February 4, 2024 at 8:00 a.m. and 10:30 a.m.

Biblical Reference

“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,” James 5:14-15, NRSV.

Episcopal Relevance

“Healing services offer participants beauty and a sensorial experience of readings, music, touch, and the scent of holy oil or incense. Healing services often include special hymns, chants, or songs. Perhaps most important, healing services offer physical touch to participants, through the laying on of hands. This touch varies from a light touch to a close embrace during healing prayer. This prayer and anointing may follow a brief formula or be a long, spontaneous prayer lasting several minutes. Episcopalians distinguish between healing and curing. They see “curing” as the end of disease or illness and “healing” as an experience of transformation, peace, or improved relationships with other people or God. In Episcopalian theology, the goal of healing is a return to “wholeness.”

Hollis, Jennifer L., ‘Healing into Wholeness in the Episcopal Church,’ in Linda L. Barnes, and Susan S. Sered (eds), Religion and Healing in America (New York, 2004; online edn, Oxford Academic, 3 Oct. 2011), https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195167962.003.0006, accessed 25 Jan. 2024.

Glossary

Ministration to the Sick

A pastoral office of the church. In its basic form, the service is an abbreviated eucharist, including a rite for laying on of hands and anointing. The priest may suggest making a special confession if the sick person’s conscience is troubled. The form for the Reconciliation of a Penitent is used. The BCP also includes various “Prayers for the Sick” (pp. 458-460) and “Prayers for use by a Sick Person” (p. 461) after the form for Ministration to the Sick. If one or more of the “Prayers for the Sick” are used in the service, they may follow the reading and precede the confession (p. 454). The service emphasizes the healing power of Christ and the connection between the worshiping community and the sick person. Communion may be administered from the reserved Sacrament, using the form beginning on p. 398 of the BCP. In many places, lay eucharistic ministers bring communion directly from the Sunday service to the sick or shut-in.

Reserved Sacrament

Following ancient custom, the BCP provides that the consecrated bread and wine may be reserved for the communion of the sick or others who could not be present for “weighty cause” at the celebration. The sacrament may also be reserved on Maundy Thursday for communion on Good Friday. It is customary to keep the consecrated elements in a tabernacle or an aumbry or covered with a veil on a table or altar. A lamp or candle burns nearby to announce the presence of the reserved sacrament. This light is a sanctuary lamp if the reserve is near the altar.

Anointing

Sacramental use of oil as an outward sign of God’s active presence for healing, initiation, or ordination. Anointing with oil by smearing or pouring may accompany prayers for healing (unction) and the laying on of hands in the rite for Ministration to the Sick (BCP, p. 453). The signing with the cross of the newly baptized may be done by anointing with the oil of chrism, which signifies that the person is “sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own for ever.” (BCP, p. 308). The oil for anointing may be scented, with different fragrances used in healing, initiation, or ordination services.

Last Rites

Sacramental ministry to a dying Christian may include confession and absolution, laying on of hands, anointing (extreme unction), and communion. The dying received communion as viaticum, or sustenance for a journey, in accordance with ancient custom. The BCP provides forms for the Reconciliation of a Penitent (pp. 447-452), an order for Ministration to the Sick that includes the ministry of the word, laying on of hands and anointing, and Holy Communion (pp. 453-457). If communion is administered from the reserved sacrament, the form for Communion under Special Circumstances (pp. 396-399) is used. The BCP also provides a form for Ministration at the Time of Death, which includes a Litany at the Time of Death and prayers for a vigil (pp. 462-467). Prayers of commendation for the departed have been dated from the fourth century.

Extreme Unction

Use of oil to anoint the sick at the time of death. After the seventh century, western Christianity associated the rites of anointing with repentance and death. This differed from the earlier practice of anointing for healing and recovery from illness. Unction became a rite reserved for situations in extremis, near death. The various movements of liturgical renewal in the twentieth century have recovered the anointing of the sick in its ancient sense as a rite of healing. Anointing may also be done at the time of death.

Historical Relevance

As you might imagine, the historical role and importance of healing rituals have declined as medical science has developed. In ancient biblical times, disease or any physical, emotional, or mental crisis was directly correlated with that person’s “favor” with the LORD. Faith, therefore, was the foundation for healing. Faith and healing was seen as one. If a person was not healed, it was solely because they had no faith or sinned (or a family member had sinned).

Late Middle Ages (1250 CE – 1450 CE)

Although there is evidence that primitive medical care, such as amputations, took place in Ancient Greece, the first notable shift in theology based on disease and science was during the Black Death (1347-1351 CE). During the Black Plague, the role of the church was to bury. The rate of death was so extreme that the church re-evaluated adult baptism and began to baptize children and infants to save their souls from an eternity in Limbo. Concerns for ritual, prayer, and the individual soul began to diminish under the stress of the entire community’s well-being. The church focused on speaking words of comfort, absolution of sin, and the assurance of God’s forgiveness.

The Enlightenment (1650 CE – 1800)

As the exploration of human anatomy grew, a chasm began to form between science and religion. Hospitals and institutions began to be built; the focus was placed on caring for the body. To stay relevant, Christianity also focused on the body, not on spiritual healing through prayer or ritual.

19^th Century

The 19^th century is known as the “birth of surgery” and the development of psychology and psychiatry. The latter challenged the very necessity of religion, claiming religion itself was the cause of some illnesses. Medically, the advancements were numerous and monumental:

1818: the first successful blood transfusion

1843: Ether is used as an anesthetic

1885: the first successful appendectomy

1895:  the first x-ray

1896: the first successful open-heart surgery

Through all these advancements and milestones, the church’s role has not changed since The Enlightenment. What the church had to offer was antiquated and no longer relevant. It could pray for physical comfort, but health was coming from science.

20^th Century

Although medical science targets human pain and prolongs life, the 20^th century is marked with even more amazing medical breakthroughs:

1928: Antibiotics are discovered

1950: the first successful organ transplant

1985: the first robotic surgery

There was, however, a slight movement at work in the Episcopal Church, spurred by biblical studies and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to reexamine the significance and value of prayers. The practices of the early church, based upon the Biblical mandate from James, to call the elders of the church to anoint with the expectation of healing, which had become a lost practice for many centuries, was restored in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, and with reportedly great success, not only in the Episcopal Church but in many denominations, both mainline and Pentecostal.

During the twentieth century, the healing ministry in the Episcopal Church shifted from the death bed back into the church. From an emphasis on life eternal to a focus that now includes a positive and hopeful ministry expressed within the precinct of the sanctuary long before death seems imminent. From praying for the body only to praying for wholeness of mind, body, and spirit.

Theological Relevance

The theological relevance of the healing service used in the Episcopal Church today bridges what is written in Scripture with the needs of the individual. The prayers in the liturgy are broad-reaching, including prayers for an individual and prayers for the pain and hurt felt worldwide. The liturgy no longer focuses on just the physical pain of the people in the worship space at any given moment, but on hurts we have done and have been done to us, on corporate sin and disease of creation, of soundness of mind, body, and spirit. Those who wish to come forward for prayer and anointing may ask for prayers and healing for another person. The clergy often has no idea what is weighing on that person’s heart; the church serves as a conduit for God’s healing mercy.

The liturgy is written so those uncomfortable coming forth for anointing may remain seated in quiet prayer. There is a saying in the Episcopal Church that serves as the foundation for all the Pastoral Offices and Sacraments offered:

ALL may, SOME should, NONE must