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Ask a Theologian: Anointing

Image: "Extreme Unction," part of The Seven Sacraments (1445–1450) by Rogier van der Weyden

Dear Theologian,

When my uncle was in the hospital with a serious illness, a priest came to visit him and anointed his forehead with oil. I know that this is one of the Church’s sacraments, but I’m not sure that I understand its meaning. Why is it done, and what effect does it have?

Unsure

Dear Unsure,

To answer this question, we have to look briefly at the history of anointing in the Church. The classic text for this practice is in the Letter of James:

“Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the Church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven.” (Jas 5:14-15)

The symbolism of anointing with oil is easy to appreciate, since this is clearly an act of soothing and comforting. There is, however, hardly any evidence that the anointing of the sick was practiced as a liturgical ceremony performed by priests during the first eight centuries of Christianity. There is evidence that oil was blessed by the bishop and was used by the faithful as a kind of remedy for illness (not merely by anointing the body, but even by tasting and consuming the oil). The significant thing was the blessing of the oil by the bishop, which made the oil itself the bearer of sacred power.

Beginning around the ninth century, there was a formalizing of the ritual of anointing, and it was reserved for the priest to perform. Around the same time, this anointing began (apparently for the first time) to be closely associated with deathbed penance and the immediate preparation for death.

This development was complete and taken for granted by the time the theology of the sacraments was worked out by the scholastic theologians in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Hence, the meaning attributed to this anointing was almost exclusively the consecration of the person for death, the “last anointing” (extrema unctio).

This understanding of anointing made the appearance of a priest at the sickbed an omen of impending death. Hence, people postponed the anointing as long as possible, since having it done was equivalent to giving up all hope. Thus, what historically was originally a sign of comfort and hope had become a sign of death, inspiring terror.

It must be recognized that the concept of “last anointing” was a secondary development, to be understood in terms of the historical circumstances of the Dark Ages. The theology of the scholastics was simply an interpretation of a practice that they took to be immemorial. But now—with the aid of better historical knowledge—we can see that this theology is not well founded in either Scripture or the first eight centuries of the Tradition.

Therefore, a contemporary theology of the sacrament of anointing puts the emphasis once again on the healing and strengthening of a person who is seriously ill (whether or not at the point of death). But how are we to understand this ritual, and what effect is it thought to have?

When one is seriously ill there is weakness, pain, a sense of mortality. Even if one is not in immediate danger of death, the fragility and finitude of one’s human condition is experienced very strongly. The ultimate reality of death is somehow present in one’s awareness. At the same time, one is estranged and alienated from the normal world of work, play, interpersonal contacts and interactions. One lies isolated. One is dependent on others, yet somewhat cut off from them.

In such a situation the believer very much needs to interpret all this in the context of explicit Christian faith. But it is precisely when one is ill that prayer and faith sometimes become difficult, if not impossible. One feels the need for a vision of faith, but is often unable to rise to that level of awareness.

In view of this general situation of the sick person, the Church has a “ministry” to those of its members who are sick. This ministry involves “visiting the sick,” in order to take care of that person’s needs in whatever way is most appropriate. Medical attention is normally provided by health-care professionals. What is not ordinarily provided by doctors and nurses is meaning. What does all this suffering and helplessness mean? How can one understand his or her situation in relation to God?

The Church ministers to this need for meaning when its members come to visit the sick person. In many cases, it is the priest or deacon who comes, representing the entire faith community. He or she does not provide glib, ready-made answers, but makes present the good news of Jesus through conversation and reading of Scripture, and by praying with this person.

All this ministry receives a ritualized, sacramental expression in the sacrament of the anointing of the sick. This ritual will be most meaningful, in fact, only if there is such a context of pastoral care of the sick person. Without such a context, the simple action of anointing will probably not have the same depth or resonance of meaning.

The sacrament of anointing, therefore, communicates meaning by relating this person’s suffering to the Paschal Mystery of Christ (his death and resurrection). Moreover, the representative of the faith community who comes to visit helps the sick member to overcome the experience of isolation and estrangement that goes with being sick. The visitor embodies for him or her the faithful love of the Father, as revealed in the Son.

