Retired bishop Anthony Pilla helpfully describes what Anointing of the Sick is in this article, “Dying? Plan ahead: Priests scarce for last rites” in USA Today. Hint: it’s not just “last rites.”
Dying? Plan ahead: Priests scarce for last rites
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24 responses to “Dying? Plan ahead: Priests scarce for last rites”
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Having had a very good experience with hospice when my father died, hopefully the hospital room with its godlike doctors and priest will become a thing of the past. Better to die a human being in beautiful surroundings with good nursing care, family and friends who are relieved of the burden of physical care.
Planning ahead is the key. Find a hospice you really like well in advance for yourself or your loved one. Don’t wait to be taken to the hospital or have a doctor tell you that you need a hospice. When being taken care of at home becomes difficult, then it is time to go to the hospice. If you have found a good one, it won’t be like going to a hospital. The moment I toured the hospice I knew it was exactly where my deceased mother wanted my father to be. It was like she had designed it to welcome him to heaven.
Why do we spend so much time and money after death on the wake, funeral and meal afterward? My parents both specified no viewing of the body except the night before the funeral and then only by the family, and no party after the funeral Mass. This came from my mother’s experience as the family funeral person. She wanted to be sure I did not have to go through that.
When I die I hope I am surrounded with people listening to my liturgical music collection (hearing is one of the last things to go) and praying some of the psalms that have been my prayer even when I am no longer able to pray. Hopefully people will do some of their socializing and partying at the hospice; there were a lot of convenient places for that at the place where my father died.
Hopefully people will pray the Thanksgiving for my family’s life which I wrote for my father’s funeral. It is like a Trinitarian Eucharistic Prayer without an institution narrative. Written to be the prayer of the faithful for my father’s funeral; it was used both for the wake and immediately after dad died.
Forget about doctors and a priest; write your Thanksgiving prayer early.
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Jack – thanks; well expressed and very helpful advice. This is being very forward – but would you be willing to share your father’s Thanksgiving Prayer?
It sounds very sacramental (with a small c) and must have been a blessing to your family.
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Surely a priest’s presence to hear confession and to administer the last rites is one of the things that any practising Catholic should want? Or do you mean after that, and after the doctors are done?
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‘ “We recommend that whenever you’re ill, ask for that sacrament,” said retired Cleveland Bishop Anthony Pilla. “So many times people don’t want to be anointed because they think that might mean they’re going to die.
“But it’s not just a sacrament for the dying,” he said. “It’s for the sick and the recovering.” ‘
If there is anything which can properly rather than popularly be called “Last Rites” it is Viaticum which does not require a priest.
As Bp. Pilla properly notes, and the name says, the sacrament is Anointing OF THE SICK. It is a sacrament for healing and recovery.
If anyone is conscious of their need for confession as they approach death, I should hope they would not wait and hope to confess with their dying breaths.
It is not as if Catholics believe that dying Christians need special provision like coins to pay the Styx ferryman. Christian living is the preparation for death. Jesus is waiting to welcome us into the joy of eternal life in the mansions of God.
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Tom – as Catholics we need to be free of mortal sin, which once committed, can only be absolved by a priest through the sacrament of reconciliation; otherwise, it won’t be Our Lord waiting there to meet us.
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Who will be there waiting for us?
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Céile Dé, you don’t expect the Good Lord to live up to all your dire and dismal expectations, surely.
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I’ve only been ministering to the bereaved for forty years, but I cant for the life of me imagine anyone not benefitting from post funeral meals. I’ve also been one of the bereaved on numerous occasions and with each the meal played a vital role in the mourning process.
As for the sacrament of the sick, it’s been going on forty years since we have made it clear that the anointing itself ought to be sought as soon as someone experiences an illness that might eventually claim their lives. Anointing prior to major surgical procedures and for those who experienced a serious injury is also encouraged. Unfortunately, one consequence of so many Catholics who aren’t practicing the faith is that they often wait until the last minute to get “a priest” to administer the “last rites” for their unconscious loved ones. On many occasions they don’t even have a catholic funeral. This doesn’t have to reflect negatively in any way for the one at death’s door, but on family members who no longer demonstrate catholic sensibilities. This can be very frustrating.
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We offer the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick the first Thursday of each month within the context of Mass and then a lunch following. We get about 60 to100 people. We make it clear that this sacrament is for healing, mind, body and soul.
We also encourage people to call the parish when they are seriously ill or to see a priest prior to going into the hospital for the sacrament of anointing of the sick. We make it clear that it should not be delayed until the last moment.
I do often preach that people are playing Russian Roulette with their salvation when they don’t practice their faith, fail to celebrate the sacrament of penance and then think that a priest will be available on a moment’s notice to offer them the “last rites” when they are on the verge of expiring. I’ve made it clear that with so few priests in our town that a priest may well not be in town when one is needed the most for the “last rites.”
However, we have had a peculiar situation arise with some people who don’t realize that the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick could be the “last rites” for some who receive it. No sooner have I explained the nature of the sacrament to family members and tell them our hope is for the various forms of healing and return home, I then get a call for the “last rites” for the very same person I just anointed because they are on the verge of death. Of course there are prayers for the dying and at the moment of death that anyone can pray, like a deacon or a lay pastoral associate. I think many Catholics appreciate the prayers of the Church when one is dying or at the moment of death for their loved ones. These prayers too could be considered “last rites” as well as the subsequent funeral rites. -
I wonder what VC will do to that rite when they revise it? Another train wreck in the offing . . .
