Anointing of the Sick

One

Today we begin to meditate on the Sacrament of Anointing. This holy sacrament was instituted by Jesus Himself when He gave a share of His own power to the leaders of His Church to heal the sick, raise the dead and cleanse the diseased. (cf. Mt 10:8.) In his epistle, St. James says, “are they any among you who are sick? Let him call on the elders (Bishop) who will pray over him and anoint him with oil of the Lord, and the prayer of faith will save the sick man.” (Js 5:14.) Thus, the purpose and value of this sacrament is tied to sickness, pain, and suffering. It is clearly given by Christ to His Church in order for Jesus to have compassion on those who suffer.

This holy Sacrament shows us that only evil is evil. Pain, sorrow, suffering and loss can be good, or at least can be used by God in His power to bring about good. They are the results of original sin.

We need to understand evil. It has no existence of its own; rather, it simply denies the presence of something good created by God. For instance, it’s bad to be blind because it means you don’t have sight; it’s bad to have cancer because the cells lack the proper harmony with the rest of the body in their process of replicating; and it’s bad to do poorly on a test because it means that your test suffers from an absence of the right answers. Finally, it’s morally bad to be wicked, because it means you lack the virtue – the honesty and prudence and love – you ought to have. To repeat, evil, is the absence of a good which should be present. Evil is sinful when the denial of that good given by God is willed. When evil is merely physical—like when someone is sick or diseased—it doesn’t mean they have chosen to sin necessarily, and this suffering is the result, but that they suffer in their health from the effects of original sin.  So, with this sacrament, Jesus Himself comes to us as the Divine physician.

Two

Suffering is the felt response to something perceived as being evil. Different evils are all unpleasant in different ways, and the crucial point is that they should be unpleasant to motivate us to change things. We ought to be repulsed by evil. It’s not enough just to know something is bad; it’s a sign of human excellence to feel bad, to feel sorrow, sadness and pain in the face of evil or loss. Jesus wept when his friend Lazarus died. Indifference, callousness, nonchalance in the face of evil – these aren’t strengths, but defects of character. We ought to dislike evil and to experience it should cause suffering. Pain and sadness are good emotions that are meant to move us to bring about a change for good. If we stay in pain and sadness, we may become angry at God or despair, and turn away from Him. Further, we may fail to take advantage of one of our greatest weapons to help Jesus save souls – by offering up our own personal suffering with Jesus’. For these reasons we need a specific sacrament to strengthen us with the grace of God not to be overwhelmed by suffering nor to waste them. This is the sacrament of Anointing. This sacrament is there help us in our mission to save souls through suffering.  

Three

CCC 1520 “The Sacrament of Anointing confers a particular gift of the Holy Spirit. The first grace of this sacrament is one of strengthening, peace and courage to overcome the difficulties that go with the condition of serious illness or the frailty of old age.” This grace strengthens against the temptations of the evil one, against discouragement and anguish in the face of death.

The second grace of the Sacrament of Anointing is to give us the supernatural strength of the Holy Spirit to unite our sufferings to the suffering of Jesus to help him save the world from self-destruction and to save souls from going to hell and to help other people grow in holiness. The CCC says: By the grace of this sacrament the sick person receives the strength and the gift of uniting himself more closely to Christ's Passion: in a certain way he is consecrated to bear fruit by configuration to the Savior's redemptive Passion. Suffering, a consequence of original sin, acquires a new meaning; it becomes a participation in the saving work of Jesus. 1521

Four

Christ did not take away suffering, He transformed it and gave it a two-fold meaning purpose: to bring about our own transformation in happiness and holiness; and to join with Jesus to help him save souls.  

First, suffering is good for us. Suffering purifies us of placing our faith hope and love in the wrong thing. To often we place our faith hope and love in ourselves, in other people or things of this world. These are all passing. We should place our faith hope and love in God, who is Everlasting.

Second, Jesus is inviting us to unite our suffering to his to help him save souls. In Colossians 1:24 St. Paul writes: “I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake. And in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church.” What could be lacking in the suffering of Jesus? Our participation! Jesus is inviting us to help him rescue sinners from Hell and Help souls to holiness by prayer and sacrifice. What you Did not choose; Do not like; and Cannot change; Accept with Trust; and Offer with love to Jesus for the conversion and holiness of others.

Five

There are literally 1000s of people on our Rosary prayer list that need you to pray the Rosary every day and to not waste your sufferings. Offer them up. And there is a specific sacrament to give you the supernatural strength to accept and offer up your suffering when you can go on – the sacrament of anointing.

Further graces of this Sacrament entail--
- the forgiveness of sins, if the sick person was not able to obtain it through the sacrament of Penance;
- the restoration of health, if it is conducive to the salvation of his soul;
- the preparation for passing over to eternal life. CCC 1532.