Extreme Unction — Matter and Form; Necessity

Section 2: Matter and Form

The matter of a Sacrament, generally speaking, is the natural act which has been raised by our Lord to the supernatural sphere. In certain of the Sacraments, however, which make use of material, tangible objects, these are sometimes called “the matter” of the Sacrament, in the sense of remote matter, while the application of them is the proximate matter.

The remote matter of Extreme Unction is pure olive oil blessed by a bishop. The proximate matter is the act of anointing the organs of sense. The sacramental form lies in the words: “By this holy unction,” etc.

1. The Remote Matter of the Sacrament. St. James, in saying, “Anointing him with oil,” employs the Greek word that literally means oil of olives. Consequently oil of olives is the remote matter of the Sacrament of Extreme Unction. This deduction is expressly confirmed by the Decretum pro Armenis.¹

a) All other oils, such as that derived from nuts, sesame, etc., are not valid matter for Extreme Unction.² The olive oil used in the administration of this Sacrament must furthermore be pure, without admixture of any other substance, such as perfume, for the oil used in anointing the sick is simply called oleum (from olea, olive) — not chrisma (chrism), like that employed in Confirmation. The Nestorians add a little water and a pinch of ashes or dust from the sepulchre of some saint. This mixture they call hanana or taibutha,³ and the rite of applying it to the sick — a mere sacramental among these heretics — has gradually usurped the place of the Sacrament of Extreme Unction.⁴ In Russia a little wine is added to the oil in memory of the good Samaritan, but this custom cannot be very ancient because the Archpriest Archangelsky, who has made a study of the subject, says that no such mixture is mentioned in the Russian rituals of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.⁵ In the Greek Church, this custom is undoubtedly older, as it is mentioned in the “profession of faith” of Metrophanes Kritopulos, composed in the year 1625,⁶ and by Simeon of Thessalonica, who died in 1429.

Olive oil is soothing, penetrating, and invigorating, and thus aptly symbolizes the healing and strengthening power of the Sacrament. “The unction,” says the Tridentine Council, “very aptly represents the grace of the Holy Ghost, with which the soul of the sick person is invisibly anointed.”⁷

b) That the oil must be blessed or consecrated before use is the unanimous testimony of all ages. The question arises whether such consecration is merely a matter of precept or whether it is an essential requisite for the validity of the Sacrament.

Tradition since Pope Innocent I insists on the oil being blessed by a bishop, which indicates that this blessing is a condition of validity. “The Church has understood the matter thereof [i.e., of Extreme Unction] to be oil blessed by a bishop,” says the Council of Trent.⁸ The S.C.S. Officii has decided (see Acta S. Sedis, Vol. 29, p. 576) that it is forbidden to use oil other than that blessed by a bishop, because oil blessed by a priest is “materia prorsus inepta Sacramento Extr. Unctionis conficiendo.” A decree of Paul V (1611) proscribes as “rash and bordering on error” the proposition that Extreme Unction may be validly administered with oil not consecrated by a bishop.⁹ In 1842, the Congregation of the Holy Office, reaffirming a previous decree, replied negatively to the query whether a parish priest, in case of necessity, could validly use oil blessed by himself.

Though theologians agree that the blessing of the oil used for Extreme Unction is an episcopal prerogative, most of them hold that priests can be empowered by the Pope to perform this function. In the East they have done so for many years, and the custom among the Uniats has the express approval of the Holy See.¹⁰ In regard to the schismatics “one may say either that they have the tacit approbation of the Pope or that the reservation of episcopal power does not extend to them.”¹¹

2. The Proximate Matter of Extreme Unction. St. James says that the sick are “anointed with oil,” but gives no hint how or to what parts of the body the oil is applied. The ancient rituals show a great diversity of practice in this regard.¹²

