Seven Sacraments

Question:

I am more and more interested in having grace accompany me on my journey through life. Also I would like to impart this to some small groups.
 

Comment:

Of the seven generally recognized sacraments—baptism, communion, confession, confirmation, marriage, holy orders and anointing of the sick—only the first two are specifically based on the ministry of Jesus Christ as described in the four Gospels of the New Testament. The others were added later by the Christian Church. It's appropriate that there are seven, for seven is a powerful spiritual number that always indicates the stages of spiritual growth and awareness we are called to move through in the course of our human experience. The seven days of creation, the seven chakras, the seven letters to the seven churches in the Revelation to John—the list of “sevens” goes on and on, through many different religious paths.   In the earliest days of the church, all the sacraments were for adults. Baptism, for example, marked not a human birth but a spiritual rebirth in someone choosing to embrace the message of Jesus Christ. Over time, however, the sacraments became spiritual milestones marking the essential stages of spiritual growth throughout an entire human experience. Baptism celebrates the union of spiritual and human that is the essence of every one of us as spiritual beings entering into a human experience. When we are deemed able to make a responsible choice (traditionally age 7) we are offered the opportunity to affirm our awareness of our own Christ energy through the sacrament of communion. Confession is a sacrament of awareness, in which we continually observe and evaluate our own choices and consequences, willing to release those negative choices that have led us to feel separate from the Divine and to repent—that is, to allow our minds to make more loving choices.   With confirmation we enter into still more responsibility as we accept the role of human adult, responsible for our own spiritual growth and responsible as well to make positive contributions to our collective4 consciousness. With marriage we choose to share our spiritual journey with another expression of the divine, in an energy of divine Love supporting us both as we continue our journey, and often assume responsibility for bringing other spiritual beings into human form and raising them through their early years, helping them to learn how to live as both human and divine. Holy orders are a sacrament of spiritual service, in which our own spiritual development is dedicated, not just to ourselves, but to the wellbeing and spiritual growth of others. And the seventh sacrament, which is variously known as Extreme Unction, Anointing of the Sick or Last Anointment, is a ritual of release from the limitations of our human forms and attitudes, a cleansing of any negative energy we have accumulated along the way, and an affirmation of our willingness to again become complete expressions of the divine.   These seven stages of spiritual growth and awareness define our very purpose as spiritual beings in human form, and serve to celebrate—and to remind us of—the wonderful ways in which that divine purpose expresses through us.   Blessings!

Rev. Ed