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Ceile De :
Tom – as Catholics we need to be free of mortal sin, which once committed, can only be absolved by a priest through the sacrament of reconciliation; otherwise, it won’t be Our Lord waiting there to meet us.
So what does this catechetical statement about mortal sin have to do with anything I wrote?
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“As Catholics we need to be free of mortal sin, which once committed, can only be absolved by a priest through the sacrament of reconciliation; otherwise, it won’t be Our Lord waiting there to meet us.”
“I do often preach that people are playing Russian Roulette with their salvation when they don’t practice their faith, fail to celebrate the sacrament of penance and then think that a priest will be available on a moment’s notice to offer them the “last rites” when they are on the verge of expiring.”
Let’s be careful about tying the forgiveness of Christ too tightly to sacramental forms, especially at a time when the sacrament of reconciliation is in abeyance (even among priests). Christianity is not a self-centred worrying about “my salvation” or servile calculations about how to get through the obstacle course. We need to remember how Luther cut through a lot of these thickets with his reminder that the sinner can cast himself on Christ at any time, and hear the voice that says “Your sins are forgiven”. Even the saintliest person at the hour of death has no other recourse than to cast himself on Christ, who takes our sins and clothes us with his righteousness instead. When people get caught up in morose calculations about their sins and their qualification for salvation, I feel like saying what Luther once write to Melanchthon: Pecca fortiter, sed crede fortius. A dangerous paradox, but one that can have a salutary application.
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I don’t disagree with your assessment, although taken to an extreme one would then do as Martin Luther did, eliminate all the sacraments except Baptism and Holy Communion.
But on the theoretical level, one can posit what might happen to a person after death if we believe in death, judgment, heaven and hell, the last four things.
But of course, the Church teaches that while there is indeed a hell to be dogmatically believed, the Church has never taught that any particular person or group of person is actually there. That’s God’s call and certainly Divine Mercy goes beyond the parameters of the sacraments, but the sacraments are focused moments of it.
A person who is so convinced of Divine Mercy that he/she doesn’t practice his/her faith and awaits the day of death to cast himself or herself at the feet of Divine Mercy is playing Russian Roulette. But we’ll not know the outcome until we are passed death, judgment and God willing, into heaven. Ultimately it’s God’s call.
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The beautiful lines of Newman, set sublimely by Elgar, come to mind:
“It is because
Then thou didst fear; that now thou dost not fear.
Thou hast forestalled the agony, and so
For thee bitterness of death is passed.
Also, because already in thy soul
The judgement is begun.
A presage falls upon thee, as a ray
Straight from the Judge, expressive of thy lot.
That calm and joy uprising in thy soul
Is first-fruit to thee of thy recompense,
And heaven begun.” -
Correction:
For thee the bitterness of death is past
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Yes, the last rite is Viaticum, which can be given by an extraordinary minister of the Eucharist, if need be. Precdeded by sacramental confession in some cases, or in the absenceof a priest, a good act of contrition, if I rememebr what I learned 50 years ago.
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Which may also be known or called Extreme Unction even if a new term has been “slotted” for use which seems to have been all the rage of the 70’s. The previous use of the name Extreme Unction has not been banned as many I hear claim, it is simply not as often used.
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My edition of Sacrosanctum conciliium has the interesting little phrase “more fittingly” at no. 73. Ergo, I think “extreme unction,” though not banned, is “less fitting.” Probably because most of the time the administration of this sacrament is not in extremis, but much earlier. Comparatively, it is much less frequent that it is truly “extreme unction” today.
But then I’m one who supports the teachings of the Church at Vatican II and in the officially revised ritual books with their explanatory introductions. What you call “all the rage of the 70s,” I call the teachings of the Church. From your comments here, I honestly can’t tell where you’re at with the teachings of the Church.
awr
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I guess I fall on the side of Traditional usage and in reminding people that it is allowed. More fitting or less fitting has become less important in the last few years after the release of the Pope’s Summorum Pontificum which allows for the use of the 1962 books as well as those of 1970. Ergo, in the 62 Editions, Annointing of the Sick would be referred to as Extreme Unction. Rage of the 70’s referred to the renaming of things for the sake of remnaming with suppression of things past. So in my understanding of the teachings of the Church, that includes since 7/07/07 the use of former expressions of the same rites and books. So I support and acknowledge both, with a preference for the former. As for SC, I still am waiting for a implementation of Articles 36 and 54 in my Parish and for an explanation of how these are put into effect for I hear not nor see evidence of either when I attend the Pauline Mass. I attend both but prefer Mass according to the former books which I believe is allowed according to my copy of Summorum Pontificum.
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Strange, SC #73 appears less forceful to me than SC #36 or 54.
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Viaticum is Communion not Anointing.
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“Summorum Pontificum which allows for the use of the 1962 books as well as those of 1970. Ergo, in the 62 Editions, Annointing of the Sick would be referred to as Extreme Unction. ”
Does SP allow anything other than the MR 62?
Are other sacraments covered in the MR?-
“Art. 9. § 1 The pastor, having attentively examined all aspects, may also grant permission to use the earlier ritual for the administration of the Sacraments of Baptism, Marriage, Penance, and the Anointing of the Sick [Unctionis Infirmorum], if the good of souls would seem to require it.”
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Here we go again with quoting the praise of Latin out of context and abusing the clear intent of SC 36 to preserve Latin while initiating the transition to vernacular liturgy.
Fr. Anthony, can you refer Powers and McKernan to your previous explication of SC36? I don’t remember which thread it was in.
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