THE UNIVERSAL / CATHOLIC CHURCH IS THE BODY of the Lord Jesus Christ, composed of the many millions or billions of individuals who have been incorporated to it by the (7) SEVEN SACRAMENTS that is: Baptism, and governed by the invisible head, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the visible head, the Vicar of Christ on earth. But a body and a head are not sufficient to constitute the Mystical Christ as the Church. The Church must also have a soul as the principle of its life and its unity. That soul is the Holy Spirit.

And since it is the Holy Spirit that makes the Body, the Church which is the Mystical Body of Christ has been contemporaneous with the centuries. When therefore, we in the (21st.) twenty-first century wish to know about Jesus Christ, about His early Church, about history, or to know Him and His universal Church, we go not only to the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible but also the dusty records to the living Universal Church - The One, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church - Amen!

                        -  The 7 / Seven Sacraments Of the Universal / Catholic Church  -

( 1 ) - Baptism - The Religious rite; Initiation & Admission to the Universal / Catholic Church.

( 2 ) - Eucharist - The Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

( 3 ) - Confirmation - Baptism, the Eucharist and the sacrament of Confirmation together constitute the "sacraments of Christian initiation," whose unity must be safeguarded. It must be explained to the faithful that the reception of the sacrament of Confirmation is necessary for the completion of baptismal grace. For "by the sacrament of Confirmation, [the baptised] are more perfectly bound to the Church and are enriched with a special strength of the Holy Spirit. Hence they are, as true witnesses of Christ, more strictly obliged to spread and defend the faith by word and deed.

( 4 ) - Reconciliation / Healing - Through the sacraments of the Christian initiation, man/woman receives the new life of Christ Jesus. Now we carry this life "in earthen vessels," and it remains "hidden with Christ in God." We are still in our "earthly tent," subject to suffering, illness and death. The new life as a child of God can be weakened and even lost by sin.

The Lord Jesus Christ, physician of our souls and bodies, who forgave the sins of the paralytic and restored him to bodily health, has willed that his Church continue, in the power of the Holy Spirit, his work of healing and salvation, even among her own members/faithful. This is the purpose of the two sacraments of healing: the sacrament of Penance and the sacrament of Anointing the Sick.

Those who approach the sacrament of Penance obtain from God's mercy for the offense committed against him, and are, at the same time, reconciled with the Church which they have wounded by their sins and which by charity/love, by example and by prayer labours for their conversion. It is called the sacrament of conversion because it makes sacramentally present Jesus' call to conversion, the first step in returning to the Father from whom one has strayed by sin.

( 5 ) - Anointing of the Sick - "By the sacred of anointing of the sick and the prayer of the priests the whole Church commends those who are ill to the suffering and glorified Lord, that he may raise them up and save them. And indeed, she exhorts them to contribute to the good of the People of God by freely uniting themselves to the Passion and death of Christ."

Illness and suffering have always been among the gravest problems confronted in human life. In illness, man experiences his powerlessness, his limitations and his finitude. Every illness can make us glimpse death.

( 6 ) - Holy Orders - Holy Orders is the sacrament through which the mission entrusted by Christ to his apostles continues to be exercised in the Church until the end of time: thus it is the sacrament of apostolic ministry. It includes three degrees: episcopate, presbyterate and diaconate. The chosen people was constituted by God as "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." But within the people of Israel, God chose one of the twelve tribes, that of Levi, and set it apart for liturgical service; God himself is its inheritance. A special rite consecrated the beginnings of the priesthood of the Old Covenant. The priests are "appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins." 

( 7 ) - Marriage / Matrimony - "The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring; this covenant between baptised persons has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament.

"SACRAMENTS ARE OUTWARD SIGNS OF INWARD GRACE, INSTITUTED BY THE LORD JESUS CHRIST FOR OUR SANCTIFICATION." In other words: The Sacraments are "efficacious sign of grace, instituted by the Lord Jesus Christ and entrusted to the Universal Church / The One, Holy, Catholic & Apostolic Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us" - CCC # 1131 -

Sacred Scripture begins with the creation of man and woman in the image and likeness of God and concludes with a vision of "the wedding-feast of the Lamb. Scripture speaks throughout of marriage and its "mystery," its institution and the meaning God has given it, its origin and its end, its various realizations throughout the history of salvation, the difficulties arising from sin and its renewal "in the lord" in the New Covenant of Christ and the Church.

