LAST RITES (HOLY OIL). — It is the Sacrament instituted by Jesus Christ for the spiritual and corporal relief of the gravely ill faithful.
OUTLINE:
I. Overview
II. Analysis of particulars (matter, form, effects, minister, subject)
III. Liturgy.I. Overview
Around the year 60 A.D., St. James the Less wrote to all converts from Judaism: “Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the priests of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith will save the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him” (Jas 5:14-15). This text attests the existence, from apostolic times, of a rite composed of an anointing (ἀλεξίωσεν ἐὰν ἀληθῶς) accompanied by a prayer (προσέχειν ἀληθῶς ἐὰν ἀληθῶς), to which are joined supernatural effects both material and spiritual together (σώσει, ἔχει), and exclusively spiritual ones (ἐὰν ἀληθῶς ἔχει) at the time when the rite of order and its essence existed. Such a rite must be administered by the heads of the Christian community (τὰς προσώπους τῆς ἐκκλησίας), where the order is its essence. The Church is its essence. The Church is its essence. The Church is its essence. The Church is its essence. The Church is its essence. The Church is its essence.This passage is so determinative in its core as to allow the fundamental elements of a Sacrament to be glimpsed (divine institution, matter and form, spiritual effects, subject, minister), yet it is so vague in its details (it does not specify which oil is to be used, how much unction is to be applied, what words are to be spoken) that it persuades one that the Apostle, with this exhortation, did not intend to propose anything new to the first Christians, but only to recall the observance of a custom, the particulars and inner meaning of which they must already have learned in ordinary catechesis. This conclusion is confirmed by the fact that, if the use of a name is understood, the order is its essence. The Church is its essence. The Church is its essence. The Church is its essence. The Church is its essence. The Church is its essence. The order is its essence.
From this it follows that the nascent Church possessed a rite invested with all the notes of a Sacrament. This historically demonstrated fact is the keystone for the interpretation of the testimonies of the Fathers. If, therefore, in later documents there are hints of the anointing of the sick, these may be considered as links in a chain that begins with the passage of St. James.
In the second century there are slight but precious hints in the Didachē, 10, 7 (only in the Coptic fragment published in 1923) and in St. Irenaeus, Adversus haereses, 1, 5 (PG 7, 665). In the third century the testimonies become more precise, in St. Hippolytus, Traditio Apostolica (text with related commentary in A. Chavasse, L’Onction des infirmes dans l’Église latine du IIIe siècle à la réforme carolingienne, in Revue des sciences religieuses, 20 (1940), pp. 65-123), and in the Commentary on Daniel, 1, 33 (G. N. Bonwetsch and H. Achelis, Hippolyte Werke, I, Leipzig 1897, pp. 44-45), Tertullian, De praescriptione haereticorum, 4: PL 2, 56, and especially Origen, Hom. 2 in Lev. 1, 4: PG 12, 419. In the fourth century the documents become very clear: Aphraates, Demonstratio, 23, 3 (Rouët de Journel, Enchiridion patristicum, 689), Serapion, Euchologion (ibid., 1241), St. John Chrysostom, De sacerdotio, 3, 6: PG 49,
644. In the fifth century there appears a papal document of exceptional importance: the letter of Innocent I (written in 416) to Decentius of Gubbio (text in Denz
U., 99), in which many doctrinal and disciplinary points are clear: a) the Pope provides the first authentic interpretation of the passage of St. James: “non est dubium,” he says, that this text refers to the anointing of the sick, adding that the holy oil is prepared by the bishop: “ab episcopo confectum”; b) in the fifth century there was a twofold use of holy oil, one sacramental, reserved to the ministry of the bishop and priests, the other private, by which all the faithful could use it for religious purposes, “in sua aut suorum necessitate”; c) the E. L. can be administered only to the faithful who are regularly absolved from their sins: “pazientis” deadly sins: “it is therefore considered a Sacrament of the living, the completion of Penance, as Origen had already taught; d) the rite is called a Sacrament “genus Sacramenti” in the proper sense, because it is placed on the same plane as the Eucharist; indeed the phrase “quibus reliqua Sacramenta negantur” certainly refers to the Eucharist, denying it to penitents not yet absolved.The letter of St. Innocent, placed at the center of the patristic age, sheds light both on the past (because it confirms the sacramental value of the pericope of St. James, filling in what was indeterminate in previous testimonies, and attests the constant use of the anointing of the sick in the Church of Rome) and on the future, because it traces the path that will be followed by the entire Western Church: indeed it was received in all canonical collections from the fifth century up to the Decretals of Gregory IX (1234) and passed through St. Bede the Venerable (d. 735) to all ecclesiastical writers of the West. It is therefore no wonder that by the middle of the twelfth century, when the exact definition of the Sacrament was first formulated, that analogy, which had been a matter of dispute, was applied to the anointing of the sick. By then the period of the summae had arrived, harmoniously systematizing all theological learning. It was then that a small treatise on the anointing of the sick began to take shape, destined to find its regular place in the 23rd distinction of the fourth book of the Sentences of Peter Lombard and in the 23rd-24th distinctions of the same.
