ANOINTING OF THE SICK, II: LITURGY OF

Prior to the ninth century, all of the earliest liturgical sources that provide fixed formulas have to do with the preparation or blessing of the oil used in anointing, rather than its application. Hagiographic writings, patristic letters, and sermons indicate that, in addition to presbyteral anointing, lay people took the blessed oil home and either drank it or rubbed themselves with it as needed. However, several factors contributed to the ritualizing of anointing. Due to the severity of the penances imposed, people began to postpone reconciliation until they were close to death, after which they would be anointed in extremis. This is evident in several eighth-century Gelasian sacramentaries, which move the death-bed reconciliation prayers from their original position in the Old Gelasian Sacramentary (mid-seventh century), where they are located among the prayers for the general reconciliation of penitents on Holy Thursday, to their new position before the rites for death and burial. With the emergence of private penance, however, some of the rites formerly associated with death-bed penitence became attached to the ritual for the anointing of the sick, which had by now become a sacrament for the dying. In addition, the ninth-century Carolingian reforms confirmed the trend toward clericalization, reserving anointing exclusively to priests, while at the same time encouraging clergy to have greater care for the sick and the dying.

A Carolingian reform rite for anointing the sick appeared in the ninth century, of which, according to Frederick Paxton, the Sacramentary of Rodradus (found in Jean Deshusses' Le sacramentaire grégorien ), written at the monastery of Corbie shortly after 853, is its earliest and best witness. This rite, which Paxton ascribes to Benedict of Aniane, is essentially the seventh-century Visigothic rite for the anointing of the sick, to which Roman and Frankish elements have been added. The rite opened with water being blessed and sprinkled over the sick person and the house, to the accompaniment of an antiphon and the prayer Domine Deus, qui per apostolorum. Surviving in some form even in the post-conciliar rite, this Carolingian prayer is a proclamation of the apostolic authority for the rite and a declaration of its effects. After genuflecting, the sick person stands to the right of the priest, at which point all the priests and their ministers lay hands, followed by a verse, two prayers, and two antiphons, all of which are from Visigothic sources. Then the sick person is anointed by making the sign of the cross with the oil on the back of the neck, the throat, between the shoulders, the chest, and the focal point of the pain, accompanied by the following words: "I anoint you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit so that no unclean spirit may remain either in your limbs, marrow, or joints, but that the power of Christ the most high and the Holy Spirit may live in you, so that through the operation of this mystery, and through the anointing with holy oil and our prayer, cured or comforted by the power of the Holy Trinity, you will merit the restoration and improvement of your health" (trans. Paxton). Following the anointing are two Visigothic prayers, a Visigothic benediction and a rubric indicating that the sick person should receive the Body and Blood of the Lord, and that the rite should be repeated for seven days if necessary.

This Sacramentary of Rodradus containing a full Hadrianum, a complete text of the Supplement, and Benedict of Aniane's rite of anointing of the sick, which was written sometime after the Supplement and not contained in it, includes a gloss added to the final rubric: "Many priests, however, anoint the sick over the five senses of the body, that is on the eyebrows, the inside of the ears, on the end of or within the nostrils, on the outside of the lips, and on the backs of the hands…. They do this so that if any impurity of the soul or body adheres to the five senses, the medicine of God will wipe it away" (trans. Paxton). According to Paxton, this gloss is noteworthy for two reasons: (1) it reveals a variety of practices among Frankish clerics in the middle of the ninth century, and (2) the anointing of the five senses, instead of the place where the sickness was concentrated, denotes a shift in emphasis away from physical healing and toward spiritual purification.

Paxton's insights are verified through the examination of another ritual, the Capitulary of Theodulph of Orleans (Patrologia Latina, ed. J. P. Migne [Paris 1878–90] 105: 220–222). Although attributed to Theodulf (d. 821), this rite is probably descriptive of late tenth or early eleventh-century procedures. After Penance was administered, the sick person, if the state of sickness would allow it, was washed, clothed in white garments in remembrance of baptism, and carried to the church, where the sick person was laid on sack-cloth sprinkled with ashes. Three priests administered the sacrament that began by sprinkling the sick person with holy water while the antiphon Pax huic domui was recited. The sick person was then signed with ashes in the form of a cross on the head and chest while the formula of Ash Wednesday was recited. The seven penitential psalms and the litany were prayed, followed by the anointing. Fifteen anointings were prescribed, and the possibility of many more was approved. The sick person and the priest jointly prayed the Lord's Prayer and the Creed, after which the sick person's soul was commended to God. Armed with the sign of the cross, the sick person takes leave of the living. Then the priest gives the sick person the kiss of peace and communion. The rite concluded with the directive that the priest should visit the person, if life persists, for seven days to provide communion and to repeat this prescribed rite. Evidence to a variety of practices of anointing, this rite is clearly a rite for the dying, not the sick.

