When should I receive Anointing of the Sick? or, How sick is "sick"?

There has been, quite happily, a realization in recent years that the Anointing of the Sick (i.e. Extreme Unction) is a sacrament of the “sick” and not of the “dying”. Last week, we recognized that this sacrament (because it is not for the “dying”) is not appropriate for those who are in serious and even immediate danger of death but are not sick – e.g. for persons about to enter war, those about to be executed, and also those about to undergo “serious” surgery who yet have no serious illness.

What became clear in the comment box of the previous article is that there is no little confusion about what the Church means by “serious sickness” and “the sick”. How sick does one have to be before receiving Anointing? In what circumstances does old age call for the sacrament of Anointing? In other words: How sick is “sick”?

Finally, we must also consider how often the sacrament of Anointing should be repeated.

St. Benedict, the common life, and the danger of "lone-rangers"; or, What St. Benedict might say to Fr. Corapi

July 11^th, Feast of St. Benedict

As the Church today celebrates the feast of St. Benedict (according to the Ordinary Form), we consider the common life which the Father of Western Monasticism both defined and defended. In our own day (as I suppose in any period of history), there is a great impulse toward individualism and independence – and these tendencies often creep into our religious sensibilities through hidden and unseen cracks.

St. Benedict defended the institution of common monastic life and recommended this before the solitary life of the hermit. Certainly, the life of the hermit is more perfect than that of the monk, but St. Benedict warns that the hermit’s life is also more dangerous and therefore should only be entered after many years of living the common life of the monastery.

Far too often, both religious and priests separate pre-maturely from the common life of their community in order to take up a solitary life independent from the monastery or (as the case may have it) from the common life of the diocesan clergy. This tendency toward separatism is very dangerous, as it puts the vocation of the priest or religious in grave jeopardy – indeed, it can happen that the individual (now outside his community and living independently and according to his own whims) will become so lost as to end up renouncing his vocation and pursuing instead his own plans rather than the will of God which is communicated through his superiors.  [Does this story sound familiar to anyone?]

A consideration of the opening chapter of Holy Rule of St. Benedict will serve to correct this errant tendency.

A sower went forth to sow, but who prepared the soil?

15^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Matthew 13:1-23

A sower went out to sow. […] Some seed fell on rich soil, and produced fruit, a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.

The parable of the sower describes the manner in which the grace of God is freely bestowed upon the earth and bears much fruit in the hearts of those who believe. The liberality and the generosity with which the Lord pours forth his Word upon the earth – giving grace not merely to those who are well-disposed (i.e. the good soil), but even to the wicked (i.e. the poor soil) – witnesses to the infinite riches of the Divine Mercy.

Still, we must consider how it comes about that some soil is well prepared while other soil is poor. If it is God who sows the seed of grace, who prepares and disposes the soil of the human soul to receive that grace?

In responding to this question, St. Thomas Aquinas’ own position grew and developed – in this theological question, as in so many others, the Common Doctor rises above all his contemporaries and soars ahead as the greatest Master. The thought of the Angelic Doctor has become a light to the whole Church. We shall here consider (briefly, and in simple terms) the key points of the debate and the change in St. Thomas’ thought which led to a significant development in Catholic theology generally.

Can man prepare or dispose himself to receive the first gift of grace?

Should Anointing of the Sick be given before surgery?

Is any man sick among you? Let him bring in the priests of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick man. (James 5:14-15)

 “The Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick is given to those who are seriously ill.” (Paul VI, Apostolic Constitution Sacram Unctione Infirmorum, 30 Nov 1972)

“It is fitting to receive the Anointing of the Sick just prior to a serious operation.” (CCC 1515)

Happily, the sacrament of Extreme Unction is no longer (in the popular thought of the faithful) relegated solely to the last moments of life, but is celebrated much more conveniently when the sickness first begins to seriously threaten life. Most unhappily, a widespread confusion has occurred as to the whether (and, as the case may have it, why) the sacrament of Anointing is to be given before serious surgery.

Many of the Christian faithful (indeed, even many of the priests) are of the mistaken opinion that serious life-threatening surgery is, in itself, a cause for the administration of the sacrament of Anointing. This confusion could be perpetuated by the brief words of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (as reproduced above), but can be easily corrected if we consider the nature of the sacrament.