"The intimate community of life and love which constitutes the married state has been established by the Creator and endowed by him with its own proper law... God himself is the author of marriage." The vocation to marriage is written in the very nature of man and woman as they came from the hand of the Creator. Marriage is not a purely human institution despite the many variations it may have undergone through the centuries in different cultures, social structures and spiritual attitudes. These differences should not cause us to forget its common and permanent characteristics. Although the dignity of this institution is not transparent everywhere with the same clarity, some sense of the greatness of the matrimonial union exists in all cultures. "The well-being of the individual person and of both human and Christian society is closely bound up with the healthy state of conjugal and family life."

                                             "I  BELIEVE  IN  GOD  THE  FATHER"                                          

Our profession of faith begins with God, for God is the First and the Last, - Cf. Isaiah 44:6 - the beginning and the end of everything. The Credo begins with God the Father, for the Father is the first divine person of the Most Holy Trinity; our Creed begins with the creation of heaven and earth, for creation is the beginning and the foundation of all God's works. - CCC # 198 -         

"Father,... this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. - 'Father, the hour has come: glorify your Son, so that your Son may glorify you; and, through the power over all mankind that you have given to him. And eternal life is this: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.' - John 17:1-3 - God our Saviour desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. - 'To do this is right, and will please God our saviour: he wants everyone to be saved and reach full knowledge of the truth.' - 1 Timothy 2:3-4 - "There is no other name under heaven given among men by which must be saved" than the name of "JESUS." - 'For of all names in the world given to men, this is the only one by which we can be saved.' - Acts 4:12 -

                                                  "I  BELIEVE  IN  ONE  GOD"  

"I believe in God": this first affirmation of the Apostles' Creed is also the most fundamental. The whole Creed speaks of God, and when it also speaks of man and of the world it does so in relation to God. The other articles of the Creed all depend on the first, just as the remaining Commandments make the first explicit. The other articles help us to know God better as he revealed himself progressively to men. "The faithful first profess their belief in God." - CCC # 199 -; - Roman Catechism, 1, 2, 2. - 

The Lord Jesus 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: 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. - CCC # 1210 -

IN BRIEF - The sacraments are efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us. The visible rites by which the sacraments are celebrated signify and make present the graces proper to each sacrament. They bear fruit in those who receive them with the required dispositions. - CCC # 1131 - 

"Seated at the right of the Father" and pouring out the Holy Spirit on his Body which is the Church, Christ now acts through the sacraments he instituted to communicate his grace. The sacraments are perceptible signs (words and actions) accessible to our human nature. By the action of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit they make present efficaciously the grace that they signify. - CCC # 1084 -

The whole liturgical life of the Church revolves around the Eucharistic sacrifice and the sacraments. - Cf. SC6 - There are seven sacraments in the Church: Baptism, Confirmation or Chrismation, Eucharist, Penance, Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders and Matrimony. - Cf. Council of Lyons II (1274) DS 860; Council of Florence (1439): DS 1310; Council of Trent (1547): DS 1601. - This article will discuss what is common to the Church's seven sacraments from a doctrinal point of view. What is common to them in terms of their celebration will be presented in the second chapter, and what is distinctive about each will be the topic of the Section Two. - CCC # 1113 - 

                                    - I. THE SACRAMENTS OF CHRIST -

"Adhering to the teaching of the Holy Scriptures, to the apostolic traditions and to the consensus... of the Fathers," we profess that "the sacraments of the new law were... all instituted by Jesus Christ our Lord." - Council of Trent (1547): DS 1600-1601 - CCC # 1114 -

