Dear Father,
I’m confused about the anointing of the sick. In my parish, we often have a healing Mass and most everyone goes forward to be anointed. One of them is a close friend of mine. After Mass, I told her that I was sorry that she was sick and wondered why she never told me. She said that she’s not really sick but feels like the anointing wards off sickness. I never knew this about anointing. So, now I go up with her to be anointed. Why doesn’t every priest give out anointings at every Mass?
-Meron
Dear Meron,
The anointing of the sick is a sacrament. It is intended, as its name intimates, for the sick. And not just any sick person, but the seriously sick because the sacraments are always for those who are dealing with serious matters. Baptism is for those on the way to perdition and want to be saved, as is the sacrament of penance. Matrimony is for those who are seriously wanting to have a family in perpetuity and not for those who are simply dating. The Eucharist is for Catholics in the state of grace pursuing union with Jesus. Holy Orders is for those men whom the Church calls to be seriously devoted to her.
Just as there is a sacrament that is related to being born (baptism) and another that gives adult strength (confirmation), so there is a sacrament that deals with death and what leads to death (anointing).
The reason priests don’t “give out anointings at every Mass,” as you put it, is because they can’t. It’s not because they don’t want people to be anointed for healing but because it is an abuse of the sacrament. It’s an abuse because the sacrament is intended for the seriously ill, that is, those who bear sickness and extreme weakness (i.e., severe weakness due to old age) that leads to death. Christ instituted this sacrament to unite those who are suffering from death-dealing illness and weakness so that they would have a way to be more deeply united with Him precisely in their sickness. He wants them to be at the very center of His Sacred Heart in the midst of their suffering from what is robbing them of life.
To be even more clear, Christ wants those who are suffering from death-related sickness and debilitation to have a way of making their death-dealing illnesses spiritually life-giving for themselves and their loved ones, indeed, for the entire Church. In this sacrament, He joins them to His own suffering and passion and death. The power of his resurrection is infused in them, transforming their sufferings. Sometimes, there are miraculous healings of the body as a result of anointing of the sick. But always, there is meant to be a miraculous healing of the soul.
This healing of the soul refers to the taking away of temporal punishment due to sin. Without the weight of that temporal punishment, the soul is lifted up and strengthened for the journey to heaven. Imagine the gift of bypassing purgatory and going straight to heaven! That’s what God wants, even though we sometimes cling to our attachment to the disorders of our lives.
Through the sacrament of anointing of the sick, if the sick person does not recover but dies, we have the confidence that the sacrament worked. The person’s natural sickness was transformed into “anointed sickness,” giving it supernatural power. By the anointing of the sick, a sick person becomes another suffering Christ unto salvation. Even if such a person still needs the cleansing fires of purgatory, he or she will be helped to undergo that final suffering.
Think of the sacrament of anointing, as St. Thomas Aquinas teaches, as a form of spiritual dieting and exercise. Diet and exercise are exactly what medical doctors prescribe for those who need to get in shape. The sacrament of anointing takes up the suffering of severe illness or severe debilitation and transforms them into the kind of diet and exercise the soul needs in order to make the journey to heaven.
It’s like the pilgrimage that so many people make on the Camino de Santiago (Way of St. James). The trek ends at the Cathedral of St. James in Spain. It must seem like heaven at the end of weeks of walking on sore feet, hungry and thirsty, dirty and sweaty. Yet who would be so foolish as to make such an arduous trip without preparing with diet and exercise? That’s exactly what the sacrament of anointing does for the seriously sick person or someone whose old age has made him/her extremely frail.
What should a person who is not seriously ill or frail do then? There is still spiritual dieting and exercising to be done but not through the sacrament of anointing. For moral sickness and addictions, there is the sacrament of penance as an essential grace. And we must not forget the healing power of Holy Communion, where Jesus draws us into the deepest places of his sacred heart. In Holy Communion, we find solace and healing and strength for our broken relationships, troubled marriages, temptations to sin, and all manner of personal issues.
The greatest “healing Mass” is the worship and offering of self in union with Jesus at every Eucharistic celebration of his passion, death and resurrection!