II. ANALYSIS OF PARTICULARS
After this overview, from which the sacramental nature of Extreme Unction is historically and dogmatically established, its individual elements may be analyzed.1. The remote matter of this Sacrament consists of:
a) olive oil, which, as is evident from Scripture—“Anointing him with oil” (Mk 6:13)—and from the whole tradition, confirmed by the Councils of Florence and Trent, is required for the validity of the Sacrament. The Fathers (especially Victor of Antioch and Gregory of Nyssa) and the Roman Catechism explain its suitability in terms of the symbolism of oil (strength, healing, light, warmth);
b) blessed by the bishop, as is gathered from liturgical tradition (Hippolytus’ Apostolic Tradition, Serapion’s Euchologion, Gregorian Sacramentary), patristic sources (Innocent I), conciliar decrees (Council of Châlons 813, Council of Aachen 836), confirmed by the Holy Office in 1611. The documents now cited prove that the blessing must be imparted by the bishop, but there are others that show that this power can be granted to a simple priest: reference is made to the Eastern discipline, which goes back to remote times (7th century) and which enjoyed the approval of Clement VIII (1595) and Benedict XIV (1742), and to the Western discipline established by Benedict XV during the war of 1914-18, later incorporated into the Code of Canon Law (can. 945).
c) A special benediction “ad hoc,” that is, with a formula expressly ordered to the consecration of the oil of the sick, as all the liturgical documents seem to insinuate, which contain appropriate formulas (e.g., the Traditio Apostolica, the Euchologia of Serapion, the Gregorian Sacramentary). It is certain that this special benediction is necessary for the liceity of the sacrament, but it is debated whether it is required for its validity. Suárez takes the negative position and seems to be correct, since there is no evidence that Jesus Christ established a particular benediction. Therefore, for validity it suffices that the oil be blessed in some way; hence, in case of necessity, one may use other oils consecrated by the bishop, such as holy chrism or the oil of catechumens.
2. The proximate matter is the application of the blessed oil, that is, the anointing of the sick “ungentes cum” (Jas 5:14), which, according to the provisions of the Code of Canon Law for the Latin Church (can. 947 §1), must be administered to the eyes, ears, nostrils, mouth, hands, and feet—organs like those of sin (the anointing of the loins is always to be omitted)—since, as St. Thomas observes (S. Th., suppl. q. 29, a. 2; q. 32, a. 6), the Church wishes to apply the remedy where the roots of evil lie. The Greeks, by contrast, anoint the forehead, chin, cheeks, and hands.
Yet if these multiple anointings are required by ecclesiastical law, as already noted by Benedict XIV, there is no evidence that they are necessary “by divine law.” Therefore, in case of necessity, it suffices to anoint one sense, preferably the forehead, and it is permissible, for any reasonable cause, to omit the anointing of the feet. The anointing must be done by the hand of the minister; instruments are not permitted except in cases of grave danger of infection or contagion (CIC, can. 947).
