The Second Sacrament of Healing - Newman …...Illness as a Fallen Human Condition. Tree of Life Speculation: its fruit as warding off illness. Judaic Old Testament Views. The Law

Anointing of the Sick The Second Sacrament of Healing

The Procedure, the Rite:

Penance & Reconciliation

Anointing of the Sick

The Eucharist (Viaticum)

What’s the Deal with this Intermediary Step?




Why Not? Streamline things!



Why Not? Get out of their way!



Sacraments to bolster particularities, the details of life: Love is in the details





Penance & Reconciliation: Grace to Live Saintly

Anointing of the Sick: Grace to Suffer & Endure Saintly



Penance & Reconciliation: Grace to Live Saintly

Anointing of the Sick: Grace to Suffer & Endure Saintly


The Particulars of the Recipient

1514: “…As soon as anyone of the faithful begins to be in danger of death from sickness or old age, the fitting time for him to receive this sacrament has certainly already arrived.”

Those in danger of death by sickness. Do not have to wait

until the death rattle, but must wait until the grav-ity is

real.

A Special Sacrament for the Gravely Ill

Mechanics

MATTER: Oil

FORM: “Through this holy anointing may the Lord in his love and mercy help you with the grace of the Holy Spirit. May the Lord who frees you from sin save you and raise you up.” (or appropriate prayer).

MINISTER: priests (Para. 20)

Effects

Forgiveness of eternal

consequence of all sins.

Penance & Reconciliation:

Anointing of the Sick:


Effects

How are these two any

different, then?!




Effects

Requires a verbalized, or

externally manifested Confession, &c. What if in a coma?




Effects

This forgives just like

Penance & Reconciliation, which is useful

for the sick.




Effects

But why both? Either totally redundant or because the

primary effect is not forgiveness.




Effects

A particular gift of the Holy Spirit for this

Moment.




The Special Station of the Sick

There are two reasons that contribute to the specialness

of the sick:

1.) The Desperate Nature of the Sick

2.) The Unique Character of the

Suffering

The Desperate Nature of the Sick

1500: “In illness man experiences powerlessness, limitations, and finitude…every illness can make us glimpse death.”

Man’s Response to this Sick Nature

1501: “Illness can lead to anguish, self-absorption, sometimes even despair and revolt against God.”

Man’s Response to this Sick Nature

Humility and real knowledge that you need a savior. Great peace can come at

this grave hour.

The Tug-o-War at the Brink of Eternity

This is the real moment. The trial from whence all of life’s lessons can be consumed by fear and false promises, where Doubt becomes the strongest,

where Death’s voice can be heard so vividly, and where consolation fades to a resounding sense of Desolation. This is the moment when the two most important times of our life– the present moment, and the Hour of our

Death– become the same moment. The Ante is upped, and so, too, is the Grace– for where a need exists, there is Jesus.

Effects

A particular gift of the Holy Spirit for this Moment for “strength and courage to

overcome the difficulties that go with the condition of

serious illness or the frailty of old age.” The Spirits renew our faith and trust in God and gives us grace to resist

temptation, discouragement and anguish. He helps heal

the soul.




Effects

Too, the Sacrament grants a special Grace to

prepare for the final journey beyond the

soul-fortifying contribution of the

Holy Spirit. This is a special Grace by His

mere presence, but His presence is particularly active in a two-fold way: a positive and negative.




The Negative Effect: The Greased Pig Scenario

The Positive Effect: The Ecclesial –Umph

1499: “By the anointing and the prayers of the priests the whole Church commends

those who are ill to the…Lord, that he may raise them and

save them.”

The Special Station of the Sick

There are two reasons that contribute to the specialness

of the sick:

1.) The Desperate Nature of the Sick

2.) The Unique Character of the

Suffering

The Unique Character of Suffering

“In my name…they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

Mark 16: 17-18


“Is there any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the Church and let them pray over him, anointing him with the 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 has committed sins, he will be forgiven.”

James 5:14-15


“Heal the sick!” Matthew 10:8

God a Physician?

“For I am the Lord, your healer.”

Exodus 15:26

“When Jesus heard this he said to them, ‘It is not the

healthy who need the doctor, but the sick…”

Mark 2:17

Sin & Sickness

Suffering and Sickness as a consequence of Sin.

Illness as a Fallen Human Condition.

Tree of Life Speculation: its fruit as warding off illness.

Judaic Old Testament Views.

