1
RCIA Session 39The Anointing of the Sick, December 28, 2010 (Holy Innocents)
Housekeeping: take nativity (& possibly a little stand); set up sacred space as a sick call table: 2 blessed candles (candle holders!), white cloth, crucifix, container of holy water, take Rites book; blessed chalk, listen to “Marriage and the Eucharist” before the Marriage presentation(2 weeks away)
Treasure hunt: Confession times:
Holy Innocents--babies slaughtered by Herod (Mt 2:12-18)
You, first victims for Christ,
Infant flock of sacrifices,
Even on the steps of the altar, simple ones
You play with the palms and crowns. With your palms and crowns.
Such is my Paradise, God says. My Paradise could not be simpler.
Nothing is less elaborate than my Paradise.
on the steps of the altar itself
These simple children play with their palms and their martyrs crowns,
That is what is going on in my Paradise. Whatever can they play at
With palms and martyrs crowns.
I believe they play at hoops, God says, and perhaps at quoits
(at least I believe so, for do not think
that they ever ask my permission)
And the palm forever green they use apparently as a hoop-stick.
-Charles Peguy
It needs no precious stones, all luminous and gay,
To deck your hair;
The lustre of your curls, sweet Innocents, today,
Makes Heaven more fair.
To you grand martyrs lend their palms; they give their crowns,
Your brows to grace;
Upon their knees you find, dear children, now your thrones,
In their embrace.
In splendid courts on high, with tiny cherub throngs
Gayly you play:
Beloved baby band! your childish sports and songs
Charm heaven alway.
God tells you how He makes the birds, the flowers, the snow,
The sunlight clear;
No genius here below knows half the things you know,
O children, dear!
From Heaven's azure vault you tear the veils that make
Such mystery:
The glowing myriad stars in your wee hands you take,
Your toys to be.
Running Heaven's highways, there, your tiny footsteps leave
A silvery trace;
In the bright Milky Way, I think I see, at eve,
Each shining face.
To Mary's welcoming arms, when your gay games are done,
How swift you hie!
Hiding beneath her veil your heads like Christ Her Son
In sleep you lie.
Heaven's darling little pets! audacity like this
Delights our Lord;
And you can even dare caress and gently kiss
His Face adored.
That Blessed Lord has deigned you for my pattern here
To give to me;
O Holy Innocents, like you so pure and dear
I strive to be.
Pray, pray, that I may gain all childhood's graces best,-
Your candor true,
Your sweet abandonment, your innocence so blest,
That charm my view!
-St. Therese of Lisieux
Hymn:#304 Glory to Thee, My God, This Night
First Reading: James 5:13-16 (the leaders of the Church are to anoint the sick with oil)
Psalm:Psalm 102:1-8, 13, 19-21: “O Lord, hear my prayer and let my cry come to You.”
Alleluia: “Blessed are they who stand firm when trials come;
when they have stood the test, they will win the crown of life”
Gospel:Luke 12:35-44 (blessed is the servant who is ready when the Master comes)
Prayer: Father, to teach us the virtue of patience in human illness,
Your Son accepted our sufferings. Hear the prayers we offer for our sick brothers and sisters. May all who suffer pain, illness or disease realize that they are chosen to be saints,
and know that they are joined to Christ in His suffering for the salvation of the world,
who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen.
Blessing (in the absence of a priest): Make the sign of the cross.
May the Lord bless us, protect us from all evil and bring us to everlasting life. Amen.
Summary: Through the Anointing of the Sick, the whole Church entrusts the sick and suffering to Christ, the Divine Physician. He strengthens and healsus spiritually--and sometimes physically as well. This Sacrament calls Christians to unitetheir sufferingto Christ’s Passionfor the sake of His Body, the Church.(CCC 1020-1060, 1499-1532)
In 1854, a Cholera epidemic swept southern Italy. It was a horrible disease, causing diarrhea, vomiting, cramps and sunken eye sockets. The flesh was drained of its fluids, exposing the nose and cheek bones. Most died within hours, and up to 60 people died of it every day just in the city of Turin, Italy. People were terrified, leaving loved ones to die alone. Hearse-drivers often had to break down doors to carry off a corpse which had been left to rot. In the midst of this terror, St. Don Bosco and his boys worked tirelessly to care for the sick and to prepare them for their final end. However, one victim in particular had no use for priests. A friend had asked Don Bosco to visit this dying man who belonged to a forbidden secret society & was not ready to meet his Maker. When Don Bosco entered the room, the dying man leveled 2 pistols at his heart, threatening to kill him if he even mentioned confession.
------
The sick man went on, ‘I have agreed to meet you because my friend persuaded me. But before we go any further, I want you to answer me one question: Do you come here as a priest or as a friend? For I despise superstition and I hate hypocrites.”
