How to Fruitfully Receive the Sacraments

I recently heard a sermon on Ash Wednesday that convinced me this article needed to be written. The priest was talking about how there were more than double the number of people at Mass for Ash Wednesday than for a regular Sunday mass, even though one is obligatory and the other is not. For most people, this would not be considered big news, but what he said next really stuck with me. He said, and I am paraphrasing here, “The ashes aren’t magic, and they are not going to automatically fix your life.” While most Catholics probably know the ashes are not magic, I have recently begun to realize that some Catholics think that some things even more important than ashes are magic. I am talking about the sacraments.

Before going any further, I want to specify what I mean when I use the word magic. Magic in this context refers to something supernatural and automatic. For example, someone who believes the sacraments are magic might say the following: “If I get dipped in the magic waters of baptism, I will automatically become holy, or if I get my magic ashes on Ash Wednesday, my life will automatically improve.” For these individuals, magic means something that does the work for them rather than something that enables them to do the work themselves. Unfortunately for them, this is not what the Church teaches. Ashes are not magic, and neither are the sacraments.

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the sacraments are “powers that come forth from the Body of Christ.”(1) These powers are sanctifying powers (2), which is just a fancy way of saying they empower us to be holy. But for this sanctification to take place, there must be an appropriate disposition exhibited by the person receiving the sacrament. When referring to the manna in the wilderness, which prefigured the Holy Eucharist, Saint Augustine said, “Your Fathers ate the manna and died, not because the manna was bad, but because they ate it with the wrong dispositions.”(3) The Catechism affirms the same principle, stating: “To attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand, is to fall into superstition.”(4)

One cannot approach the Holy Eucharist, or any other sacrament, with an improper disposition and expect it to magically fix all of their shortcomings and transform them into a saint. If our use of the sacraments is to be life-changing, then we must be acutely aware that there is a difference between the valid reception of a sacrament and the fruitful reception of sacramental grace. The vast majority of the sacraments received by Catholics are valid. But a valid sacrament needs more than its own validity to produce spiritual fruit. To use an analogy, we could say that the sacraments are like seeds. If you plant a seed in soil that has not been properly prepared, it will not grow. Likewise, if the sacramental grace is planted in a disposition that has not been properly prepared, it too will not grow. God gives us the grace we need to become holy, but we must nurture that grace if we want it to bear fruit.

For someone to approach the sacraments with a fruitful disposition, they must possess the following: A right faith in Christ, a veneration for the particular sacrament, and a genuine desire to conform to the Church and to renounce sin.(5) To possess a right faith in Jesus Christ is to believe in him according to what the Church teaches about him. To have a proper veneration for a particular sacrament is to treat it with the reverence and respect that sacrament deserves. For example, the Catholic church teaches that in the holy eucharist, Jesus Christ our Lord is “truly, really, and substantially present.”(6) St. Hippolytus of Rome referred to the holy eucharist as the new presence of God with his new covenant people and the Church as the new holy of holies in which that presence dwells.(7) Considering the amount of reverence that was required on the part of the high priest to enter the holy of holies in the Old Covenant, it makes sense that an even greater amount of reverence is required when entering the New Holy of Holies. For when the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silent before him (Hab 2:20)! Finally, one must approach the sacrament with a genuine desire to conform him or herself to the Church and to completely renounce sin. If someone approaches a sacrament while openly living in sin with no intention to change, that person does not have a fruitful disposition. They may receive the seed of sacramental grace, but the soil of their disposition will prevent it from bearing fruit. 

God’s will for each of us is that we would be holy (1 Thess 4:3), and God is always at work in our lives to empower and guide us toward this goal. But God will not drag us kicking and screaming toward this goal. It is a grave error to believe that God will do everything for us while we do nothing. If holiness is our goal, as it should be for every single Christian, then we must cooperate with God’s grace by ensuring we approach his sacraments with the proper disposition. As Saint Augustine once said, “God created us without us: but he did not will to save us without us.”(8)

1. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1116.

2. CCC, 1123.

3. St. Augustine, Commentary on the Gospel of John 26,16.

4. CCC, 2111.

5. St.Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, III,q69,a9.

6. Council of Trent (1551): DS 1651.

7. St. Hippolytus, In Daniel 3,24.

8.  St. Augustine, Sermon 169,11.