our beginning, our journeying, and our home. Only the God of Jesus Christ is home; and home is where the heart feels loved and feels safe and feels free to be itself, "Love following upon love."

Church is not something that gives me more of God or even brings God to me. Church is a relationship of trust through which I see the person and the presence and the activity of the God who is already within me and around me. The church only makes me more conscious of God. The church only makes me more conscious and more aware of the God who is always here, especially in the darkness where it is difficult to see.

The Seven (7) Sacrements are:

1. Baptism and

2. Confirmation: I am in a relationship with God and I am loved. I am the beloved of the Lord. Baptism and Confirmation make me conscious of God by the very gift of life.

3. Holy Eucharist, also known as Holy Communion, makes me conscious that the Lords love and the Lord himself is my real hunger and my real food and my real strength and that throughout my day the Lord God is feeding me with Himself.

4. Holy Matrimony / Holy Union makes me conscious that if I am loved to such a degree, then I am so completely lovable, and then I am powerful and "in the image of my God," therefore I can make myself vulnerable to embrace and love someone else, and through them, I creatively touch God and God mysteriously touches me.
5. Holy Orders, also known as Ordination or the call to become a deacon or priest, makes me conscious that I am the temple of the Holy Spirit and that I am powerful enough to make this world visibly the kingdom of God that it already is.
6. Anointing of the Sick makes me conscious that all aspects of my person and personality, in strength and in weakness, in divinity and humanity, in suffering and resurrection, are moments of revelation and opportunities to see myself like Jesus, crucified and yet glorified.
7. Reconciliation, also known as Confession, makes me conscious that forgiveness and love always go together, and that forgiveness is love made real, the point where I am most like God and where I can be the Good Shepherd for my world; for Jesus is my everything and everything I would ever dream of becoming; and that everything I say, hold and believe about Jesus, I must say and hold and believe about myself that I might be fully alive in the Glory of God.

Contact the Parish Administrator at info@americancatholicchurch.net to inquire about any of these sacraments.