CHAPTER IV: ON THE SUBJECT OF THE SACRAMENTS

1237. - The subject of a Sacrament is called he who receives the Sacrament, and is capable of the effect of the Sacrament.

The subject of the Sacraments is man alone as a wayfarer; because, as is clear from Sacred Scriptures and tradition, the Sacraments were instituted for wayfaring men alone. Yet not all men are capable of all the Sacraments. For neither can women receive the Sacrament of Order, nor can children not yet using reason receive the Sacraments of Penance and Extreme Unction.

The reason a priori why man alone as a wayfarer is capable of the Sacraments is the will of Christ the Lord, the institutor of the Sacraments. But the reason of fittingness is, because, according to the order of the present Providence, man alone as a wayfarer is capable of first grace or of the increase of grace; but the Blessed or souls detained in purgatory are not of this kind, since for them there has already been determined a measure of glory corresponding to the grace which they had in mortal life. Much less are the damned capable of grace, as being now separated from God for eternity.

These things having been posited, we must treat of the requisites both for the valid and for the licit reception of the Sacraments.