The mystery of Christ appears in the history of men and of the world—a history subject to sin—net only as the mystery of the incarnation but also as the mystery of salvation and redemption. God so loved sinners that he gave his Son, reconciling the world to himself (cf. 2 Cor. 5, 19). Jesus therefore as the Firstborn among many brethren (cf. Rom. 8, 29), holy, innocent, undefiled (cf. Heb. 7, 26), being obedient to his Father freely and out of filial love (cf. Phil. 2, 8), on behalf of his brethren, sinners that (they were, and as their Mediator, accepted the death which is for them the wages of sin (cf. Rom. 6, 23; GS, 18). By this his most holy death he redeemed mankind from the slavery of sin and of the devil, and he poured out on it the spirit of adoption, thus creating in himself a new humanity. - THE SACRAMENTS, ACTIONS OF CHRIST IN THE CHURCH, THE PRIMORDIAL SACRAMENT
The mystery of Christ is continued in the Church, which always enjoys his presence and ministers to him. This is done in a specific way through the signs that Christ instituted, which signify the gift of grace and produce it, and are properly called sacraments (cf. Council of Trent, Decree on the Sacraments, Dz.-Sch., 1601). The Church herself, however, is in some way to be considered the primordial sacrament, since she is not only the People of God but also in Christ a kind of "sign and instrument of the intimate union with God, and of the unity of the entire human race" (LG, 1). Sacraments are the principal and fundamental actions whereby Jesus Christ unceasingly bestows his Spirit on the faithful, thus making them the holy people which offers itself, in him and with him, as an oblation acceptable to the Father. The sacraments are surely to be considered inestimable blessings of the Church. To hem, then, beings the power of administering them; and yet they are always to be referred to Christ, from whom they receive their efficacy. In reality, it is Christ who baptises. ibis not 50 much a man who celebrates the Eucharist as Christ himself; for he it is who offers himself in the sacrifice of the Mass by the ministry of the priests (cf. Council of Trent, Decree on the Sacrifice of the Mass, Dz.-Sch., 1743). The sacramental action is, in the first place, the action of Christ, and the ministers of the Church are as his instruments.