Sacrament for the Sick

In real life as well as in countless novels, plays and films, the arrival of a priest to administer the Roman Catholic sacrament of extreme unction has long had an ominous meaning: the patient was virtually given up for dead. Those whose condition was not in fact so grave could be given a nasty turn by the sight of the priest with his vial of holy oil. Now Pope Paul VI has changed all that. The sacrament, called "the anointing of the sick" since Vatican II, will hereafter be used not only for those who are in imminent danger of death, but also for those who are seriously but not mortally ill.

Some of the new regulations seem simple conveniences. The holy oil need not be olive oil as heretofore required; any vegetable oil will do. No longer will the priest anoint all of the "five senses" (eyes, nostrils, mouth, ears, hands and feet). Instead he will anoint only the hands and forehead.

Vatican liturgists pointed out that other changes, though seemingly minor, reduce the sometimes frightening "cloak of magic" that has surrounded the sacrament. The rite will no longer be given to persons who have died before the priest arrives, because the church now emphasizes that the recipient should have a positive faith in the sacrament's grace. Says liturgical expert Father Secondo Mazzarello: "The aim now is to comfort the sick person. Pain and sickness are seen as the problems of the entire man, body and soul together. The new rite gets away from the Platonic concept, which for centuries split man into body and soul."

Henceforth, the recipients of the anointing may even take their comfort communally. One change provides for the administering of the sacrament to "great gatherings of the faithful" during a Mass--for sick pilgrims at Lourdes, say, or patients in a hospital.

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