[ noun ] a formal religious ceremony conferring a specific grace on those who receive it; the two Protestant ceremonies are baptism and the Lord's Supper; in the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church there are seven traditional rites accepted as instituted by Jesus: baptism and confirmation and Holy Eucharist and penance and holy orders and matrimony and extreme unction <noun.act>
Sacrament \Sac"ra*ment\, n. [L. sacramentum an oath, a sacred thing, a mystery, a sacrament, fr. sacrare to declare as sacred, sacer sacred: cf. F. sacrement. See {Sacred}.] 1. The oath of allegiance taken by Roman soldiers; hence, a sacred ceremony used to impress an obligation; a solemn oath-taking; an oath. [Obs.]
I'll take the sacrament on't. --Shak.
2. The pledge or token of an oath or solemn covenant; a sacred thing; a mystery. [Obs.]
God sometimes sent a light of fire, and pillar of a cloud . . . and the sacrament of a rainbow, to guide his people through their portion of sorrows. --Jer. Taylor.
3. (Theol.) One of the solemn religious ordinances enjoined by Christ, the head of the Christian church, to be observed by his followers; hence, specifically, the eucharist; the Lord's Supper.
Syn: {Sacrament}, {Eucharist}.
Usage: Protestants apply the term sacrament to baptism and the Lord's Supper, especially the latter. The R. Cath. and Greek churches have five other sacraments, viz., confirmation, penance, holy orders, matrimony, and extreme unction. As sacrament denotes an oath or vow, the word has been applied by way of emphasis to the Lord's Supper, where the most sacred vows are renewed by the Christian in commemorating the death of his Redeemer. Eucharist denotes the giving of thanks; and this term also has been applied to the same ordinance, as expressing the grateful remembrance of Christ's sufferings and death. ``Some receive the sacrament as a means to procure great graces and blessings; others as an eucharist and an office of thanksgiving for what they have received.'' --Jer. Taylor.
Sacrament \Sac"ra*ment\, v. t. To bind by an oath. [Obs.] --Laud.
Recently two army officers were found guilty by a military court of desecrating the sacrament in a Catholic church and discharged. The animosity is made worse by rising unemployment.
He added that Christ celebrated the Eucharist with men and that the sacrament symbolizes the sacrifice men should make in marriage. In the Catholic faith, the consecration of the Eucharist commemorates Christ's giving of himself for the church.
A eucharistic congress is a gathering of the faithful to foster devotion to the sacrament of the altar.
This was cinema as secular sacrament.
"We're not for it," said Deacon Norman D. Phillips, spokesman for Catholic Archbishop John Quinn. "To us, marriage is a sacrament with deeply religious overtones.
"It spread like wildfire," Hale said, adding that it uses the hallucigenic peyote bean "as a sacrament," which also is used in a "limited way" in some other tribal religions.
Haskie said church members believe peyote use as a sacrament is as old as the origin of the Navajos.
In his homily, John Paul described how the sacrament of the Eucharist, or turning of bread into Christ's body, represented Jesus' death and resurrection.