Time to Call the Priest

In our most recent political campaign, one of the television ads centered on who would answer an emergency phone in the middle of the night. I’d like to write about another phone, when to call, and who is likely to answer the call. I invite you to revisit a somewhat romantic notion of an urgent, emergency call to celebrate the so-called “Last Rites” for a dying person.

There aren’t, in fact, too many calls in the middle of the night to celebrate the “Last Rites,” the Sacrament of the Sick. Since the Second Vatican Council and its reform of the sacraments, there has been a movement away from a previous understanding of Last Rites, Extreme Unction. The movement has been more in the direction of the Sacrament of the Sick with an emphasis on healing and forgiveness.

Our understanding would answer the question about when to call the priest and the appropriateness for celebrating the Sacrament of the Sick. The renewed understanding which has altered somewhat our view of the sacrament still carries some of the baggage of the past. While better understood, the sacrament still is placed with some reserve, if not fear of what is expected in the sacramental rites of anointing.

Last Rites
Whether due to a previous theology of death and dying or the influence of romantic story telling in movies and on television, the so-called Last Rites still brings fear in asking for the sacrament or, at least, hesitation in sharing the anointing with sick or dying believers in the Church. In fact, the Last Rites are multiple and diverse in their expression.

In the case of a dying person in the last stages of that experience, the sacrament would include a penitential rite of some kind, a Liturgy of the Word, a Litany, and the Imposition of Hands with its Anointing, a Communion Rite, and a Blessing. There are additional Final Rites, the actual “Last Rites,” would be several prayers and readings with the faithful community of family and friends commending the dying person to the mercy and love of God. After the moment of death there are prayers for the deceased person.

The Sacrament of the Sick need not be the final anointing or Extreme Unction. The Anointing is well celebrated with those suffering serious illness or facing serious, but not necessarily life-threatening, surgery. The rites have opened the pastoral practice of elderly or senior believers receiving the Sacrament of the Sick as they pass through the aging process.

The sacrament of the sick or extreme unction is not identical with so-called “healing” services. What is celebrated in the sacrament of the sick is human fragility, sickness, suffering, sinfulness as revelatory of the presence of God in our lives. Just as in the gospels and other New Testament writings, the healing ministry of Jesus is celebrated in the faith community.

When asked, for example, in John’s gospel by John the Baptist and his disciples whether he was the “one” or should they wait for another, Jesus, in testifying to the Kingdom of God, tells them that “the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame dance, and the poor have good news brought to them.” Jesus’ healings were signs of the Kingdom happening among God’s People.

Attached to these physical healings, and even his raising of the dead to life, are the many times that Jesus forgives the sins of those who ask for healing. In Jesus’ ministry there is a connection between human sickness, suffering, death, and sinfulness with pardon and forgiveness. When confronted with the paralytic man in the gospel, Jesus asked very directly which is easier: to heal someone physically or to forgive their sins. In that story, Jesus first forgives the man of his sins and then, tells him to “take up his bed and walk!” For Jesus each task is neither hard nor easy.

Jesus himself is the sign of the Father’s healing action through the Spirit. The ultimate sign of the reconciliation of the human family with the Father is his life-giving passion, death, and resurrection. That is the healing of Easter and that is the healing which is presented always in the Eucharist.

What we celebrate, whether in the Last Rites in their expansive form or in the anointing for serious illness or old age, are the life-giving death and rising of Jesus Christ. Our suffering and death is taken up into the death and rising of Christ and they can be revelatory of God’s presence with us. Thus, we have no reason to fear or hesitate about the Sacrament of the Sick.

Call for the Priests
Likewise, there is no reason to put off calling for the priest. In the Letter of James, which is quoted in the Introduction to the Anointing, we hear: “Are there people sick among you? Let them send for the priests of the Church, and let the priests pray over them anointing them with oil in the Name of the Lord.”

The prayers of anointing invite us to faith. After laying hands on the believers and praying silently for the person, two prayers follow while anointing:

• While anointing the forehead: “Through this holy anointing may the Lord in his love and mercy help you with the grace of the Holy Spirit.”

• While anointing the hands: “May the Lord who frees you from sin save you and raise you up.”

Whether death is near or far off, the Sacrament of the Sick is the celebration and prayer of a faith-filled community. In this sacrament, as in all sacraments, the Lord Jesus is present and active among his people. In that presence we find pardon and healing. Without fear and with no hesitation we proclaim with St. Paul that “Christ is our peace.”

CDH