Chapter 11: Anointing of the Sick

Chapter 11: Anointing of the Sick Celebrating God’s Healing Love

Basic facts • Celebrates and carries out the healing ministry of Jesus. • Offers persons strength, peace, and courage to overcome the hardships of serious illness or the increasing frailty of old age. • Ill or frail persons can unite their own anguish with the suffering, death, and Resurrection of Jesus.

Jesus’ Healing Actions • From many Gospel accounts, we know that Jesus healed because he felt compassion for hurting people. • Jesus in action was God in action through him, touching people’s lives even at their most painful moments.

What Does Anointing Celebrate? • Acknowledges and celebrates the wholeness of a human person, paying attention to both the physical and spiritual well-being. • An illness that has both physical and emotional causes is considered psychosomatic (from the Greek mean “spirit” and “body.”) • In other words, physical illness do not just affect our body. • They often have damaging effects on our state of mind and spiritual well-being. • Primary emphasis of Anointing is to bring strength and healing to sick and dying people.

The Healing Power of the Faith Community • When the Christian community bring God’s compassion and love to its members who are in pain or near death, the community is acting as an instrument of God’s healing grace. • Pastoral Care of the Sick • Visiting the sick • Bringing Holy Communion to the sick • Praying for them during Mass or other times.

The Healing Power of the Faith Community • Parable of the Lost Sheep • When one sheep is discovered missing, the shepherd leaves the 99 to go off to search for the one lost. • No community is truly whole unless its members are caring for one another. • Likewise, curing one member helps bring about the healing of all.

The Ritual of Anointing: Symbolic Actions and Words • The Rite of Anointing varies slightly according to the situation. • In all cases, a priest or bishop administers the sacrament. Different Rites for Different Circumstances: • Offered with the wider faith community present. • Offered to non-terminally ill persons. • Offered to dying persons.

Offered to the wider faith community present • Can be celebrated with a whole faith community, either as a part of Mass or in a separate healing service. • For instance, every year for Grandparent's Day (September 8, 2013), one Catholic school in Iowa has a special Mass that includes the Sacrament of Anointing.

Offered to non-terminally ill persons • People who are about to undergo major surgery for illness that is serious but not life threatening. • The celebration of Anointing takes place; • In the home of the ill person • In the hospital • In a nursing home

Offered to dying persons • Brings special comfort and peace to those who suffer a terminal illness or who are close to death. • Usually happens apart from a Mass. • A dying person will receive; • Special prayers of condemnation, or entrusting the dying person over to Christ. • their last Holy Communion. • Holy Communion offered to a dying person is known as viaticum • Goes with the dying person as nourishment on their journey to eternity with Christ.

Not just for Dying Persons • Like Reconciliation and the Eucharist, Anointing may be received more than once. • Although the circumstances must be serious to warrant receiving the sacrament, persons can find themselves in such situations more than once in a lifetime.

Common Elements in Anointing Common to All forms of the Sacrament: • Prayers • A penitential rite • Readings from the Scripture • Laying on of hands by the priest • Anointing with oil on the forehead and hands by the priest • Holy Communion

The Essentials • Anointing by the priest on the person’s forehead and hands while praying these words: Anointing of the forehead: • Through this holy anointing may the Lord in his love and mercy help you with the grace of the Holy Spirit. AMEN. Anointing of the hands: • May the Lord who frees you from sin save you and raise you up. AMEN

Symbolic Actions in other Sacraments • Makes use of many of the same symbols and actions that are used in other sacraments: • Anointing with oil • Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Orders • Laying on of Hands • Confirmation, Reconciliation, Holy Orders • Holy Communion • The Eucharist

Anointing’s History • The Apostles and early Christians used blessed oil, prayer, and the laying on of hands to carry on Jesus’ mission of healing the sick. • During the early period of the sacrament’s history, evidence suggests that any Christian could pray for sick people or anoint them with oil or lay hands on them. • The oil, blessed by the bishop, was used as an ointment on the injured part of the body. • Sometimes it was even drunk. • In many instances, ill Christians were anointed with the blessed oil on a regular basis.

Anointing becomes a Preparation for Dying • Gradually, from about the 8th to 12thcenturies, the ministry of anointing became reserved for priests and also became regarded as a preparation for death. • Then Anointing became associated with the sacrament of Penance and was generally administered to excommunicated persons only when they were near death. • Therefore, the sacrament came to be seen as a preparation for death rather than as an act of healing. • By the twelfth century, the sacrament was officially called Extreme Unction—a term meaning “last anointing;” • It was even called “the last rites.”

Original Purpose is Restored • After the Second Vatican Council, Anointing original purpose—healing—was once again emphasizedas indicated by the official designation of Anointing as part of the Catholic church’s overall pastoral care and concern for sick and dying people.

The Sacraments of Healing • Reconciliation and Anointing, as two sacraments that celebrate God’s healing in our life, minister to the physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being of church members. • Like the other sacraments, they inevitable focus on a person’s relationship in community—on • Forgiving one another • Caring for one another • Surrounding one another with God’s love

Chapter 11: Anointing of the Sick