As we shall see, serious (and even life-threatening) surgery is not a cause for the reception of Anointing of the Sick. Likewise, other foreseen life-threatening events (such as deployment for military service or capital punishment) do not render a person fit to be a recipient of this sacrament.

Same-sex "marriage" advocates are far too spiritual

They don't understand the meaning of marriage

4^th of July, Independence Day (USA)

The United States of America is at a crossroads: Will she defend the natural institution of marriage or will she doom herself to societal decline? With all the debate about same-sex “marriage” and the recent legislation in New York, much ink (or, rather, megabytes of online data) has been spent on the issue. On point that seems to have gone unnoticed – or, at least, has not been stressed enough – is that the homosexual activists have failed to recognize that human beings are animals.

The argument for same-sex “marriage” recognizes (at least theoretically) the love of the spouses, the fidelity and permanence of the marriage bond, and the emotional and psychological significance of marital union, but it completely fails to recognize the physical and animal aspect of marriage – namely, the preservation and propagation of the human species. The same-sex “marriage” advocates treat of human beings as though we were angels, pure spirits. They completely ignore the physical nature of man.

This is what is most surprising about the promoters of the homosexual sub-culture: For materialistic hedonists, they are far too spiritual.

To be "humble of heart", The 12 degrees of humility according to St. Benedict and St. Thomas Aquinas

14^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Matthew 11:25-30

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart.

Fr. Cornelius a’ Lapide cites the words of St. Augustine on this verse: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of Me, not to frame a world, not to create all things, visible and invisible, not to do miracles in the world and to raise the dead; but that I am meek and lowly in heart. Dost thou wish to be great, begin from the least. Thou art thinking of constructing a mighty fabric of loftiness, think first of the foundation of humility. And as great as each one wishes to build up his edifice, the greater the building, so much the more deeply let him dig his foundation.”

In following Christ our Savior, we are to imitate not so much his power and his glory, but rather his meekness and humility. But how to be humble? Indeed, it is much easier to be humble in word than humble of heart. In this regard, we turn to the writings of St. Benedict of Nursia who, in the seventh chapter of his Rule, establishes the twelve degrees of humility. Finally, we will reproduce St. Thomas Aquinas' defense of the twelve degrees, recalling that the Angelic Doctor himself learned humility through his schooling under the Holy Rule as a boy. 


[what follows is taken entirely from the Rule of St. Benedict and from the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas, respectively]

Why Jesus had to know all things, "From his fullness we have all received"

O Sacred Heart of Jesus, from whose fullness we have all received. Have mercy on us!

Many tend to presume presume that the Church’s doctrinal teaching on the perfection of Christ’s humanity carries with it the danger of removing our Lord too far from the natural experience common to (fallen) humanity. “Be careful,” they warn us, “lest you so elevate the Savior that he is no longer really human.” (They seem to think that a man is not human unless he suffers from the effects of sin)

In this regard, it is not uncommon for such persons to claim that the traditional teaching on our Savior’s knowledge – including, especially, that the Lord enjoyed not only the natural human (acquired) mode of knowledge, but also the beatific knowledge of the saints (i.e. the intimate vision of and communion with God) and also the infused knowledge of all the truths which the human mind is capable of knowing (i.e. the knowledge of all created reality, past, present and future) – to be harmful to the devotional life of the Christian: “How,” they question, “can we relate to the Lord, if he did not experience ignorance, doubt, and confusion?” And again, they are perplexed when they come to certain passages of the Scriptures which seem to indicate a degree of positive ignorance in the Savior: “Was not our Lord ignorant,” they say, “of the time of the Second Coming?” Or, “Did not the Christ feel abandoned by his Father when he suffered on the Cross?”

Contrary to the grumblings of such persons, the Church has always affirmed the perfections of Christ’s sacred humanity (and especially of his knowledge) as essential to his role as our Savior. And this is why the Catholic Church affirms (in her ordinary Magisterium) that our Lord knew and knows all things even as man: If Jesus saved us through his humanity, then it is necessary that this humanity be perfect.

The devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus recognized the essential role of the humanity of the Lord as the instrument of our salvation, united to his divinity. The fullness of Christ’s Sacred Heart is the storehouse of all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.