3 Different types of signs found in the sacraments

The Church uses three different types of signs in the seven sacraments, representing various spiritual truths that lead us to God.

Help Aleteia continue its mission by making a tax-deductible donation. In this way, Aleteia's future will be yours as well.

Donate with just 3 clicks

*Your donation is tax deductible!

In addition to the natural symbolism found in the physical objects used in the seven sacraments, the Church also employs various signs that come from the richness of the Bible.

These signs should remind us of biblical events that connect our own experience to the history of salvation.

Signs from the Old and New Testaments

The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains how many signs used in the sacraments come from the Old Testament:

Signs of the covenant. The Chosen People received from God distinctive signs and symbols that marked its liturgical life. These are no longer solely celebrations of cosmic cycles and social gestures, but signs of the covenant, symbols of God’s mighty deeds for his people. Among these liturgical signs from the Old Covenant are circumcision, anointing and consecration of kings and priests, laying on of hands, sacrifices, and above all the Passover. The Church sees in these signs a prefiguring of the sacraments of the New Covenant.
CCC 1150

God was preparing humanity for his coming into the world as the Messiah, and when he did come, he repeatedly referred to the events of the Old Testament:

Signs taken up by Christ. In his preaching the Lord Jesus often makes use of the signs of creation to make known the mysteries of the Kingdom of God. He performs healings and illustrates his preaching with physical signs or symbolic gestures. He gives new meaning to the deeds and signs of the Old Covenant, above all to the Exodus and the Passover, for he himself is the meaning of all these signs.
CCC 1151

Last of all the sacraments make use of “sacramental signs” that integrate human experience with the signs of the covenant:

Sacramental signs. Since Pentecost, it is through the sacramental signs of his Church that the Holy Spirit carries on the work of sanctification. The sacraments of the Church do not abolish but purify and integrate all the richness of the signs and symbols of the cosmos and of social life. Further, they fulfill the types and figures of the Old Covenant, signify and make actively present the salvation wrought by Christ, and prefigure and anticipate the glory of heaven.
CCC 1152

The celebrations of the seven sacraments are rich encounters with God that speak to our humanity, pointing us to the hidden spiritual realities in each of them.