The Law & Sickness

1-to-1 correspondence

(integral, personal precision) or a

temporal symptom of Sin?

The Book of Job

The Law & Sickness

“Rabbi, was it this man’s sins or that of

his parents that caused him to be

born blind? Neither…”

John 9:1-3, no connection?

The Law & Sickness

“Do you think these Galileans were the greatest sinners in

Galilee just because they suffered this? By no

means! But I tell you, you will all come to the

same end unless you reform.”

John 9:1-3, a connection!

Sin:Sickness– a Connection, not an Equivalence

Sickness is a disruption of the Good Life. Sin is a disordering– an internal

disposition corresponds to not living rightly. Hence, it seems only logical that sin would disrupt the natural order, and hence affect the ability to life the Good Life.

Sin:Sickness– a Connection, not an Equivalence

The Human Person, an integral union of Body & Soul– a

fundamental relationship between the material corpus and the spiritual

animation.

Integral union means one must affect the other.

Humanity the only one who can cause disruption in the natural world (we are the only ones who can act &

do evil…Satan can’t act, God can’t do evil…angels are no-bodies).

So brokenness of anything is the result of an internal, sinful proclivity.

Just not a necessary 1-for-1.

Anthropology & Sin

Christ has come to heal the whole man– Body and soul, sin and sickness.

His public life is a hodge-podge of healing sinners and sickness. He looks

deeply into others, and aware of conditions on the ground and surface.

HE HEALS US BY HIS CONNECTION TO US WHICH ALLOWS US TO CONNECT TO

HIM.

Anthropology & Sin

He wades into the Jordan, He is anointed by the Spirit, He institutes the Eucharist (offers Himself with His own hand), He reaches out to

sinners and forgives them, He reaches out to the sick and heals

them. He assumes their ranks and misery so, too, the person and the condition could be redeemed. He aligns Himself precisely with the lowliest so that the breadth of

Humanity is redeemed, that so, too, might Creation be restored.

The Tight Association: the Incarnation and the Unique Character of Suffering

What is this?


Nimbus.

Compared to this?


This is the Nimbus

indicating Christ.


“For I was…sick and you visited me…

‘When did we see you…sick?…I tell you solemnly, in so far as you did this to one of

the least of these brothers of mine, you

did it to me…”

Matthew 25

The Unique Character of the Sick as Christ-like

The Gravely Suffering can be assured of hope amidst affliction, because they can

see in their own particular circumstances Christ, Himself– a

perfect man who suffered and died, yet assuredly rose again and lives forever.

His Sin was non-existent, yet he underwent this, and so, too, will we. In

the final hour we hold fast to the Consolation of Christ and do no fear that we suffer because we have sin on

our soul unforgiven, but we suffer because we had sinned.

The Unique Character of the Sick as Christ-like

Even more, however, we take a particular sort of Consolation in Christ through the effects of this Sacrament–

the Consolation of the Cross.

The Consolation of the Cross

Even more, however, we take a particular sort of Consolation in Christ through the effects of this Sacrament–

the Consolation of the Cross.

Here we realize: a.) not to fear suffering; b.) to embrace suffering for its value.


The VALUE OF SUFFERING:

“By the sacred anointing of the sick and the prayer of the priest, the whole

Church commends those who are ill to the suffering and glorified Lord, that he may raise them up and save them (1499)…the sick person receives the strength and the gift of uniting himself more

closely with Christ’s Passion: in a certain way he is consecrated to bear fruit by configuration to the Savior’s

redemptive Passion. Suffering…acquires a new meaning; it becomes a

participation in the saving work of Jesus (1521).”


Conformity to Christ is the preoccupation of the Christian Life.

The summit of that conformity is taking up the Cross and following Him to Calvary and connecting ourselves to

that Perfect Act of Worship & Redemption– the Sacrifice of the Son.

The Sacraments of Initiation begin this life, with Penance and Reconciliation

and the Eucharist sustaining us as we go through the growth and time.


The Anointing of the Sick completes our conformity to the death and

Resurrection of Christ in a real and uniquely situated way and completes the

holy anointing that marks the whole Christian Life.

The last anointing fortifies the end of our earthly life like a solid rampart for the final struggles before entering the

Father’s house. CCC1523







The Unification of the Viaticum

The Consolation of the Cross: Life through Death, Peace through

Suffering

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The Second Sacrament of Healing - Newman …...Illness as a Fallen Human Condition. Tree of Life Speculation: its fruit as warding off illness. Judaic Old Testament Views. The Law