3. The form is a prayer “orantes... oratio fidei” (Jas 5:14–15), which varies in different rites. For the Latin Church, the Council of Trent sanctioned (Denz.-U. 908) the following formula, which appears only after the year 1000: “Through this holy anointing and His most pious mercy may the Lord forgive you whatever you have committed through your sight, hearing, smell, taste, speech, hands, and feet. Amen.” The Greek formula, on the other hand, runs thus: “O holy Father, physician of souls and bodies, who didst send Thine only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to cure every sickness and to deliver us from death, heal also Thy servant N. from all the infirmities that afflict him and fill him with life through the grace of Thy Christ.”
645. The effects
The Council of Trent, summarizing the teaching of the Fathers, called Extreme Unction “a perfection not only of penance but also of the Christian life, which ought to be a perpetual penance” (Sess. XIV, cap. 1, in Denz.-U. 907). Extreme Unction is the consummation of Penance because:a) it completes the incorporation into Christ, restored by the Sacrament of Penance. For while it removes, on the one hand, the last remnants of sin and thus removes the final obstacles that might impede the perfect insertion of the member into the Mystical Body, on the other hand, by increasing the habitual grace “ex opere operato,” it strengthens the bond of union with Christ. Moreover, by disposing the sick person to “suffer and die in Christ,” it associates and conforms the individual members, as Bossuet observes, to the sufferings and death of the Head (the christological aspect of the grace of Extreme Unction);
b) it fortifies the supernatural organism and renders it capable of overcoming the final weaknesses of the spirit, aggravated by the enfeeblement of the body. For the wounds of original sin, healed in Baptism, and those of actual sins, remitted in Penance, leave the spiritual organism of the faithful still weakened in many respects. When the collapse of the body and the attacks of the devil (v.) occur, the faithful is exposed to grave danger of succumbing in the final trial and thus imperiling the whole course of the Christian life. To avert such dangers, the sacramental grace infuses new vigor into sanctifying grace, increases the virtue of hope, by which the sick person confidently commends himself to the hands of divine mercy, and multiplies the helps of actual grace, by which he promptly repels the insinuations of the tempter. This is the “alleviation” (of the Vulgate) or the “spiritual awakening” (ἐγέρθωσις of the Greek text) of which Jas 5:15 speaks. In the case where the sick person cannot confess, provided he has an attrition for his sins, this sacrament can also supply for Penance, remitting “ex opere operato” not only venial but also mortal sins, as the living magisterium of the Church has always understood, basing itself on the biblical text “and if he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him” (Jas 5:15). Moreover, since Extreme Unction is ordered to remove all obstacles that might impede the immediate attainment of glory (cf. St. Thomas, Contra Gent. 4, 73), it also remits temporal punishment (provided the sick person is perfectly disposed) and sometimes procures bodily health (to which §2 alludes with “he shall save” in Jas 5:15), when, according to God’s inscrutable judgment, this serves to facilitate the attainment of glory (the anthropological aspect of the grace of Extreme Unction).
c) It mitigates the solicitude of the Church for the suffering faithful. The dying person, now incapable of anything and in need of everything, abandons himself into the arms of the loving common Mother, who bends over him, enveloping his soul in a halo of prayers, recommendations, and supplications, summoning around him all the members of the Church Militant, Suffering, and Triumphant: Angels, Saints, souls in Purgatory, and the just on earth stand invisibly but prayerfully around the dying, while the priest performs the sacred rite, the efficacy of which, as St. Thomas teaches, “greatly avails the devotion of the recipient and the personal merits of those who confer it and the general prayer of the whole Church” (S. Th., suppl. q. 32, a. 3). In the light of this truth is conceived the sublime saying of Cardinal Newman: *The Dream of Gerontius*, translated into Italian by B. Masperi, in C. Martindale, *Lo spirito del card. Newman*, Brescia 1932.