Now, instead of experiencing estrangement, one can experience connectedness, acceptance, love, and oneness with the community. Through this, he or she can be reassured of being enfolded in God’s love and cared for. He or she may be brought to the point of surrender in faith, of abandonment to God’s love.

In this attitude of faith, one is open to the healing power of God, and physical healing sometimes follows. The same attitude of radical openness to God can, however, also lead to a peaceful sharing in the mystery of Jesus’ death, as one hands over his or her life completely to the God who has raised Jesus from the dead.

All this is appropriate to any situation of serious illness, even if there is no question of the immediate danger of death. Of course, it is also appropriate if a person is near death. In fact, the mystery of death announces itself in any serious illness, and the logic of faith is always the same.

Faithfully,
The Theologian

The Rev. Wayne L. Fehr writes a monthly column for the diocesan newsletter called "Ask a Theologian," answering questions from ordinary Christians trying to make sense of their faith. You can find and purchase his book "Tracing the Contours of Faith: Christian Theology for Questioners" here. 

Ask a Theologian: Forgiveness

image: Liz Valente, https://www.instagram.com/donalizvalente/

Dear Theologian,

I grew up in the Catholic Church, where we were told to “go to confession” to a priest fairly often, to have our sins forgiven. Do we have anything similar in the Episcopal Church? How are we to find forgiveness for our sins?

A Penitent

Dear Penitent, 

Your first question can be answered simply. Yes, the Episcopal Church does have something very similar to the Roman Catholic Sacrament of Penance, now usually referred to as Reconciliation. You can find it in the Book of Common Prayer at page 447, under the heading “The Reconciliation of a Penitent.”

Like many other practices in the Anglican form of Christianity, this rite is available to all who request it from a priest, but is not required of anyone. The decision to request it is left up to the discernment of the individual believer. A familiar saying applies here: “All may, none must, some should.”

Your second question, though, demands a fuller response. How, indeed, are we sinful human beings to find forgiveness for our sins? The question becomes intensely personal for each one of us at certain times, when we become aware of how little we have responded to the infinite Love that is at the heart of things.

The way into finding forgiveness begins when we take the time to enter humbly into the presence of the One who loves us absolutely. There are no preliminaries necessary. It is not as if we had first to get our house in order, through moral conversion and change, before God would be willing to love us and come to us.

We need, however, first to learn to be quiet enough to hear the voice of God affirming and accepting us as we are. The discipline of silence is required. But we must also read Sacred Scripture and believe in the Word of God, especially as it reveals the infinite mercy that attends us.

Only after we have allowed God to love us for a while, should we then direct our attention to that self which is so dear to us and at the same time so wounded and unloving. We can dare to look at ourselves as we are, if we are illuminated by the light of God’s love directed to us seemingly unlovable ones.

The self-knowledge that we then gain can, however, lead us to want to hide ourselves from God, because we are actually so unworthy to be in relationship to that furnace of love. How can we dare to turn towards the Light? What gives us the hope that we will be healed and renewed in that Light, rather than destroyed by it?

Here it is important to remember that we stand in a great fellowship of forgiveness. The gracious, forgiving Love that God is, has brought into being a community of forgiven people which extends through all times and places and even includes the dead. And each of us is a member of that fellowship.

It is in and through the liturgical and sacramental life of the Church community that we receive the revelation of God given to us in the Sacred Scriptures of Israel and of the Church. The place in which we hear the Word of divine forgiveness, and are able to believe in it and allow ourselves to be forgiven, is the fellowship of forgiven sinners who belong to God through the reconciling death of Christ.

This happens again and again, whenever we gather with fellow believers to celebrate the Holy Eucharist. The Word that is read and proclaimed prepares us to be forgiven and reconciled with Christ in the Sacrament. It is true to say that the primary Sacrament of forgiveness, after the once-and-for-all event of Baptism, is the Eucharist.

