Anointing of the Sick

Properly understood, anointing of the sick is a celebration of the sacramentality of sickness, the church’s way of holding up sickness as a unique experience of living. The sick who enter their illness with faith and hope and the support of the community have a unique encounter with God. They come to know God in their sickness, in the bowels of suffering, in special ways that we who are not sick do not know God.

The sacrament is not designed so much as a remedy and cure but rather as a kind of commissioning of these “special people” that they face their mortality eye to eye and may return to share with us what they have learned. It is important in such an understanding that the sacrament take place in the midst of the community, so that the sick persons may be publicly “signed as prophets, martyrs, as other Christs.” Such a conception turns conventional wisdom on its head. In a society where sickness is a sign of weakness, where nonproductivity is scorned, where the old are often asked, “What good are you?” -- this sacrament recognizes and asserts the special dignity of the ill. These are the ones who reveal in their bodies the weak Christ who finally conquers suffering and death.

Celebration of the Sacrament
Communal anointing is celebrated periodically throughout the year.

Our next communal celebration will be at all the liturgies on the weekend of October 13 and 14, 2007.

Please call the parish office at 757-625-6763 to request celebration of the sacrament at home or in the hospital.