Chapter 33 Minister of Anointing

Stage 1:  Jesus  Jesus Christ revels the compassionate love of the Triune God. This divine compassion for the sick, dying, and bereaved is manifested on ever page of Sacred Scripture.

Stage 2:  Apostles and Apostolic Church    This sacrament (Jesus himself) is manifested in the faith record of the Scriptures.  The Disciples go out and anoint with oil and heal those who are ill. The two key references which grounded the later theological understanding of the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick are Mark  and James.

Stage 3:  The Sub-Apostolic Church    As the community grows and develops, the activity of the healing community is "overseen"  by the leader of the local community (overseer, bishop) and he manages this healing activity by liturgically blessing the oil which then the community can then use in healing gestures.  (Letter to the Bishop of Gubbio)

Stage 4:  Scholastic Developments   The Sacrament is for the forgiveness of sins at the moment of death.  Only the priest can forgive sins.  Only the priest can administer the sacrament.  This understanding is brought about in the context of:

A.  Theology of Priesthood develops.  All ministry is absorbed into priestly ministry.
B.  Sacramental Theology develops.  Sacraments have spiritual effects.
C.  Peter Lombard names anointing as one of the seven sacraments.
D.  Doctors are called only when one is really sick.

Stage 5:  The Liturgical Movement   Historical research helps us step out of this limited view of the history of the sacrament and ministry.

Stage 6:  Vatican II   The Second Vatican Council not only restores sacramental rituals, but restores Baptism to its proper place as the sacrament which "Christens" us, i.e. transforms us into Christ, makes us an "alter Christus." 

Note that in the new ritual books, the minister of the sacrament is always the community itself. Within that community, there is a diversity of functions. The former understanding looked first of all to sacraments as "administer and received", the minister was usually the priest and then there were qualifications as to the recipient. Once the theology shifts from "matter/form" and "administer/receive" to "community celebrating" and the "Presence of Christ", we then not only use a different vocabulary but we begin to think in different categories.

Discipleship and Ministry are reunited.  Expansion of lay ministries.   Questions arise about lay anointing.  Recommendations were made, studies were done, history was scrutinized.  The question was asked why could not lay Christians anoint?   The question reaches Rome and The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith gives it official reply.

Stage 7:  Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith    On February 11, 2005, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published a note "on the Minister of the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick" (Prot no. 41/74) which stated"

Stage 8:  Today  Records are kept as to how many people die without the sacraments because no priest was available.  Theologians continue to ask:  Why is it that lay ministers can take the Eucharist to the sick and give them Holy Communion, but they cannot take the Blessed Oil of the Sick to the sick and give them the Anointing of the Sick?  When a layperson gives Holy Communion to a sick person who has committed a mortal sin and cannot get to a priest to receive sacramental absolution, but has made an act of perfect contrition, the Eucharist (administered by the lay minister) forgives the persons' sins;  why is not the oil a similar case?