5. The ministers of Extreme Unction are the “presbyters” (πρεσβύτεροι of Jas 5:14), not the elders of the people (as the Protestants would have it), but bishops and priests duly ordained, as the Church has always understood and practiced (cf. Innocent I) and as defined by the Council of Trent (cf. now also CIC, can. 938 §1). From the fact that the biblical text uses the plural “the presbyters” (which is in fact a plural of category, so that the phrase is equivalent to “let one of the presbyters be called,” just as when one says “let the physicians be called,” one means “let one of the physicians be called”), there arose in the ancient Church, and is still preserved in the East, the custom of administering Extreme Unction with the intervention of many priests, usually seven. According to current law in the Latin Church, Extreme Unction must be conferred by a single minister (for liceity), and as a rule it should be the parish priest of the place, except in cases of necessity or with the permission of the parish priest or the local ordinary (can. 938–39).
The Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide has declared that even in case of necessity, in the absence of another priest, no missionary may administer this sacrament to himself.
6. The subject. For valid reception, the subject must:
a) It is administered as an anointing, as is clear from Jas 5:14, “Is any man sick among you?”—that is, among you the faithful—and as is deduced from the whole sacramental economy, whose foundation is Baptism. Even one recently washed at the font can receive this sacrament, because although Baptism blots out all sins, it does not remove that spiritual weakness which may compromise the soul in the final combat;
b) with the use of reason and with at least habitual intention of receiving this sacrament. “Infantes et perpetuo amentes,” having never sinned personally, do not need this spiritual benefit;
Ginone of Prüm (d. 915) and Burchard of Worms (d. 1025), and the priestly instructions of Theodulf of Orléans (d. 821). Beginning in the 9th and 10th centuries, however, numerous sacramentaries and ordines record the formulae for administering the E.U.: Ordo ad visitandum et ungendum infirmum (M. Ferotin, Le liber ordinum, in Monumenta Ecclesiae Liturgica, V, pp. 71–72); Ordo Romanus X (ed. J. Mabillon: PL 78, 1022–22); Sacramentarium Fuldense, 10th c. (ed. G. Richter–A. Schönfelder, Fulda 1912, pp. 279–300). Since the formulae varied, the Roman Ritual of Paul V (1614) sought to introduce definitive uniformity. Of the prayers contained therein, some had long been in use: e.g., the prayers “Respice fatiscentem...” and “Domine Deus, qui per apostolum...” from the 14th c.; the others: “Introibo” and “Domine sancte Pater... infundendo corporibus...” from the 15th c.; the invocation “In nomine Patris...” extinguatur in te omnis virtus diaboli...” is already found in Ordo X (9th c.).
The rite, amid such variety, has always contained the following essential elements: 1) blessing of the sickroom. As he enters, the priest says: “Paucis domini habentibus in ea” and sprinkles the room with holy water (sometimes also with incense: “cum odore incensi”: Sacram. Fuldense, no. 2394); 2) greeting and reconciliation with the sick man. 2) Reconciliation and confession. The former, joined to the imposition of hands, recalls the present-day invocation: “In nomine Patris...” extinguatur in te... per impositionem...”; to the latter belongs the recitation of the Confiteor. 3) The anointing. The formulae vary: indicative: “Unigo te, ut...”; deprecative or optative: “Indulgeat”; as today imperative: “Accipe.” The number of members anointed also varied, from 7 to 14: “ubi plus dolor imminerat,” “ubi maximus dolor” (cf. Franz, op. cit., in bibliography, p. 80). The forehead is never anointed, nor the palms of priests, since these are already anointed in Confirmation and Ordination. Theodulf already orders the anointings to be made in the form of a cross; several priests take part: “perungant singuli sacerdotes infirmum,” “item ab alio sacerdote” (Sacram. Fuldense, no. 2410) and they were repeated for seven days: “et sic septem continuos dies” (ibid., no. 2445). Then a Mass for the sick was said, and the sick man communicated: “Hinc cantetur Missa pro eo. Deinde communicatur sacerdos corpore et sanguine Domini” (ibid., no. 2445). Today Communion precedes the anointing. 4) The solemn final blessing by all the priests present: “Dominus Iesus Christus apud te sit...” circa te sit” (ibid., no. 2451); then a cross is given to the sick man: “Deinde aquam benedictam, nisi aliam habent et Crucem coram relinquat” (Roman Ritual).