Why, then, does the Church provide a separate and distinct rite for the Reconciliation of a Penitent? And when is it appropriate?

Persons who have been guilty of serious moral failure have a special need for an individual, personal, extended rite of reconciliation—in order to experience their own sorrow and to experience the overwhelming goodness and mercy which surrounds them and allows a new beginning (in spite of everything).

Why is this valuable? Because it takes the whole process of forgiveness out of the seemingly merely private and inward sphere, and places it in the public, social context of the community of faith to which the person belongs. There is an objectivity about celebrating the Sacrament of forgiveness which greatly strengthens a person’s faith and allows him or her to feel in a bodily, interpersonal way the reality of being forgiven.

What does the Sacrament involve?

It is an act of faith, an expression of worship, entered into with a fellow believer who, by virtue of ordination, represents the entire fellowship of forgiven sinners. In a setting of simple faith and honest prayer, the two listen to the Word of God and put their absolute trust in the divine forgiveness.

Then the penitent confesses in specific terms the nature and shape of his or her sins. Why this? Because, as the famous 5th Step of Alcoholics Anonymous has demonstrated for millions, to admit to another human being the exact nature of one’s failures allows one to admit it fully both to one’s self and to God. And without that full and honest admission, no one can ever change or be healed.

The priest may then respond with some words of counsel and encouragement, and ordinarily also imposes some small but significant action to be carried out later as an expression of one’s sincere repentance and desire for amendment of life.

Finally, the priest solemnly utters the words of forgiveness and release, of pardon and peace.  He absolves the penitent in the name of the Church and therefore in the name of Christ from whom the Church lives. This is a word of authority, to be accepted gladly by the one who has entrusted himself or herself so completely to the mercy of God:

“Our Lord Jesus Christ, who has left power to his Church to absolve all sinners who truly repent and believe in him, of his great mercy forgive you all your offenses; and by his authority committed to me, I absolve you from all your sins: In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

The words of forgiveness are accompanied by a gesture—the priest extends a hand over the penitent and may lay a hand on the person’s head or shoulder.

The final words of the priest sum up the significance of what has occurred:

“Now there is rejoicing in heaven; for you were lost, and are found; you were dead, and are now alive in Christ Jesus our Lord. Go in peace. The Lord has put away all your sins.” [1]

Faithfully,
The Theologian

[1] BCP, p. 451.

The Rev. Wayne L. Fehr writes a monthly column for the diocesan newsletter called "Ask a Theologian," answering questions from ordinary Christians trying to make sense of their faith. You can find and purchase his book "Tracing the Contours of Faith: Christian Theology for Questioners" here. 

Ask a Theologian: The Table of the Eucharist

Dear Theologian,

In the front of every one of our churches, there is an altar. As an old-timer, I remember when it used to be against the east wall of the church. The priest would stand facing the altar, with his back to us. But now, I hear people calling it a “table,” and the priest stands behind it, facing us. Why the change? And what is the difference between calling it an altar and calling it a table?

Person in the Pews

Dear Pew-Person,

The form of Eucharist with which many of us grew up was the inheritance of the medieval period of Western Christianity. It must be recognized frankly that this form of the Eucharist was far removed in outward appearance and in spirit from the “primitive Eucharist” of the first believers.

In the very earliest days of the faith, the symbolism of a shared meal was uppermost in the outward form of the Eucharist. This style of celebration was believed to derive from the Lord himself, who had instituted it at his Last Supper with his closest disciples.

At that meal (which may have been a Passover meal), Jesus had taken a familiar Jewish table ritual and given it a new depth of meaning with reference to himself and his imminent death for the sake of his friends. Sharing in this symbolic meal, then, was the ever-repeated occasion when the early believers entered into the meaning of his life and death, experienced his risen presence in their midst, and committed themselves to live by his way.

In the medieval period, when very few of the laity even received Communion, the meal symbolism was preserved only in an atrophied form insofar as the priest-celebrant consumed the consecrated bread and wine. But what was uppermost in the medieval form of the Eucharist was the theme of “sacrifice.”