Jesus' words and actions during his hidden life and public ministry were already salvific, for they anticipated the power of his Pascal mystery. They announced and prepared what he was going to give the Church when all was accomplished. The mysteries of Christ's life are the foundations of what all was accomplished. The mysteries of Christ's life are the foundations of what he would henceforth dispense in the sacraments, through the ministers of his Church, for "what was visible in our Saviour has passed over into his mysteries." - Saint Leo the Great, Sermo. 74,2:PL 54,398 - CCC # 1115 -

Sacraments are "powers that comes forth" from the Body of Christ, - Cf. Luke 5:17; 6:19; 8:46 - which is ever-living and life-giving. They are actions of the Holy Spirit at work in his Body, the Church. They are "the masterworks of God" in the new and everlasting covenant. - CCC # 1116 -

                                          - II. THE SACRAMENTS OF THE CHURCH -

As she has done for the canon of Sacred Scripture and for the doctrine of the faith, the Church, by the power of the Spirit who guides her "into all truth," has gradually recognised this treasure received from Christ and as the faithful steward of God's mysteries, has determined its "dispensation." - Cf. John 16:13; cf. Matthew 13:52; 1 Corinthians 4:1 - Thus the Church has discerned over the centuries that among liturgical celebrations there are seven that are, in the strict sense of the term, sacraments instituted by the Lord. - CCC # 1117 -

The sacraments are "of the Church" in the double sense that they are "by her" and "for her." They are "by the Church," for she is the sacrament of Christ's action at work in her through the mission of the Holy Spirit. They are "for the Church" in the sense that "the sacraments make the Church," - Saint Augustine, De civ. Dei, 22, 17; PL 41, 779; cf. Saint Thomas Aquinas, STh III, 64, 2 ad 3 - since they manifest and communicate to men, above all the Eucharist, the mystery of communion with the God who is love, One in three persons. - CCC # 1118 -

Forming "as it were, one mystical person" with Christ the head, the Church acts in the sacraments as "an organically structured priestly community." Through Baptism and Confirmation the priestly people is enabled to celebrate the liturgy, while those of the faithful "who have received Holy Orders, are appointed to nourish the Church with the word and grace of God in the name of Christ." - CCC # 1119, 1120, 1121 -

.... III. THE  SACRAMENTS  OF  FAITH - CCC # 1122 TO 1126 -

IV. THE  SACRAMENTS  OF  SALVATION - CCC # 1127 to 1129 -

V. THE SACRAMENTS OF ETERNAL LIFE - CCC # 1130, IN BRIEF - CCC # 1131 TO 1134 -

                       ** CCC denote - CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH -

-     WELCOME TO SACRED SCRIPTURE / WORD OF GOD / HOLY BIBLE READER'S COMMUNITY     - 

Wishing you, 'Happy Reading', and may God, the Father, the Son of the living God, Jesus Christ, fills your heart, mind, thoughts, and grants you: The Holy Spirit, that is, Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding, Counsel, Piety, Fortitude, Fear of the Lord, and also His fruits of the Holy Spirit, that is, Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Trustfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control. Amen! God blessing be upon you!

Why do you call Me, "Lord, Lord" and not do what I say?' "Everyone who comes to Me and listens to My words and acts on them - I will show you what he/she is like. He/She is like a man/woman who when he/she built his/her house dug, deep, and laid the foundations on rock; when the river was in flood it bore down on that house but could not shake it, it was so well built. But the one who listens and does nothing is like the man/woman who built his/her house on soil, with no foundations: as soon as the river bore down on it, it collapsed; and what a ruin that house became!" - Luke 6:46-49 - 

If we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow in all ways into Christ Jesus, who is the head by whom the whole body is fitted and joined together, every joint adding its own strength, for each separate part to work according to it function. So the body grows until it has built itself up, in love." - Ephesians 4:15-16 - 

I still have many things to say to you but they would be too much for you now. But when the spirit of truth comes, he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking as from himself, but will say only what he has learnt; and he will tell you of the things to come. He/She will glorify me, since all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine. Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said: all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine." - John 16:12-15 -

Your generous contribution and support is profoundly cherish. I sincerely pray that: God blessing be upon you, always. Amen! Bank transfer: Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah - Public Bank Berhad account no. 4076577113 - Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.