sacramental

sacramental in the Roman Catholic Church, aid to devotion that is not a sacrament. Sacramentals are commonly divided into six classes: prayer, anointing, eating, confession, giving, and blessings. According to church teaching, sacramentals are not founded by God but by the church, and therefore do not convey grace. Examples are holy water , many blessings, and the rosary .

Sacramentals. In Christianity, acts or objects resembling (but less important than) the sacraments. Their number is not agreed, but they include the sign of the cross, grace at meals, stations of the cross, litanies, the angelus, rosary, etc.

sacramentals. According to RC theology, sacred signs with spiritual effects, resembling the sacraments. When the number of the latter was restricted to seven in the W. Church in the 12th cent., analogous religious practices, not held to be instituted by Christ, were called ‘sacramentals’. In contrast to the sacraments, which are held to convey grace primarily through the power of the rite itself (ex opere operato), sacramentals do so ex opere operantis ecclesiae, that is through the intercession of the Church. They include the blessing of holy oils and saying grace at meals.