Question Two: On the Constitutive Elements of the Sacrament

431. Notions. - The constitutive elements of a sacrament are matter and form. Matter is distinguished as proximate, which, in transitory sacraments, is the sensible human action itself or the sacred ceremony; and remote, which is that about which the sacred action is concerned. But in the sacrament of Penance only the proximate matter is the matter from which the sacrament is constituted and which enters the very constituted essence (n. 13, 4); - for the remote matter is only the matter about which: it does not enter the composition of the sacrament itself, but is only a necessarily required condition about which the sacramental action is merely exercised, i.e., about which the proximate matter itself is placed and the form is pronounced.

Concerning these things we must speak in particular.