50 Fun Facts About The Sacraments

The capital of which US state takes its name from the Spanish for the Blessed Sacrament?

California's capital, Sacramento, borrowed the name of its river, which the Spanish officer Gabriel Moraga named in 1808 in honour of the Eucharist.

Which English king's book defending the seven sacraments won him the papal title Defender of the Faith?

Henry VIII received the title from Pope Leo X in 1521 and lost it after his break with Rome in the 1530s, but Parliament later granted it back to him and his successors.

In the Latin Catholic tradition, unlike in Eastern churches, who confers the sacrament of marriage at a wedding?

The couple themselves give the sacrament to each other by exchanging consent, and the priest stands by as the Church's witness; in Eastern churches his blessing is what confers it.

The word sacrament comes from the Latin sacramentum, which named what in the life of a Roman soldier?

An oath of loyalty, sworn to the consul and later to the emperor, bound a legionary to the gods, and the survivors of a decimated unit were often made to swear it again.

Under Catholic canon law, who may baptise a person in danger of death when no priest can be found?

Anyone at all may do it, even a non-Christian, provided they have the required intention, which is why midwives were long expected to know the rite.

Which Roman emperor, who began favouring Christianity in 312, waited until his deathbed to be baptised?

Constantine put the rite off in the belief that it would wipe away whatever he had done as ruler, and the bishop who finally baptised him, Eusebius of Nicomedia, was an Arian.

The Last Supper, source of the Eucharist, fell in the week of which Jewish festival recalling the escape from Egypt?

Passover week is where all four Gospels set the meal, though scholars still argue over whether it was the festival supper itself or was eaten a day earlier.

Ashes, a sacramental placed on Catholics each Ash Wednesday, are made by burning what from the year before?

Palm branches blessed on the previous Palm Sunday are burned for the purpose, so the greenery that opens one Holy Week becomes the dust that opens the next Lent.

The word matrimony, used for the sacrament of marriage, comes from the Latin for which family member?

Mother, or mater in Latin, lies behind matrimonium, while the matching word built on father, patrimony, came to mean an inherited estate.

Which gesture from the bishop traditionally followed a Catholic confirmation, a reminder to be brave in the faith?

A tap on the cheek came with the words Peace be with you, and the old Roman Pontifical treated it as a light slap, much like the blow that dubbed a knight.

In which river, flowing south into the Dead Sea, do the Gospels say John the Baptist baptised Jesus?

The Jordan is also the river the Israelites cross to enter the Promised Land in the Bible, and it runs through the Sea of Galilee on its way south.

Which adults, also called sponsors, promise at a child's baptism to help raise the child in the faith?

Godparents were at first usually the child's own birth parents, and Augustine argued in 408 that other people should step in only in exceptional cases.

Which sacramental, kept in a small basin by the door of a church, do Catholics use to recall their baptism?

Holy water is taken on the fingertips to make the sign of the cross on the way in, a custom descended from the washing early Christians did before entering a church.

Which event in Jerusalem, when the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles, does the Catechism link with confirmation?

Pentecost takes its name from the Greek for fiftieth, and because the apostles began preaching that day it is often called the birthday of the Church.

In the Gospel accounts of the baptism of Jesus, the Holy Spirit descends in the form of which bird?

A dove appears in all four Gospels, but only Luke says the Spirit took the bird's bodily form rather than simply descending like one.

What does the Catechism say baptism erases, a condition traced back to the disobedience of Adam and Eve?

Original sin is erased, the Catechism says, yet its after-effects stay: human nature remains weakened and inclined to evil, so the spiritual battle goes on.

Which colour is the long christening gown traditionally worn by an infant baptised in the Roman Catholic Church?

White is worn by the newly baptised in Eastern churches too, where the robe is traditionally kept on for eight days and then taken off at a ceremony of its own.

What do Catholics believe the sacraments give, defined in the Catechism as God's free and undeserved help?

Grace cannot be earned, the Catechism teaches, and the sacraments are called efficacious signs because they are held to deliver the gift they point to.

Baptism, confirmation and the Eucharist, said to lay the foundations of Christian life, are the sacraments of what?

Initiation is finished at once for infants in Eastern churches, which give all three in a single ceremony, while the Latin Church spreads them over years.

Byzantine-rite churches anoint many parts of the body at confirmation, but the Latin rite anoints only which one?

The forehead alone is anointed in the Latin rite, while Byzantine-rite churches also anoint the eyes, nose, ears, lips, chest, back and feet.

Which prayer of sorrow for sin does a penitent say during confession, after the priest has assigned a penance?

Act of Contrition names a whole family of prayers rather than one fixed text, and the Church accepts even psalms such as the Miserere in its place.

What name is given to the forgiveness of sins a priest pronounces at the end of a Catholic confession?

Absolution is spoken by the priest, but Catholic teaching holds that only God forgives sin, working through a ministry Christ entrusted to his Church.

Which popular name is often given to the confession, anointing and final Communion offered to a dying Catholic?

Last rites is used loosely for all three, yet only the final Communion is strictly tied to dying; the anointing can be received at any time of serious illness.

Which rank of Catholic clergy, the first of the three degrees of holy orders, was reopened to married men in 1967?

Deacon had shrunk into a stepping stone to the priesthood until Pope Paul VI revived it as a permanent rank, open to married men aged 35 or over.

Which kind of college, whose name comes from the Latin for seed-bed, trains men for the Catholic priesthood?

Seminary took its name from a sixteenth-century Church decree that pictured such schools as nurseries for young vocations and called for the first modern ones.

