Annointing of the Sick
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Annointing of the Sick
Annointing of the Sick and the Sacrament of Confession are the two Sacraments of Healing.
Sickness is one of the negative consequences of the fallen human condition; it is the result of original sin.
“Sickness presents a great challenge and reminds you and me, of our fragility, our weakness and our reaction to suffering can be one of self-centeredness and even despair or the temptation to turn away from God. However, it can also make a person more mature, helping him discern in his life what is not essential so that he can turn toward that which is. Very often illness provokes a search for God and a return to him.’”
In the prophetic writings of the OT, the redemptive meaning of suffering was evident, a meaning which would be fulfilled in the coming of Christ.
We read in Isaiah 53:11 – “By his sufferings shall my servant justify many, taking their faults on himself.”
Jesus came to heal and redeem the whole person, body and soul.
He sent out his Apostles to heal people: the 12 anointed many sick people with oil and cured them” (Mk 6:13; Mt 10:1, 8; and Lk 9:2)
This is the pre-Paschal institution of the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick.
And the post-Paschal actualization is made explicit by Christ before His Ascension: “They will lay their hands on the sick who will recover.” (Mk. 16:18).
In the letter of St. James 5:14-15 we read:
“If one of you is ill, he should send for the elders of the Church (the Priests), and they must anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord and pray over him. The prayer of faith will save the sick man and the Lord will raise him up again; and if he has committed any sins, he will be forgiven.”
Scripturally and historically the evidence is on the Catholic Church’s side – the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick took place, even in the very early centuries of the Church’s life.
In the Apostolic Tradition, written in and around the year 215 and attributed to Hippolytus, a rite for the blessing of the oil of the sick by the bishop was indicated at the end of the Eucharistic prayer.
Tertullian, in the early part of the 3rd Century referred in an obscure passage to the fact that the Christian Proculus had healed Severus “with oil.”
And in the Middle Ages, the idea developed that the sacrament of Anointing was not so much a healing of the body but more a preparation of the body and soul for the glory of the beatific vision.
William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris, who died in 1248 and who prepared the way for the great scholastic doctors of the 13th Century wrote that “a bride never approaches the bridegroom without some preparatory ablutions and fitting attire.”
And in a sense this is the mystery of this Holy Sacrament in which we’re cleansed of venial sin and also temporal punishments due to sin are remitted.
Therefore, the recipient with due disposition to whom this sacrament is administered will go straight to heaven after death.[1]
[1] Paul Haffner, The Sacramental Mystery, (Wiltshire: Cromwell Press 1999), 145-162.