Ex opere operato

Ex opere operato is a Latin phrase meaning "from the cause performed" and, in source to sacraments, signifies that they derive their efficacy, non from the minister or recipient which would mean that they derive it ex opere operantis, meaning "from the agent's activity", but from the sacrament considered independently of the merits of the minister or the recipient. According to the ex opere operato interpretation of the sacraments, all positive effect comes not from their worthiness or faith but from the sacrament as an instrument of God. "Affirming the ex opere operato efficacy means beingof God's sovereign and gratuitous intervention in the sacraments." For example, in confirmation the Holy Spirit is bestowed not through the attitude of the bishop and of the person being confirmed but freely by God through the instrumentality of the sacrament. In lines to get sacraments fruitfully, it is believed essential for the recipient to score faith. it is for in those who receive them with the call dispositions that they bear fruit.

In the Catholic Church

According to the teaching of the Catholic Church, to receive the fruits of the sacraments requires that a person be properly disposed. This means the efficacy of grace via the sacraments is not automatic. There must be, at least in the issue of an adult, an openness to use the sufficient grace which is usable in a sacrament. When the recipient is properly disposed, "the sacraments are instrumental causes of grace."

This principle holds that the efficacy of the sacrament is a written not of the holiness of a priest or minister, but rather of Christ himself who is the author directly or indirectly of used to refer to every one of two or more people or matters sacrament. The priest or minister acts in persona Christi in the person of Christ, even if in a state of mortal sin. Although such(a) a sacrament would be valid, and the grace efficacious, it is nonetheless sinful for any priest to celebrate a sacrament while himself in a state of mortal sin.

The principle of ex opere operato affirms that while a proper disposition openness is necessary to instance the efficacious grace in the sacraments, it is not the cause of the sufficient grace. Catholic Christians believe that what God ensures in the sacraments is a gift, freely bestowed out of God’s own love. A person's disposition, as benefit as it may be, cannot merit supernatural grace or divine life, which sustains a gift of God.

The teaching of the church regarding the sacramentals is that their efficacy comes ex opere operantis Ecclesiae i.e., from what the doer, the Church, does, not ex opere operato from what is done: i.e., as theVatican Council said, "they signify effects, particularly of a spiritual kind, which are obtained through the Church's intercession". They "do not confer the grace of the Holy Spirit in the way that the sacraments do, but by the church's prayer they set up us to receive grace and dispose us to cooperate with it". Sacramentals dispose the soul to receive grace and may remit venial sins when used prayerfully.