FROM THE CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH:
SECTION TWO - THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS OF THE CHURCH
1210 Christ instituted the sacraments of the new law. There are seven: Baptism, Confirmation (or
Chrismation), the Eucharist, Penance, the Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders and Matrimony.
The seven sacraments touch all the stages and all the important moments of Christian life:[1] they
give birth and increase, healing and mission to the Christian's life of faith. There is thus a certain
resemblance between the stages of natural life and the stages of the spiritual life.
1211 Following this analogy, the first chapter will expound the three sacraments of Christian
initiation; the second, the sacraments of healing; and the third, the sacraments at the service of
communion and the mission of the faithful. This order, while not the only one possible, does allow
one to see that the sacraments form an organic whole in which each particular sacrament has its
own vital place. In this organic whole, the Eucharist occupies a unique place as the "Sacrament of
sacraments": "all the other sacraments are ordered to it as to their end."[2] ENTIRE TEXT....
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