When you ask if “sacraments work,” I presume you want to know if the Catholic Church's seven sacraments (Baptism, Eucharist, Confirmation, Reconciliation, Anointing of the Sick, Matrimony, Holy Orders) are real or mere “symbols.”
A friend who is a member of the Roman Catholic Church in the Spokane Diocese works as a lay para educator at a Catholic elementary school in Spokane. Now of course she is unemployed.
The origins of this idea go back to as early as the second century A.D., and down through history various popes and theologians have encouraged adoption of the belief that Mary is “Co-Redemptrix.”