As a sacrament for the dying, the prayers associated with Anointing ceased to speak of physical healing and stressed spiritual healing through the forgiveness of sins as a preparation for death. Over time, these rites for the dying became increasingly elaborate, and if the Sacrament was not to fall into desuetude, a reform of simplifi-cation was inevitable. This reform asserted itself in some areas while the rite was still developing in other areas. The rite adopted by the Benedictines of Cluny contributed greatly to the movement toward simplification. This rite appears to have influenced, at least indirectly, the Ordo compendiosus, an abridged rite of Anointing, found in the thirteenth-century Pontifical of the Roman Curia. This Pontifical, itself influenced by the Romano-Germanic Pontifical of the tenth century, contained five rites connected with Christian death and burial. The first of these was a rite for the visitation of the sick (Ordo ad visitandum infirmum ), while the second was the rite of Anointing (Ordo compendiosus et consequens ad ungendum ). In the Franciscan Regula Breviary of 1230, these two rites were combined under the title Ordo minorum ad visitandum infirmum, and were followed by the rite for communion to the sick, which included Viaticum (Ordo ad communicandum infirmum ) and the rite to commend the dying (Ordo commendationis animae ). However, the revisions of the 1260 Franciscan Breviary inverted the first two orders so that the rite of Anointing, and not Viaticum, stood in the closest proximity to the rite of the Commendation of the Soul. The most notable point of all, however, is that the Franciscan ritual, because of its wide use, served to spread and perpetuate this separation of Viaticum from the hour of death, as well as the insertion of Extreme Unction between Viaticum and the commendation rite. On the journey through sickness to death, the more proximate acts of preparation for death in the Franciscan ritual are now Extreme Unction and the Commendation of the Soul and not, as is the case in the ancient Roman order, Viaticum.

Alberto Castellani's Liber Sacerdotalis (1523) and Julius Santori's Rituale Sacramentorum Romanum (1602), two important sixteenth-century liturgical predecessors to the 1614 Rituale Romanum, follow the Franciscan pattern, giving witness to the fact that Viaticum continued to be separated from the moment of death by the rites of Extreme Unction and the Commendation of the Soul. Entrenched in practice, this pattern is taken up and continued in the 1614 Rituale Romanum.

The 1614 rite, used until the reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), bears witness to its evolution. Its matrix was a rite for the visitation of the sick. The opening greeting, Pax huic domui, and the three prayers that follow it, Introeat (from a ninth-century Ordinal ), Oremus et deprecemur (from Roman Ordinal X ), and Exaudi nos (from a prayer for blessing water in the mid-seventh-century Gelasian Sacramentary ), none of which mentions anointing, manifest this origin. The provision for Confession and the Confiteor that follows these prayers, and the mention of the Penitential Psalms and the litany that may be recited by the bystanders, show the imprint left on this rite by Penance. The prayer In nomine Patris was originally a formula for anointing the head. Later this anointing was dropped and replaced in 1925 by an imposition of hands. The 1614 Rituale Romanum admits two types of anointing. The First, the usual one, involves an unction of the five senses with a corresponding form for each sense: "Through this holy anointing and through his tender mercy may the Lord forgive you whatever sins you have committed by the sense of sight (hearing, smell, taste, and power of speech, touch). Amen." The second, to be used in the case of emergency, calls for an anointing of the forehead, using the same form without reference to any sense. The rite concludes with three prayers, the first of which (Domine Deus ) is found in the Gregorian Sacramentary, the second (Respice ) in the Hadrianum, and the third (Domine sancte ) in the Gela-sian Sacramentary.

The Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick was revised within the post-conciliar liturgical reform of the rites of the sick, the dying, and burial. In Sacrosanctum concilium, nos. 73–75, the Second Vatican Council provided directives for the reform of "Sacramentum Extremae Unctionis," suggesting: that it may also, and more fittingly, be called "anointing of the sick;" that separate rites for anointing of the sick and for Viaticum, as well as continuous rites involving penance, anointing of the sick, and Viaticum, be prepared; and that the number of anointings be adapted and the prayers accompanying the rite of anointing be revised to correspond to the varying conditions of the sick person. This resulted in the publication in 1972 of the Latin editio typica of Ordo Unctionis infirmorum eorumque pastoralis curae, which was a revision of the Ordo ministrandi sacramentum extremae unctionis, found in Title VI, chapter ii of the 1614 Rituale Romanum. The English translation and adaptation by the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL) appeared in 1983 under the title Pastoral Care of the Sick: Rites of Anointing and Viaticum.

