Welcome to the Council of Trend Podcast, a production of Catholic answers.

Tell me about form and matter and why do they matter?

And I'm going to go to a more recent story out of the Archdiocese of Phoenix that I think

we all know about now.

The priest who is saying we baptize you, in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost,

is the Catholic Church being pedantic here, Trent?

I mean, at the end of the day, isn't this just sort of a nice ceremony for a, that you

have for your babies and then you have some people over to the house afterwards or is it

bigger than that?

Right.

Right.

So the Catechism of the Council of Trend says that every sacrament consists of two things.

Matter, which is called the element and form, which is commonly called the word.

So you have the matter, which is the stuff that constitutes the sacrament, the stuff that

you are using to communicate sanctifying grace.

And then you have the form, which would be, usually it would be the formula that is used,

that is uttered so that the sacrament is valid.

And so there are different formulas that are the form for baptism.

So now in the Western Church, that would be, I baptize you in the name of the Father

and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

In the Eastern Church, the formula is in the passive form.

The servant of God, Trent, is baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy

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