We would like to review with you the history of our belief in that sacrament and its status today.

Like most things in a 2,000-year old church, the anointing of the sick has undergone changes as it was experienced by millions of people in different cultures. 

Also, like most things in the church, it has its origins in sacred scripture.

Although Jesus did more important things than healing sick people, he was probably best known in his day as a healer. 

• Healing was also a significant part of the early church. In fact, it was one of the signs of authenticity of doctrine: 

• True preachers could also heal people. 

• But then, as the world goes, so (at times) goes the church. Healing became INSTITUTIONALIZED and SPECIALIZED.

Historians lose track of the healing ministry over the next thousand years until the theological revival of the Middle Ages. 

Then, in the 16th century, the Council of Trent summarized the church’s beliefs and practices. The council clearly defined the seven sacraments and neatly regulated their celebration.

The anointing of the sick was described as a SPECIAL SACRAMENT TO PREPARE PEOPLE FOR DEATH. 

• It COMBINED the power to forgive sins and the power to heal sickness (if it was God’s will).  

• It was LIMITED to people in danger of death from sickness, accident or old age.

Naturally, this close connection of the anointing with death made the sacrament as unpopular as death itself! 

• Older priests, after the Second Vatican Council had to readjust the focus of the anointing.

• We, like many other priests can tell stories of how they have been asked to anoint someone, “but don’t let them know what you’re doing or they’ll be scared.” 

• Some people still put off the anointing until they are unconscious or even dead.

But the sacrament of anointing SHOULD BE SEEN ACCORDING TO ITS ORIGINAL INTENTIONS IN THE SCRIPTURES. 

• Not as a post-mortem ritual for relatives

• But as a powerful, grace-filled way to make sense of suffering, to combine our own death with the death of Jesus. 

• As with all the sacraments, it is best celebrated, not in a small bedroom at home but in church with as much of the community present as possible.

Now comes the obvious question: Who should be anointed? 

• My only honest answer is: “Nobody knows for sure.” 

• Most of us are clearly removed from immediate death. 

• But how far away depends on how each of us interpret “sickness” and “death.”

In one sense, we begin to die as soon as we are born (although I think that point of view ignores the divine view of human life in this world). However, at some point in our life, death does gain on the life forces. We also do experience some “sicknesses” today that our grandparents would have scratched their heads at in confusion.

Just where along the dotted line anointing becomes appropriate is at present TIME an open question. The church wisely seems to be waiting for the common sense of God’s people, the sensus fidelium, to set a working pattern between the common cold and terminal cancer. 

One indicator may be the rite’s official sanction to anoint anyone about to undergo serious or semi-serious surgery.

But I, we do not need to be cut open to have intimations of mortality. It seems to me that, if we are to make sense of our suffering, we need to make connections between any sickness and our eventual death

And what about emotional, nervous or spiritual sickness? People rarely die of depression or anxiety, but those pains can be a living death. 

And there is that disgust and pain in life that Kierkegaard called “sickness unto death.”

From what I know of suffering, Jesus would have appreciated being anointed in the garden, when he sweat blood thinking about his death, rather than on the cross when he actually died.

Psychological pain is as real as physical pain. More and more, we are coming to appreciate that we should be anointed for any “sickness” that is draining life from us.

So, in the near future, we will continue offering the anointing of the sick at a public time —usually the first Friday of every month—. Each of us may decide whether we might benefit from being anointed.

So do take the time to examine your personal situation. You already have access to God through prayer. Would the prayer of the whole community also help you?

If 100 people choose to do so, that is fine. If one only one person chooses, that is fine, too. We do not want to trivialize the sacrament. What we do want to do is to heal the sick, as Jesus would have us do.