Restored as a sacrament for Christians "whose health is seriously impaired by sickness or old age" (no. 8), the 1983 Pastoral Care of the Sick provides three rites for anointing—Anointing outside Mass, Anointing within Mass, and Anointing in a Hospital or Institution—as well as a Continuous Rite of Penance, Anointing, and Viaticum, to be used in exceptional circumstances. The out-line of the rite for Anointing outside Mass and within Mass are similar, including: introductory rites (greeting with optional sprinkling with holy water, instruction/reception of the sick, penitential rite, and opening prayer), liturgy of the word, liturgy of anointing, optional communion rite if outside Mass, and concluding rites (blessing and dismissal). The structure of the liturgy of the anointing includes: a litany, a laying on of hands, a prayer over the oil, the anointing, and the prayer after anointing, which includes the Lord's Prayer in the rite outside Mass. The anointing on the forehead and the hands of the sick person is accompanied by a prayer (no. 25), which is drawn from the earlier anointing prayer in the 1614 Rituale Romanum, the teaching of the Council of Trent, and the letter of James (5:14–16). While anointing the forehead, the priest prays, "Through this holy anointing may the Lord in his love and mercy help you with the grace of the Holy Spirit. Amen." While anointing the hands, the priest prays, "May the Lord who frees you from sin save you and raise you up. Amen." Following the anointing, there is a choice of seven prayers, adapted to the sick person's condition: two are of a general nature, while the others are for extreme or terminal illness, for advanced age, before surgery, for a child, and for a young person.

There are several noteworthy aspects of the reformed rite. In the first place, scriptural readings, which are totally absent in the 1614 Rituale Romanum, are to be chosen in light of the sick person's condition. The readings and the homily are to assist those present to reach a deeper understanding of the mystery of human suffering in relation to the paschal mystery of Christ (no. 100). Secondly, since the celebration of the sacrament is to take place while the sick person is capable of actively participating, the priest is cautioned not to delay the sacrament (no. 99). Thirdly, because of its very nature as a sign, the sacrament should be celebrated in the midst of family and representatives of the Christian community whenever possible, for then it will more clearly signify this experience as the prayer of the Church and an encounter with the Lord (no. 99). Finally, while the priest is recognized as the only proper minister of this sacrament (no.16), all baptized Christians share in the ministry to the sick by helping the sick return to health, by showing love for the sick, and by celebrating the sacraments with them. In particular, family and friends of the sick and those who take care of them share in this special ministry of comfort and mutual charity (nos. 33–34).

Bibliography: Sources. Liber sacramentorium romanae aeclesiae ordinis anni circuli (Cod. Vat. Reg. Lat. 316, Sacramentarium Gelasiansum), ed. l. cunibert mohlberg, with l. eizenhÖfer and p. siffrin, RED, series maior, fontes 4 (Rome 1960). Le sacramentaire grégorien: Ses principales formes d'après les plus anciens manuscrits, ed. j. deshusses, SF 16, 24, 28 (Fribourg, 1971, 1979, 1982). m. andrieu, Le pontifical de la curie romaine au XIII ^esiècle, vol. 2, Studi e Testi 87 (Vatican City 1940). Sources of the Modern Roman Liturgy: The Ordinals by Haymo of Faversham and Related Documents (1243–1307), ed. s. j. p. van dijk, Studia et documenta Franciscana, 2 vols (Leiden 1963). a. castellano, Liber Sacerdotalis (Venice 1523; Paris 1973). j. a. cardinal san-tori, Rituale Sacramentorum Romanum Gregorii Papae XIII Pont. Max. iussu editum (Rome: 1584–1602; Paris 1973). Rituale Romanum Pauli V. Pont. Max. iussu editem (Rome 1614; Paris 1973). Ordo Unctionis infirmorum eorumque pastoralis curae, Rituale Romanum ex decreto sacrosancti oecumenici Concilii Vaticani II instauratum auctoritate Pauli PP. VI promulgatum, editio typica (Rome 1972). Pastoral Care of the Sick: Rites of Anointing and Viaticum. The Roman Ritual Revised by Decree of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council and Published by Authority of Pope Paul VI, Approved for Use in the Dioceses of the United States of America by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and Confirmed by the Apostolic See, Prepared by the International Commission on English in the Liturgy: A Joint Commission of Catholic Bishops' Conferences (New York 1983). Literature. j. l. empereur, Prophetic Anointing: God's Call to the Sick, the Elderly, and the Dying, Message of the Sacraments, vol. 7 (Wilmington, Delaware 1982). c. w. gusmer, And You Visited Me: Sacramental Ministry to the Sick and the Dying, Studies in the Reformed Rites of the Catholic Church, vol. 5, rev. ed. (New York 1984, 1989.) f. s. paxton, Christianizing Death: The Creation of a Ritual Process in Early Medieval Europe (Ithaca, New York 1990). h. b. porter, "The Origin of the Medieval Rite for Anointing the Sick or Dying," Journal of Theological Studies 7 (1956): 211–225. h. b. porter, "The Rites of the Dying in the Early Middle Ages, I: St. Theodulf of Orleans," Journal of Theological Studies 10 (1959): 43–62.

[j. m. donohue]