• Sacraments and Sacramentals

While there are the Sacraments which constitute the primary act of our Worship there are also Sacramentals which is a complimentary extension of the Sacraments in a lesser degree, embracing the personal and pious devotional aspect of our day-to-day spirituality. A sacramental is a material object or action (in Latin sacramentalia) ritually blessed by a priest to signal its association with the Sacraments and so to incite reverence during acts of worship. Holy water, for example, is a sacramental that believers use to recall their baptism; other common sacramentals include blessed candles (often given to churchgoers on Candlemas), blessed palms (given away at churches on Palm Sunday), blessed ashes (placed on believers’ foreheads on Ash Wednesday services), a cross necklace (often taken to be blessed by a priest before daily use), blessed salt, and holy cards, as well as Christian art, especially a crucifix. Apart from those worn daily, such as a cross necklace or devotional scapular, sacramentals such as a Family Bible, are often kept on home altars in Christian households.

The Catholic Church currently defines sacramentals as “sacred signs which… signify effects, particularly of a spiritual nature, which are obtained through the intercession of the Church. By them men are disposed to receive the chief effect of the sacraments, and various occasions in life are rendered holy.” Sacramentals do not confer the grace of the Holy Spirit in the way that the sacraments do, but by the Church’s prayer, they prepare one to receive grace and dispose a person to cooperate with it. “For well-disposed members of the faithful, the liturgy of the sacraments and sacramentals sanctifies almost every event of their lives with the divine grace which flows from the Paschal mystery of the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Christ. From this source all sacraments and sacramentals draw their power.”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church lists three types of sacramentals:

  1. Blessings

Among sacramentals blessings (of persons, meals, objects, and places) come first. Every blessing praises God and prays for his gifts. In Christ, Christians are blessed by God the Father with every spiritual blessing.

  1. Consecrations and Dedications

Consecration is the solemn dedication to a special purpose or service. The word consecration literally means “association with the sacred”. Persons, places, or things can be consecrated. A synonym for to consecrate is to sanctify, a distinct antonym is to desecrate. Dedication is the act of consecrating an altar, temple, church, or other sacred building. It also refers to the inscription of books or other artifacts when these are specifically addressed or presented to a particular person.

  1. Exorcisms

Exorcism is a sacramental. It takes place when the Church asks publicly and authoritatively in the name of Jesus Christ that a person or object be protected against the power of the Evil One and withdrawn from his dominion.

Sacramentals prepare us to receive God’s grace and to cooperate with it, while the Sacraments confer grace. Sacramentals always include a prayer, usually a sign or action such as laying on of hands or counting beads or making the sign of the cross or sprinkling with another sacramental, holy water or preparing the body, casket and grave with incense. Again, sacramentals prepare us as we hope to next receive God’s grace. Sacramentals help us to call on God’s blessing. They help us to be a blessing in the service of the Lord.

Rosary beads, scapulars, medals and religious images are more accurately termed devotional articles; non-liturgical prayers such as the rosary, the stations of the cross, litanies, and novenas are called popular devotions or “expressions of popular piety”.

  • Pious Devotions

Closely associated with the Sacramentals is one’s personal piety and devotion to God in the private domain. While every Christian gives highest regard to communitarian worship, he or she will have a personal dimension to his or her life away from the public or the community. Personal devotions give the individual an intermediary sustenance. Thus, it also helps the individual to remain connected to the whole or the community in a concrete way.

Catholic devotions are particular customs, rituals, and practices of worship of God or honour of the saints which are in addition to the liturgy of the Catholic Church. Devotions can be described as “expressions of love and fidelity that arise from the intersection of one’s own faith, culture and the Gospel of Jesus Christ”. Devotions are not considered part of liturgical worship, even if they are performed in a church or led by a priest, but rather they are paraliturgical.

Catholic devotions have various forms, ranging from formalized, multi-day prayers such as novenas to activities, such as processions or the Eucharistic adoration, the wearing of scapulars, the veneration of the saints, the Canonical coronations of sacred Marian or Christological images and even horticultural practices such as maintaining a Mary Garden.

Common examples of Catholic devotions are the Way of the Cross, the Rosary, the Angelus and various litanies, devotions to the Blessed Sacrament, the Sacred Heart, the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Holy Face of Jesus, pilgrimages, observing the month of the Rosary in October and the month of Mary in May. Closely associated with these practices are the following which are commonly found in the parish of Katukurunda, for which you are invited to visit, offer prayers and experience God’s infinite grace:

  1. Personal Prayer
  2. Novenas
    • Novena to Infant Mary (Maria Bambina)
    • Novena to Our Lady of Perpetual Help
    • Novena to St. Joseph Vaz
  1. Recitation of the Rosary
  2. Devotion to the Dear Departed
    • Visits to the Cemetery
    • Holy Mass in the Cemetery
  1. Candle Shrines
  2. Wayside Shrines
  3. Way of the Cross
  4. Side Altars
  5. Sacred Image Display Chambers
  6. Crucifixes and Crosses