The priest was believed to offer up to God, in an “unbloody” way, the very same infinitely precious sacrifice that once was offered up in a bloody way on Calvary. Or, putting the matter more carefully, the same Christ who offered himself once and for all to the Father (for the salvation of all mankind) was believed now to be making his eternal sacrifice present, in the symbolism of the Mass and through the ministry of the ordained priest, for the benefit of those assembled.

In this understanding of the ritual of the Mass, the table where the bread and wine were placed was thought of as an altar, on which the sacrifice was offered.

Until the liturgical renewal of the twentieth century, all Catholic churches (Anglican as well as Roman) had an altar against the back wall of the sanctuary, often very ornate and imposing. In a sense, the altar symbolized the Mystery of God, toward which the whole congregation was oriented, and which the priest approached reverently in the name of the people.

The fact that the priest had his back turned to the people showed that he was there not primarily to dialogue with them or even to address them, but rather to lead them into the holy presence of God and to offer on their behalf the Sacrifice of the Mass. The people’s part was to look on with faith and devotion and to join themselves in spirit with what was being done on their behalf by the ordained priest.

The renewed theology and practice of the Eucharist in both the Anglican and the Roman churches has returned to the biblical meal symbolism of early Christianity. In so doing, the significance of the altar/table has changed considerably.

Churches built since the renewal ordinarily reflect the new understanding and practice in their physical arrangement of space. Older church buildings are adapted as well as possible to the new form of Eucharist, either by moving the original altar out into the middle of the sanctuary or (if this is not possible) by setting up a table as close to the body of the congregation as possible (leaving the original altar in place as a kind of backdrop).

The essential symbolism of the Eucharist, in its renewed form, is that of a shared Meal in which all participate. The focal point of the assembled congregation is now a table, on which are placed ordinary, basic food and drink (bread and wine) in plain view of all, with the obvious purpose of being provided for everyone eventually to eat and drink together.

Before sharing this symbolic Meal, a great prayer of praise and thanks is intoned at the table by the person who is “presiding,” in order to express the deep religious meaning of the Meal, and in order to give voice to the faith and love of all those who are gathered around the table. At its conclusion, the entire assembly sings or says “Amen!” to express their agreement and conviction.

Notice the different function of the priest-celebrant in this form of the Eucharist. He/she is there to focus the faith of the assembled people, to give voice to it, and to draw all of them together around the one table, in readiness to “take and eat.” The priest-celebrant is not doing something on their behalf, namely, offering a sacrifice that they are not empowered to offer. Rather, he/she is leading a great communal action, which all those present are doing together.

One final point: Granted that the outward form of the Eucharist is now much more clearly that of a symbolic Meal, what has happened to the theme of “Sacrifice”?

The theme of Sacrifice is still expressed in some of the prayers, even though the outward action itself no longer thematizes this meaning so explicitly. In fact, the deepest meaning of Jesus himself and of his death is “redemptive sacrifice”—a handing-over and abandonment of himself to the Father, in which all men and women are somehow included, so that they are reconciled in principle to the God from whom they have been willfully estranged.

This loving abandonment to the will of the Father, this gift of self to God, is really the “essence” of the crucified and risen Jesus upon whom the community feeds, with whom the community is joined in the sacred Meal.

“Sacrifice,” therefore, is a major theme in the meaning of participating in the Meal. By sharing in the Lord’s Supper, we all freely share in his Sacrifice and are caught up into his own eternal act of loving surrender to the Father on behalf of the world. But the outward, symbolic form of our identification with Jesus’ Sacrifice is the form that he himself chose to give us: the simple, ordinary behavior of breaking bread together at his Table.

Faithfully,
The Theologian

The Rev. Wayne L. Fehr writes a monthly column for the diocesan newsletter called "Ask a Theologian," answering questions from ordinary Christians trying to make sense of their faith. You can find and purchase his book "Tracing the Contours of Faith: Christian Theology for Questioners" here.