Which discipline is required of priests in the Latin Church but not of priests in most Eastern Catholic Churches?

Celibacy is Church law rather than dogma, which is why most Eastern Catholic Churches can ordain married men, though a man must marry before ordination, not after.

In which village did Jesus work his first miracle, rescuing a wedding feast whose wine had run out?

Cana matters to Catholics because the Church reads Jesus's presence at the feast as confirming the goodness of marriage and making it a sign of Christ's presence.

What is the common name for a Catholic tribunal's ruling that a valid marriage never existed in the first place?

Annulment does not dissolve a marriage as a divorce does: the tribunal finds that consent was never validly exchanged, so no binding union ever began.

Which German reformer argued in 1520 that, strictly speaking, only baptism and the Eucharist are sacraments?

Martin Luther reasoned that only those two carried a visible sign instituted by God, and his book's title cast the Church as a captive held in Babylon by the papacy.

Which gesture by a bishop, joined to a prayer of consecration, is the essential rite of Catholic ordination?

Laying on of hands is the same act the First Letter to Timothy describes, where a gift is said to be conferred through the imposition of hands by the elders.

Which kind of sin does Catholic teaching say requires grave matter, full knowledge and deliberate consent?

Mortal sin destroys charity in the heart, the Catechism says, whereas the lesser kind only wounds it; a Catholic guilty of one is expected to confess before Communion.

At which night-time liturgy, begun around a newly lit fire, are adult converts traditionally baptised as Catholics?

The Easter Vigil's tall Paschal candle, lit from the new fire, is then used at baptisms all year round, and each newly baptised person's own candle is lit from it.

What is the name of the basin, often carved from stone, at which infants are baptised in a church?

Font designs are often eight-sided, a shape chosen as a reminder of the new creation, and the earliest western examples are in the catacombs of Rome.

Which term, used by the Fourth Lateran Council, names the change of bread and wine into Christ's body and blood?

Transubstantiation means the whole substance changes while the outward characteristics of bread and wine stay unaltered; the council used the word in 1215.

Which perfumed oil, consecrated by a bishop during Holy Week, is used to anoint Catholics at confirmation?

Chrism is olive oil scented with balsam, and besides confirmation it is used at baptisms and at the ordination of priests and bishops.

The seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, said to be deepened at confirmation, come from which Old Testament prophet's book?

Isaiah gives them as traits of a coming Messianic figure, and the Church lists them as wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord.

What do Eastern Orthodox Christians call the sacraments, a name they extend to the Church itself?

Sacred mysteries echoes the Greek word mysterion, and Orthodox writers speak of seven principal ones without strictly limiting the number.

Which feast, kept on the Thursday or Sunday after Trinity Sunday, honours the Eucharist with outdoor processions?

Corpus Christi began in Liège, where Juliana of Cornillon spent decades urging it, and Pope Urban IV, once an archdeacon there, extended it to the whole Church in 1264.

Which vessel, usually shaped like a sunburst on a stand, displays the consecrated host for adoration on an altar?

Monstrance comes from the Latin monstrare, to show, and the same kind of vessel can double as a reliquary for displaying the relics of saints.

Canon law says the bread consecrated at a Latin-rite Catholic Mass must be made from the flour of which grain?

Wheat is required by Eastern Orthodox churches as well, but their loaf is leavened with yeast and seasoned with salt, while the Latin wafer is thin and unleavened.

Baptism, confirmation and holy orders can be received only once because each is said to leave what on the soul?

An indelible mark, also called a character, is why none of the three is ever repeated: a lapsed Catholic who returns to the Church is not baptised a second time.

Which council, called in answer to the Protestant Reformation, reaffirmed that there are exactly seven sacraments?

Trent, which sat from 1545 to 1563, laid an anathema on those who claimed that the sacraments numbered more or fewer than seven.

Which sin of trading in holy things and Church offices is named after a magician in the Acts of the Apostles?

Simony recalls Simon Magus, who in Acts offered two apostles payment for the power to confer the Holy Spirit on whomever he chose.

Which New Testament letter, telling the sick to call the elders and be anointed, underpins the anointing of the sick?

James tells the elders to pray over the sick person and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord, adding that the prayer of faith will save the sick.

Monks on which island promoted regular private confession in the sixth century, guided by books of set penances?

Ireland's penitential books matched each sin to a fixed penance, and missionary monks later carried this tariff system across to continental Europe.

Which name for Communion given to a dying person comes from a Latin word meaning provision for a journey?

Viaticum in ancient Rome could also mean the travel allowance given to officials sent out on public missions, and the Church borrowed the word for the soul's final departure.

Which French priest, the Curé of Ars, became famous for the long hours he spent hearing confessions?

John Vianney drew crowds of penitents to his small village, was canonised in 1925 and is now the patron saint of parish priests.

Which North African movement held that sacraments given by clergy who had lapsed under persecution were invalid?

Donatists were rigorists who wanted a church of saints rather than sinners, and their split from the Catholics of Carthage ran from the fourth century to the sixth.

Which twelfth-century Bishop of Paris set out the list of seven sacraments in his Sentences, a medieval textbook?

Peter Lombard wrote a work so widely taught that even the Summa of Thomas Aquinas did not eclipse it in importance until around the sixteenth century.

Which Latin phrase means that a sacrament takes effect from the rite itself, not from the merits of its minister?

Ex opere operato, literally from the work worked, means a baptism given by an unworthy priest still counts, so believers need not doubt the sacraments they have received.