“As a friend, of course.” Don Bosco then asked a few simple questions about the man’s condition and began to talk about his affairs in general. Slowly he drew the conversation around to history, mentioning several famous people, taking care to describe how each of them had died.
“I have no difficulty in believing,” he said of one in particular, “that no matter how badly he lived, the mercy of God went out to him in the end. After all, who can measure the goodness of God?”
“’Then you must think,’ said the other cautiously, that there’s hope even for one in my condition?”
”Why not?” Don Bosco went on to show how God was always ready to pardon the sinner no matter how grave the sin; how He was even ready to meet the sinner more than halfway.
At this the man suddenly reached out and caught Don Bosco’s hand. “Don Bosco, tell me the truth. Do you really think there’s hope for me?”
“I’m certain of it. And I’m equally certain that God loves you.”
“If that’s how it is, can you hear my confession?”
Don Bosco gently reminded him that he would have to sever his connection with the secret society.
“I promise,” he said, Now hear my confession.”
His friends in the society, however, got wind of what had happened and came to persuade him to renounce the Faith he had just re-embraced. When the two of them entered the room, the dying man’s hands stole under the pillows and once again appeared with the two pistols.
“Get out of here!” He warned. “Get out while you’re still alive!”
“But friend!” The two men were shocked. “Remember the oath you took, the papers you signed.”
“See these two guns?” Said the sick man. “First I intended to use them on the priest. Now I intend to use them on you. Get out of here fast!”
They got out of there fast!
Later he made a public retraction of his errors and before he died he received Extreme Unction. Don Bosco was reminded, however, that in saving this man’s soul, he had made a bitter enemy of the secret society.
“It’s still a small price to pay for a soul,” was his only comment. -Give Me Souls; Life of Don Bosco, by Peter Lappin (pg 155-156)
------
Life-threatening illness--or any brush with death--has a way of changing our perspective on life. Things that once seemed all-important suddenly pale in significance, and things we’ve always taken for granted take on a much deeper meaning. Little things, like prayer and spending time with loved ones, become precious. We realize just how powerless money, possessions and other passing things really are. We realize just how backward our priorities have been. There’s an old saying, “you can’t take it with you”--but we spend an awful lot of time & energy on these things we “can’t take with us”. We spend so little time building our relationships with God and other people--relationships that make an eternal difference.
When someone faces death, the busynessand distractions of life are usually stripped away. There may be new distractions--medical appointments and such--but very often the dying person has a lot more time to think than usual; a lot more time with uncomfortable thoughts about what they’ve done or not done with their lives. This is on top of the pain and irritations of illness and medical treatments. The whole experience can drive people to the depths of despair, cynicism, anger and bitterness--you’ve probably seen that happen--or it can propel them to awe-inspiring holiness.
The abbot Jean-Baptist Chautard put it like this: “A man can suffer like a pagan, like the damned, or like a saint. If he wishes to suffer with Christ, he must try to suffer like a saint. For then, suffering is of benefit to our own souls, and applies the merits of the Passion to those of others: ‘I fill up those things that are still wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for His Body, which is the Church.’ [Col 1:24] And St. Augustine, commenting on this text, says: ‘The sufferings were filled up, but in the Head only, there was wanting still the sufferings of Christ in His members. Christ went before as the Head, and follows after in His body.’”
We cannot suffer like a saint without God, which is why God gave us the second sacrament of healing--the Anointing of the Sick--to give us the power to suffer like a saint. The Anointing of the Sick takes Jesus’ special love for the sick...and makes it personal for us when we need it most. Karl Adam put it this way: “In the sacrament of the Last Anointing the compassionate Samaritan [Jesus] approaches the sick-bed and pours new courage and resignation into the sore heart.” During His public ministry, Jesus not only healed the sick, He sent His disciples to do the same (Mt 10:8). When He sent these same Apostles out after His resurrection, He said that when they laid their hands on the sick, the sick would recover (Mark 16:18).
Personally, and through His Apostles, Jesus healed bodies and souls. He identified Himself with the sick (“I was sick and you visited Me”-Mt 25:36). He took our infirmities and bore our diseases--He made them His own (Mt 8:17, Is 53:4). Because Jesus took our trials on Himself, we can say that they are His trials. In the Liturgy of the Hours, Jesus refers to those who “stood by Him in His trials”, so when I’m struggling with something, I can pray, “Jesus, I’m standing by You in Your trial”. It takes some of the burden off if I let Him carry the load and stand with Him in His trials.
Not only that, but by taking our trials on Himself, Jesus gave new meaning to suffering. Nowsuffering unites us to His sacrifice, to redemption. When St. Paul begged God to take away a “thorn in the flesh”, God replied, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness”(2 Cor 12:9). Our suffering, united to Jesus’ suffering, helps us and helps others get to Heaven. Our present trials earn for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison (2 Cor 4:17).
