This post comes out of a response to the one on marriage below. In my years working in RCIA, I recognized that the catechesis on the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation had been woefully inadequate for years, both in America and in England. One of the misunderstandings among people is that one can "undo" the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation. No, once a Catholic, always a Catholic. One can chose to be lapsed, an apostate. But, the theology of the Sacraments is clear. One receives an indelible mark, lasting forever, on the soul. Now, we physical beings have a hard time understanding spiritual concepts outside of lame, material metaphors or images. However, this indelible mark, as mysterious and invisible as it may seem, signs us for life and for eternity. It is a real efficacious sign, not an metaphor. All the Sacraments are efficacious. These actions from Christ Himself do something, not merely represent something.
Eternity is a very long time. In the Catholic Encyclopedia, the term character is used to describe this mark. If any one shall say that in three sacraments, viz. Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy orders, there is not a character impressed upon the soul, that is a certain spiritual and ineffaceable mark [signum] whence these sacraments cannot be iterated, let him be anathema (Concil. Trid. Sess. ult., can. vii). (and see the motu proprio listed below in the post on marriage).
And, if one denies it, one is, as seen above from the Council of Trent, excommunicated. The apostate, as I indicated below a few days ago, no longer has to make a formal, public declaration of apostasy. The "ineffaceable" sign changes us in the eyes of God, and should, change how we see ourselves.
If we truly believe in the doctrines concerning the Sacraments, we can understand the ramifications in the denial of our Baptismal character, not to mention that of Confirmation.
Baptism changes us forever, giving us God's Life, Sanctifying Grace and taking away Original Sin. We become Children of God, then, as seen in the CCC. I have provided the links.
In addition, to think that the Sacraments are not doing anything spiritual is to fall into subjectivity and relativism. Father James V. Schall wrote on the Pope's visit to England in an excellent article here.
Part of the article dealt with false sincerity, which covers up, denies Truth. Father wrote, We all become isolated in our own subjectivity. No one has to or can agree with anyone else on any grounds but sympathy or compassion. In such a world, "equality of opportunity" becomes the equality of doing whatever we want. We insist that the public order has no other purpose but to support us to do what we want. Since there is no truth, this latter "what we want" becomes the only truth. The only sin is to affirm that this view is false and destructive to everyone concerned, even those who rejoice in doing whatever is it that they want.
Benedict concludes his remarks to the English bishops by saying that "Fidelity to the Gospel in no way restricts the freedom of others—on the contrary is serves their freedom by offering them the truth." We are not free if we do not live in truth. The slavery to sin is much worse than political slavery, which is bad enough. We cannot be what we are except in the truth of what we are. When we exercise our "right" to do what we want, when we sympathize with lives of disorder, we lock ourselves and others into a world of self-centeredness in which the only law that counts is the one we give ourselves, whatever it is.