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1677 Sacramentals are sacred signs instituted by the Church. They prepare men to receive the fruit of the sacraments and sanctify djfferent circumstances of life. 1678 Among the sacramentals blessings occupy an
important place. They include both praise of Godfor his
works and gifts, and the Church’s intercession for men
that they may be able to use God’s gifts according to
the spirit of the Gospel. 1679 In
addition to the liturgy, Christian life is nourished by
various forms of popular piety, rooted in the different
cultures. While carefully clarifying them in the light
offaith, the Church fosters the forms of popular piety that
express an evangelical instinct and a human wisdom and that
enrich Christian life. i68o All the sacraments, and principally those of Christian initia— 1525 tion, have as their goal the last Passover of the child of God which, through death, leads him into the life of the Kingdom. Then what he confessed in faith and hope will be fulfilled: ‘I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.”2
i68i The Christian meaning of death is
revealed in the light of the 1010—1014 Paschal
mystery of the death and Resurrection of Christ in whom
resides our only hope. The Christian who dies in Christ
Jesus is ‘away from the body and at home with the
Lord’.’3 1682 For the
Christian the day of death inaugurates, at the end of
his sacramental life, the fulfilment of his new birth
begun at Baptism, the definitive ‘conformity’ to
‘the image of the Son’ conferred by the anointing
of the Holy Spirit, and participation in the feast of the
Kingdom which was anticipated in the Eucharist — |
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