Children who make their first Communion or first Confession are expressing a desire to get closer to God. People who get married in church or who are ordained to the priesthood are saying something about their future in relation to God and the Christian community. But sacraments imply more than just a personal future. They also point to the possibility and hope that the realities they celebrate will someday reign over all the earth. Eucharist looks forward to the time when all will be one.
Reconciliation speaks the possibility of peace among all families and nations.
Anointing of the Sick points to the hope that illness and disease will someday be no more. Making the connections We often hear people talking about the meaning of the sacraments as though it were a simple thing, as though each sacrament had a single simple meaning. We see now, however, that the actual meaning of any sacramental celebration is rich and complex, for it has multiple dimensions. A sacrament also has multiple levels of depth because it can be personally meaningful for an individual at one level, it can have a shared meaning for a particular group at another level, it can have a general meaning for the whole Church at yet a third level. When people talk about the meaning of a sacrament, they may be referring to its general meaning or to its meaning in the life of the institutional Church.