(Catechism, #1499)

Since we have begun as a Parish to celebrate these First Friday Masses for healing and other needs, incorporating after them a time for ministry and the reception of the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick, it seemed appropriate to address some issues that have arisen concerning this Sacrament. First, some comments about the Sacrament itself. Most of us are familiar with the passage in the Letter of James: "Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith will save the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven." (James, 5:14-15 RSV). Let us look at these verses for a moment. These verses are quoted in #1510 of the Catechism, in which it says that the rite described in these verses is "recognized" as "one of the seven sacraments." These verses are what is known in theology as the "locus classicus" for the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick. In other words, this is the primary Scripture from which the Church takes her understanding of this Sacrament. It would be worthwhile then to examine it a little more carefully, so that we can have a clear understanding of what the Church teaches about this powerful Sacrament.

First, it says to call the "elders of the church," in Greek, presbuterous tas ekklasias. The word here translated as 'elder' is actually the word 'presbuteros' from which we get the word 'priest', in other words, the verse is saying if anyone is sick, call the priest, who will then pray over them and anoint them with oil. The consequence of this prayer and anointing is that it will "save the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up." We also need to look at this word 'save.' In Greek, this is the word 'sosei', which is generally translated as "to save" but also means "to heal." This word occurs many times in the healing narratives in the Gospels and is often translated as 'heal' rather than as 'save.' Here we see a difficulty that is not simply linguistic but theological. For the Jewish people, salvation was conceived of as something that involved the entire person, not simply the soul. So when the Scripture says that the prayer of faith will save the sick man, the early Christians would not have thought about this primarily in terms of salvation and eternal life, but rather they would have thought about it, in the first instance, as referring to the sick man being healed. This is particularly clear from the context in James. It is not talking about evangelizing someone who is unsaved, it is talking about healing someone who is physically sick. The anticipated result of the rite described there in chapter 5 of James is that the person is healed. To summarize this section of James and our subsequent sacramental understanding deriving from it: God instituted this Sacrament for the healing of the sick, who receive this healing when they are prayed over and anointed by a priest of the Church.

It is a long and complex history that resulted in this initial understanding being 'reduced' to the concept of the Last Rites (Extreme Unction), which was to view this Sacrament primarily as the final preparation for eternal life, with little or no expectation or recognition of its healing capacity. However, the Catechism does point out that this transition in terms of how the Sacrament was viewed did not change the initial understanding in the Church: "Notwithstanding this evolution, the liturgy has never failed to beg the Lord that the sick person may recover his health…." (#1512). One of the goals of the reforms instituted by the Second Vatican Council was to clearly restate the Church's fundamental understandings of those elements of her life that are most central to her, and to clarify, when need be, what that fundamental understanding is, especially if over the years things have become unclear or seemingly altered. This of course applies to this particular Sacrament, which is why the Church mandated the alteration of the name from Extreme Unction to Anointing of the Sick. The action of the Church thus demonstrating the desire of the Church that the Christian faithful would once again see this Sacrament as a healing Sacrament, not simply an immediate preparation for death. This is particularly reflected in the prayer prayed over the oil of the sick by the bishop as he blesses it at the Chrism Mass. He says, in part: "Bless this oil + and sanctify it for our use. Make this oil a remedy for all who are anointed with it; heal them in body, in soul, and in spirit, and deliver them from every affliction." This prayer clearly reflects the Church's desire to see this Sacrament as including, in a very central way, an intent for healing.

Who should receive this Sacrament? The Catechism actually lists several groups of folks who are obvious candidates for the reception of this Sacrament:

--those in danger of death from sickness or old age

--those about to undergo a serious operation

--the elderly whose frailty has become more pronounced

--those who have already received the Sacrament but subsequently have experienced a

worsening of their serious condition

Any folks in the above-mentioned conditions are encouraged to receive the Sacrament. However, this leaves the question: how sick is sick enough to receive the Sacrament? There is some help for this we can derive from the above list. Notice, in terms of operations, it doesn't say that the operation has to be so grave as to be life-threatening, but only serious. The instruction in the Rite of Anointing itself mentions that the word 'seriously' was specifically chosen rather than 'gravely' or 'extremely' to describe how sick one had to be. The Sacrament is clearly not intended for what are usually considered 'trivial' physical ailments, e.g. colds, etc., but people with what their doctors would term a serious condition should feel to receive this Sacrament.