The Anointing of the Sick and Last Rites: Sacraments of Healing
The Anointing of the Sick is founded directly on James 5:14-15, which commands the sick to call the elders (ordained ministers) to anoint them with oil in the Lord's name, promising healing and forgiveness. Mark 6:13 shows the apostles already anointing the sick during Christ's ministry. The sacrament is not only for the dying — it is for any serious illness, surgery, or the weakness of old age. Its effects include spiritual strength, forgiveness of sins, and physical healing if God wills it. Oil is the Spirit's symbol throughout Scripture: consecration, healing, the divine presence made tangible.
A Sacrament for the Whole Person
Human beings do not merely have bodies that occasionally get sick. Human beings are bodies — embodied souls, whose physical state affects their spiritual state and whose spiritual state affects their bodies. The Church has always understood this. And so from the very beginning, Christ’s healing ministry extended not only to the soul but to the whole person — and His Church was commissioned to continue it.
The Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick is one of the most misunderstood and most neglected sacraments in contemporary Catholicism. It has been long nicknamed “Last Rites” or “Extreme Unction” — terms that have led many Catholics to associate it exclusively with the moment of death, to be called only when all hope is gone. This is a significant narrowing of a sacrament whose biblical foundation is broader and richer than many realize.
The Biblical Foundation: James 5:14–15
“Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.”
— The Epistle of St. James
This text is remarkable on several counts. First, it is a clear apostolic instruction — a directive to the sick, specifying the action to take: call the elders (Greek: presbyteroi, the ordained leaders) of the church. This is not a suggestion for communal prayer among friends. It specifies ordained ministers performing a specific ritual act: anointing with oil in the name of the Lord.
Second, the effects named are both physical and spiritual. The prayer of faith will “save” (sōsei) the sick person — the same Greek word used for eternal salvation throughout the New Testament. The Lord will “raise him up.” And sins will be forgiven. The sacrament addresses the whole person: body, soul, and conscience.
Third, the forgiveness of sins is linked directly to the anointing. This is not incidental. Illness, suffering, and sin are connected in the biblical imagination — not in a simplistic one-to-one causation (Jesus explicitly rejects that in John 9), but in the deeper sense that the whole human person needs healing, and God’s healing reaches the whole person.
Christ’s Healing Ministry and Its Extension
The sacrament is rooted in Christ’s own healing ministry. He healed the sick not as demonstrations of divine power alone, but as signs of the Kingdom — signs that in Him, the consequences of sin and death are being reversed. When He sends the Twelve on mission, He instructs them to “anoint with oil many who were sick and heal them” (Mark 6:13). The apostolic anointing of the sick is explicitly present in the Gospels, before the institution narratives of the other sacraments.
It is not exclusively a death rite. The Council of Trent (1551) clarified that the sacrament is for the seriously ill — those whose illness puts them in some danger. Vatican II and the revised rites further broadened the understanding: it may be received by the elderly weakened by age, those facing serious surgery, and those with chronic serious illness, not only the dying.
It can be received more than once. Each new serious illness or each new danger is an occasion for receiving it again. It is not a once-in-a-lifetime sacrament.
It provides multiple graces. The Catechism identifies: union with Christ’s passion, strength to endure suffering with faith, forgiveness of sins, restoration of health if God wills it, and preparation for the final journey if death is near (CCC 1532).
Oil in Scripture and Tradition
Oil is among Scripture’s richest symbols. In the Old Testament it represents consecration (kings, priests, and prophets are anointed), healing, joy, and the presence of the Holy Spirit. The Good Samaritan pours oil and wine on the wounds of the man left for dead — a gesture Jesus makes central to his parable about mercy.
The use of oil in the sacrament is not arbitrary. It is a physical enactment of what the prayer asks: that the Holy Spirit — whose presence oil symbolizes — descend on the sick person, bringing strength, healing, and peace. The external sign and the internal grace are matched, as in every sacrament.
The Sacrament’s Deepest Logic
Why does the Church anoint the sick rather than simply pray for them? Because Christ established sacraments — specific physical acts that convey specific graces. The Incarnation itself is the supreme sacramental logic: God reaches us through matter, through bodies, through physical reality. He does not bypass the material world to reach our souls. He enters it.
“The sacrament of Anointing of the Sick has as its purpose the conferral of a special grace on the Christian experiencing the difficulties inherent in the condition of grave illness or old age.”
— CCC 1527
When a Catholic receives Anointing of the Sick, they are not receiving a superstitious charm or a desperate last resort. They are participating in Christ’s own healing ministry — the same ministry He commissioned His apostles to continue when He sent them out with oil and prayer. They are being prayed over, anointed, and claimed by the same Lord who touched lepers, healed the paralyzed, and raised the dead.
The sacrament does not promise physical recovery in every case. What it promises is that no Christian need face serious illness or death alone, unfortified, and without the grace of the one who said: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). That promise is enacted, made tangible, made certain — through oil, prayer, and the hands of the Church.