Sacrament of Extremeunction

Source of efficacy and power of the sacrament

Paschal Mystery

The act of anointing the hand of the sick by the minister with the sign of the cross indicates the communication of Christs healing power to the sick person.

The oil extracted from the oil trees is associated with the pure oil that keeps the lamp burning. Therefore, the anointing with oil strengthens the soul for the final and great struggle.

Goal of Extreme Unction

Brings Christs compassionate loving healing to bear on those suffering serious sickness by holistic care that touches the body, soul and spirit of the sick person.

Healing
Process by which persons are helped to realize their full potential before God and their fellow men and women.

Sickness
Serious illness brings out our powerlessness and radical limitations as nothing else does. We become completely dependent on others, feel useless and isolated from them and from the community. Worry and anxiety begin to depress us and sometimes tempt our Christian Faith.

Sickness
Can bring about more mature Faith and allows us to discern what is really important in our life against all the superficial, passing attractions that so often dominate us. Faith helps us to understand better the mystery of suffering and to bear pain more bravely. Christ loves the sick.

Serious sickness and pain bring before us the threat of death, and show the power of evil in the world. Sickness is not punishment for the sin. God gives us ailments so that His loving power can be worked upon His people to free us from sin and death. We become one with Christ in our sufferings.

Sickness
Concrete sign of the deeper, more general spiritual evil in the world which weakens and pulls us down. Our concrete symbol of our inescapable need for deliverance from the ultimate evil of everlasting death.

Christian Attitude to Sickness

It is in Gods plan to make us stronger by bearing ailments and carefully seek the blessings of good health so that we can fulfill our role in society. Sickness is not punishment for since but the oppressive presence of evil in our midst.

Christian Attitude to Sickness

All seriously ill need the special help of Gods grace lest, they be broken in spirit and fall into temptations (euthanasia, suicide) and the weakening of their faith. By joining our sufferings with Christs, our very sufferings can take on creative, saving and transforming meaning and value to the victim and his society.

Christ the Doctor

Jesus came to redeem us from all evil and initiate the Kingdom of God. Gods healing is proof of His visiting His people. Jesus did not come to heal bodily ailments alone, even those whom he healed did not become immune to old age and other diseases.

Christ the Doctor

The real importance of the bodily cures, then, was to act as signs of the more radical healing over sin and death, the salvation of the whole person, body and soul.

You need to have faith in Jesus and follow Him in loving obedience to God the Father to be healed. Jesus transformed the whole meaning of sickness and death in His Paschal Mystery. At one and the same time Christ has taught us to do good by our suffering and to do good to those who suffer

Healing Church
Lesson from the parable of the Good Samaritan and a basic corporal work of mercy: Take care of the sick. Jesus are the sick. I was ill and you comforted me, in prison and you come to visit me. (Mt 25:36)

Healing Church
Jesus passed on his healing ministry to the Twelve. The Risen Christ promised the Eleven that the sick upon whom they laid their hands would recover.

Healing Church
Presbyter in the New Testament refers to a leader in local Christian congregations, then a synonym of episkopos . In modern usage, it is distinct from bishop and synonymous with priest, pastor, elder, or minister.

Healing Church
The sick should ask for the Church presbyter and they in turn are to pray over him with oil in the Name of the Lord. This prayer uttered in faith will reclaim the one who is ill, and the Lord will restore him to health and forgive his sins.

Who may receive the sacrament?

Baptized Christians who are sick and those who are at the point of death

Extreme Unction to Anointing of the Sick The revised ritual makes a clear distinction between Pastoral Care of the Sick, climaxed in the Anointing of the Sick, and of the Dying which focuses on Viaticum or the Eucharist with-you-on-the-way to the next life.

Presbyters are NOT charismatic healers. They are priests or elders who authority assures the communitys solidarity and unity. Vatican II The whole Church which commends those who are ill to the suffering and glorified Lord

NO MAGIC INVOLVED. It is thru prayer of faith and anointing in the name of the Lord. The sick are urged to contribute to the good of the whole People of God by freely uniting themselves to the Passion and Death of Christ.

Primordial Sacrament: Christ Foundation Sacrament: Church (acting within this Sacrament of the Sick.) Healer: Risen Christ (acting within the Church, His Body, which applies the Name/power of the suffering and glorified Lord to the sick Christian.

Sacrament of Faith
the sick will be saved by his faith and the faith of the Church which looks back to the Death and Resurrection of Christ, the source of the sacraments power, and looks ahead to the future Kingdom which is pledged in the sacraments.

INTEGRATION
Similar to Reconciliation because they are both grounded by doctrine and reality of Christs Paschal Mystery, moreover, they rest on the Creedal truths of Christ as Redeemer and Healer, of the Churchs mission to continue Christs reconciling and healing ministry. We must not shun real, substantial but limited help offered by the advances in medicine and the social and behavioral sciences.

INTEGRATION
In our life long process of conversion we must learn to develop and practice values and virtues to become ideal disciples of Christ. The exercise of Christs love Commandment celebrated in this sacrament.