These four elements, though simplified, are still found today. Already the Euologion of Serapion of Thmuis (d. after 359) contains a formula: “oratio pro oleis et aquis” (“ut omnis febris et omne daemonium et omnis morbus per potum et unctionem removeatur”). In the Roman rite the formulae for the consecration of oil for the sick, performed by the bishop at the Mass of Holy Thursday, are found both in the Gelasian and the Gregorian Sacramentaries.
646. Eastern Rites
Among all the Eastern rites, except the Nestorians, the traditional rite of the E.U. is very long.In the Byzantine rite, after the opening prayers, the canon of Arsenios is recited or sung (probably bishop of Corfu in the 9th c.), a long hymn celebrating the virtues of the Holy Oil. This is a vestige of the time before the 13th c., when the vigil (Vespers and Matins) envisaged the administration of this sacrament. Then seven priests together recite the prayer for the blessing of the oil; the oil is pure olive oil, sometimes mixed with a little wine. This is followed by the singing of several troparia in honor of saintly martyrs and wonder-workers, which formerly were sung as the sick man entered the church. Then the sevenfold office begins. After the prokeimenon the deacon reads the first epistle and, after the alleluia, the first priest reads the first Gospel, the little dismissal, and the first prayer; then he anoints the sick man. There are different usages in the choice of members to be anointed, but the forehead always comes first. During the E.U. the priest recites this prayer: “Holy Father, physician of souls and bodies, who sent your only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to heal every sickness and deliver from death, heal also your servant from every infirmity, both of body and of soul, by the grace of your Christ, and preserve the life of this man, who, according to your good pleasure and by his good works, will render you the thanks that he owes you; through the prayers of our Lady the Mother of God...”
The same sequence—prokeimenon, epistle, alleluia, Gospel, litany, prayer, anointings with the declarative formula—is repeated, with ever-varying texts, by the second to the seventh priest; then they lay the Gospel and their hands on the head of the sick man while the first priest recites a prayer; with a short litany of supplication they proceed to the absolution, after which the sick man asks for pardon and prayers.
In the Armenian, Maronite, Coptic, and Ethiopian rites, too, the ceremony comprises seven similar offices, but the anointings are done once, after the end of these offices; the Syriac rite has five such stations; only the Chaldean does not follow this system.
It is clear that this very long rite is not for the dying, but for the sick suffering from an illness that endangers life, and so it can be performed even in church. The Byzantines call it the Office of the Holy Oil or the Prayer of the Oil; in the other rites it is called the Office of the Candelabra. But it is evident that such a rite is susceptible of abbreviation, and can be performed with fewer ministers, even by one alone; moreover, Catholics of all rites know the very brief manner of giving the sacrament with a single anointing and a single formula. Furthermore, Catholics of the Armenian, Syro-Chaldean, Malabarese, Coptic, and Ethiopian rites have adopted, as their ordinary rite, a version of the Latin rite, while the dissidents of these rites continue to use—though in practice very rarely—the very long offices. Among the Nestorians there seems to be no E.U., unless one wishes to find it in the single prayer that the priest recites over the oil destined for the sick; but there is no trace in their books of a rite of anointing with a proper formula.
It should be noted that in several Eastern Churches the rite of the Holy Oil and that of the Candelabra is also given to penitents, and then the formula of anointing is almost always changed or omitted. Perhaps this may explain why the Holy Oil is administered not infrequently even to those in good health.
For non-Byzantine rites, the Latin version of the texts is found in H. Denzinger, Ritus Orientalium, II, Würzburg 1863, pp. 483-525; for the Armenians, the same is supplemented, for the anointing itself, by G. de Serpos, Compendio storico... della missione armena... III, Venice 1786, pp. 307-309; P. Dib, Etude sur la liturgie maronite, Paris 1919, pp. 129-309; T. M. Semhany, De Sacramentis secundum ritum Aethiopicum, Rome 1931, pp. 83-99; C. Kopp, Glaube und Sakrament der koptischen Kirche, in 1932, pp. 158-175; W. de Vries, Sakramententheologie bei den syrischen Armen-physiten, in 1940, pp. 211-21; id., Sakramententheologie bei den Nestorianern, in 1947, pp. 281-83.