Catholic Apologetics #10
This Sacrament, most often the very last Sacrament a person receives before death, is intended to bring spiritual and sometimes physical help to a dying person. Yet, it is very often misunderstood. Extreme Unction, also called Last Rites or in modern times “Anointing of the Sick,” is a Sacrament which was instituted by Christ Himself and which confers actual graces[1]. It is not a mere blessing as some have come to erroneously believe. It is as real a Sacrament as Baptism, Confession, or the Holy Eucharist.
We Catholics affirm that Jesus Christ founded the Catholic Church to be the only vehicle to maintain His presence on earth following His death, resurrection and ascension into Heaven. We also affirm that the Scriptures and the Tradition of Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church clearly demonstrate that there are seven Sacraments which are outward signs instituted by Christ to give Grace[2].
Grace is God’s life lived in, through, and by human beings, and the unique graces given by each individual Sacrament are compatible with, and correspond to, each phase of or event in the human life cycle.
How is Extreme Unction performed? While the priest anoints the eyes, ears, nostrils, tongue, hands and feet of the sick person, he says the prayers prescribed in the Roman Rite.
For reception of the Sacrament, a person must be a baptized Catholic who has reached the age of reasoning. While before Vatican II a person was only given Extreme Unction while “in extremis” (i.e. in imminent danger of dying), nowadays people can receive the Sacrament also while ill and before surgery. However, this has made it possible so that people can too whimsically receive this Sacrament. Care should be given to ensure that everyone who does receive the Sacrament of Extreme Unction has the proper dispositions.
Catholics are anointed with oil in Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Orders (if ordained) and lastly with the Oil of the Sick through the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, named properly since “extreme” means “last” and unction refers to the physical action of the anointing with oil. And while it may be repeated to a person suffering from a serious illness every month to six weeks, it may also be given again to a sick person who recovers and suffers a relapse. Despite this, “Extreme Unction” remains the proper name of the Sacrament.
As explicitly stated in the Baltimore Catechism, “Extreme Unction may be given to all Christians dangerously ill, who have ever been capable of committing sin after baptism and who have the right dispositions for the Sacrament. Hence it is never given to children who have not reached the use of reason, nor to persons who have always been insane” (Q. 959). With the dispositions of a resignation to the will of God in regards to recovery, being in the state of grace (with feeling contrition for sins at a minimum), and a general desire to receive the Sacrament, the Sacrament of Extreme Unction is never given to heretics “because they cannot be supposed to have the intention necessary for receiving it, nor the desire to make use of the Sacrament of Penance in putting themselves in a state of grace” (Q. 960). For that reason, Protestants may not receive the Sacrament.
The effects of the Sacrament are also clear (Q. 969): “1st. To comfort us in the pains of sickness and to strengthen us against temptations; 2nd. To remit venial sins and to cleanse our soul from the remains of sin; 3rd. To restore us to health, when God sees fit.”
The rubrics also implicitly reveal that the Sacrament may only be given to the living, not to those who have passed on to Judgment.
Funerals have in recent decades turned almost into celebrations when they should instead be times of great mourning and prayer for the soul of the deceased — we do not know if a person is in Heaven unless they are a validly canonized saint. For this reason, pray for the salvation of the dying and the souls of the deceased — do not assume that they are in Heaven (unless they are a baptized young child who died before the age of reason). To assume that the deceased is in Heaven and not pray for their soul is a serious neglect, one which could cause your loved one to suffer in Purgatory longer than they might have with the help of your prayers.
And for those of us who continue to fight the good fight as members of the Church Militant on earth, let us make it clear to our family that we wish to receive the traditional form of Extreme Unction should we fall into sudden illness or injury. By reading the Rite of Extreme Unction[3], we should be inspired to have our own eventual death before our eyes. And when we die, will we be in God’s grace or lost for all eternity?
[1] http://www.baltimore-catechism.com/lesson13.htm
[2] “If any one saith, that the sacraments of the New Law were not all instituted by Jesus Christ, our Lord; or, that they are more, or less, than seven, to wit, Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist, Penance, Extreme Unction, Order, and Matrimony; or even that any one of these seven is not truly and properly a sacrament; let him be anathema.” (Council of Trent, On the Sacraments in General, Canon I)
[3] https://acatholiclife.blogspot.com/2009/09/rite-of-extreme-unction.html
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