(Death, Heaven, Purgatory, Hell)
Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults
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Question 25: What is the difference between a Sacrament and a sacramental?
Answer: The seven Sacraments were all instituted by Christ, and the Church is powerless to change them; when worthily received, they infallibly confer grace of themselves. Sacramentals differ from the sacraments in not having been instituted by Christ in order to be perpetuated within the Church as divinely established means of conferring grace. For the most part, sacramentals are instituted by the Church, and even where we know that Christ practiced what is now considered a sacramental (such as the washing of feet at the Last Supper), the ritual was not intended by him as essentially related to the salvation or sanctification of the world.
They further differ from the sacraments in their efficacy. Sacraments confer grace as instrumental causes in such a way that, provided no obstacle interferes, the grace they signify they also produce by the power of God, who works through them. A newborn child is baptized, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit are infused. Not so the sacramentals. Their efficacy does not come from the ritual performed but partly from the dispositions of the person who uses them and partly from the intercessory prayer of the whole Church, to which there belongs a particularly effective power because she is the holy and immaculate bride of Christ. This latter influence is what makes the sacramentals different from other religious practices (outside the sacraments), whose efficacy depends on the sanctity and fervor of the single person. Sacramentals are forms of ecclesial, as distinct from merely individual, piety. Built into the efficacy of the sacraments is an infallibility that God himself assures. Sacramentals lack this kind of inevitable effectiveness; they depend on the influence of prayerful petition: the person's who uses them, and the Church's in approving their practice.
The sacramentals finally differ from sacraments in the effects they produce. Unlike the sacraments, they do not confer sanctifying grace directly but merely dispose a person to its reception. This can occur in different ways, depending on the nature of the sacramental. A blessed article, like a crucifix or medal, acquires an objective holiness in virtue of the benediction placed upon it. Aware of this fact, the believer treats it accordingly and is thus prepared in heart to receive whatever grace God intends to confer on him. So, too, with verbal blessings and other sacramentals. They stimulate the faith of the one who reverently hears or uses them and thus indirectly are occasions for the reception of divine favors.
