Word to the Wise
Saturday, February 26, 2022 - Saturday in the 7th Week in Ordinary Time
[Jas 5:13-20 and Mark 10:13-16]Is anyone among you sick? He should summon the presbyters of the Church, and they should pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed any sins, he will be forgiven. [James]
These words are read at the beginning of the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick (at least outside of Mass). In preaching parish missions, I have always concluded the mission with an anointing of the sick. Although the sacrament is intended for more than the common cold or scraped knee (and I try to say that at the beginning of the service), it may indeed include emotional/psychological conditions. The service has a great impact at the mission. Anyone sick enough to require surgery or hospitalization is surely eligible, as well as persons of advanced age. When I was chaplain for the Dominican Sisters of Kentucky (now the Dominican Sisters of Peace) 2005-2009, there was a monthly anointing service for the sisters in the infirmary.
The circumstances of the sacrament can be quite dramatic as in an emergency room at a hospital or peacefully solemn at the home bedside of an elderly person. Sadly, I am sometimes called to anoint someone at a hospital by a relative who does not attend so that the person being anointed is alone. And there is still a lingering belief in some sectors that the sacrament is strictly LAST rites, so that the priest is not called until death is imminent and time is very short.
The Second Vatican Council intended to make the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick more accessible, as the words from the Letter of James seem to imply. I urge all the Beloved Congregation to take advantage of this ministry or urge aged, ill or infirm friends and family to do so. AMEN