Since I don't really know much about these, I decided to do some research. Here's what I found:
The seven sacraments are baptism, penance, Eucharist, confirmation, matrimony, holy orders, and anointing of the sick. (Penance is confession, Eucharist is communion, matrimony is marriage and holy orders are the priests and nuns.) The sacraments were established sometime before 1100 AD/CE because they were already being discussed in the education system. Why seven sacraments? Well, according to Al Kresta, that's how many Christ instituted... I'll be honest...I'm not exactly sure where the Bible says that, but 7 has always been an important number in the Bible: 7 days of creation, Jesus speaks 7 times when He's on the cross, 7 years of famine, 7 plagues.... and the list goes on. Maybe the reason "7" is so important in the Bible is because the number 7 in Hebrew means fulfillment and "sacrament" in Latin is sacramentum which means "a sign of the sacred."
As http://catholicism.about.com/od/beliefsteachings/p/The_Sacraments.htm says "Each sacrament is an outward sign of an inward grace. When we participate in them worthily, each provides us with graces—with the life of God in our soul. In worship, we give to God that which we owe Him; in the sacraments, He gives us the graces necessary to live a truly human life."
http://www.americancatholic.org/features/special/default.aspx?id=29 < This website has a lot of information on the sacraments. I encourage you to go check it out. It's a little young, but sometimes I find it's the simple stuff that is easiest to understand : ) I would type in everything here, but it's just that it would essentially be coping and pasting the entire site.... so....go check it out!
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