Some people have taken this to mean that suffering itself is a good thing, that God likes suffering and likes to see us suffer. Nothing could be further from the truth. Suffering is evil. God did not create suffering. He created perfect health and gave us an inability to suffer--that’s called impassibility. It was one of the preternatural gifts that Adam and Eve enjoyed before the disaster of Original Sin. Suffering is the result of our choices--our sins. We’re the ones in a love affair with evil, not God. God entered our suffering history--freely taking on suffering He did not deserve--in order to disarm evil with an overflow of goodness. When we suffer, He invites us to unite our suffering with His, tounite ourselves with His overflow of goodness, so that we can participate with Him in disarming evil and even redeeming it, bringing good out of evil.
This is one way we can share in Jesus’ ministry of healing--by sharing in His suffering. It doesn’t look like much. But one day we will see just how powerfully God has used our “nothing”. A dying missionary once said that he did more for his beloved natives as he lay dying in a hospital bed than he’d done for 22 years of generous, exhausting service in their presence. That sounds crazy now. But one day we will see just how right he was.
There are many other ways that we as a Church share in Jesus’ ministry to the sick. We build hospitals to care for physical needs. We pray for the sick, visit them and encourage them. Visiting the sick is one of the corporal, or bodily, works of mercy that we’re all encouraged to practise.
In our own parish, Father Apfelbeck has asked for volunteers to visit the sick so that each person would receive a visit from someone at least once a week. There are simply too many sick for him to visit that often. If this is a ministry you’d like to consider, you could either talk to Father about it or talk to us--we can get the message to him.
The Church gives some details on what this ministry to the sick looks like. The Rites book says: “It is their [our] task to strengthen the sick with words of faith and, by praying with them, to commend them to the suffering and glorified Lord, and to encourage them to contribute to the well-being of the people of God by associating themselves willingly with Christ’s passion and death.” (Rites, Pastoral Care of the Sick, p. 34). It goes on to say that prayer with and for the sick should be mainly drawn from Scripture. The Psalms, such as the one we prayed this evening, or the others I’ve listed on your handout, are especially good for that (Psalms 6, 25, 27, 34, 41, 42, 43, 63, 71, 86, 90, 102, 103, 123, 130 or 143). Suggest particular intentions to the sick person, so they can offer their suffering forspecific needs--and keep them updated on those needs. It’s amazing how much that sense of meaning helps. One of the cds in our library is by Jeff Cavins, “Turning Pain into Gain”. He describes a time when he had severe pain, especially in his arm, for a long time. One night when the pain was so intense he couldn’t sleep, he went to his little girl’s room, knelt beside her bed as she slept and said to God, “For her”. He made a gift of his pain for his daughter’s sake. That’s how he got through it.
Something else we can do for those who are seriously ill is to give them achance to talk about death. Let’s face it--death isn’t a popular topic, and most people don’t wantto talk about it, even if it’s weighing heavily on the sick person’s mind. You could follow Don Bosco’s example of easing the topic of death into the conversation and letting the sick person follow up if they want. Maybe you could share your own thoughts and feelings on death--just enough to let them know that it’s ok if they want to ask questions or share fears.
Finally, we who care for the sick can call in a priest to strengthen our loved one with the sacraments. Over and over in the Gospels, friends and relatives brought their sick loved ones to Jesus, or begged Jesus to come. When we call the priest, we are asking for Jesus.
Notice I said sacraments, plural. There are three sacraments the Church offers those who are seriously ill: the Sacrament of Confession, the Anointing of the Sick and Holy Communion, which in this case is called “Viaticum”, which literally translates as “food for the journey”. Together these three are the Last Rites--the Sacraments that prepare us for our heavenly homeland. We’ve talked about St. Therese of Lisieux--her parents, BlessedLouis and Zelie Martinwould routinely call a priest for anyone in their neighborhood who was dying, especially if that person was not ready to meet God. Sometimes that meant they had to convince the person to receive the sacraments! Fr. Ronald Knox was familiar with this. In commenting on the story of the Good Shepherd (Mt 18:12-14, Luke 15:4-7), he says: “He owns us, and he can’t bear to lose us. We are all familiar with the picture, but there’s one thing we tend to forget about it. When a sheep gets caught, say, in a bush, and the shepherd comes to free it, you don’t find the sheep sitting there quiet under the process; it struggles like mad--to get away from the shepherd. He has to save it in spite of itself. And so it is with a human soul that has fallen into grave sin; the grace which sets it free is something it doesn’t want, something it is tempted to refuse. Somebody ought to paint a picture of the good Shepherd coming to rescue his sheep, and the sheep trying to get away.” We may experience this, either in ourselves, or in those we try to help.