In the Eastern Church,¹³ the parts usually anointed are the forehead, chin, hands, and knees (sometimes the forehead, nostrils, knees, mouth, breast, and both sides of the hands; or the forehead, knees, lips, breast, and hands).¹⁴ The Roman Ritual says the oil should be applied to the organs of the five external senses (eyes, ears, nostrils, lips, hands), to the feet, and, in the case of male patients, where the custom exists and the condition of the subject permits of his being moved, to the loins or reins.¹⁵ As the unction of the loins is now always omitted (cfr. Codex Iuris Canonici, can. 947, § 2) it cannot belong to the essence of the Sacrament. The same holds true of the anointing of the feet which “may be omitted for any reasonable cause” (Codex Iuris Canonici, can. 947, § 3).¹⁶ Whether the remaining five unctions are necessary for the validity of the Sacrament iure divino or merely by ecclesiastical precept, is a controverted question. The older Scholastics held with St. Thomas¹⁷ that all five are strictly essential. Modern theologians differ on this point. The best of them have long inclined to the view favored by Albertus Magnus,¹⁸ that a single unction is sufficient for the validity of the Sacrament. In taking this ground they were impelled by a number of reasons, which Dr. Toner briefly summarizes as follows: “No ancient testimony mentions the five unctions at all, much less prescribes them as necessary, but most of them speak simply of unction in a way that suggests the sufficiency of a single unction; the unction of the five senses has never been extensively practiced in the East, and is not practiced at the present time in the Orthodox Church, while those Uniats who practice it have simply borrowed it in modern times from Rome; and even in the Western Church down to the eleventh century the practice was not very widespread, and did not become universal till the seventeenth century, as is proved by a number of sixteenth-century rituals that have been preserved.”¹⁹ The new Code of Canon Law says (can. 947, § 1) that “in case of necessity one unction is sufficient, [applied] on one of the sense organs or, more correctly, on the forehead, with the shorter formula prescribed; but the obligation remains to supply the other unctions when the danger ceases.”

3. The Form of the Sacrament. In the Latin Church, for the past five hundred years, the form employed at each unction, with mention of the corresponding sense or faculty, has been that prescribed by Eugene IV in the Decretum pro Armenis. It runs as follows: “Through this holy unction and His own most tender mercy, may the Lord pardon thee whatever faults thou hast committed by sight (hearing, smell, taste, touch, walking, carnal delectation).”²⁰

a) This form was not always in use. Many others, substantially different in both sense and wording, were at various times employed in the West and in the East;²¹ whence it may be concluded that our Lord specifically determined the form of Extreme Unction only in so far as it must be a prayer for the sick. This demand is complied with in the shorter formula permitted in urgent cases by decree of the Holy Office of 1906: “By this holy unction may the Lord pardon thee whatever faults thou hast committed.”²² Hence neither mention of the senses, severally or in globo, nor any express reference to the divine mercy is essential for the validity of the Sacrament. Neither of these ideas, in fact, is expressed in the present Greek or in any of the ancient Latin formulas.

If the “prayer of faith” spoken of by St. James is the sole requisite of validity, it follows that a priest would probably administer the Sacrament validly (though not, of course, licitly) if he were to omit the words prescribed by the Roman Ritual for each separate unction and simply, after giving all the unctions, pronounce the first oration following them in the Ritual, which embodies the prayer that formerly constituted the essential form of Extreme Unction in the Church of Narbonne.

b) Another controverted question is whether a merely indicative form, such as “I anoint thee,” etc., would be sufficient for the validity of the Sacrament.

Albertus Magnus, Paludanus, Durandus, and other eminent Scholastics, followed by a number of modern writers (Morinus, Becanus, Tournely, etc.), hold that the indicative form is sufficient. The Thomists and the Scotists maintain the opposite view, basing their contention chiefly on the Jacobean demand: “Orent super eum.” But the problem cannot be solved by a priori reasoning; it must be dealt with historically. History tells us that the indicative form has been widely used in the East and still more widely in the West. This form occurs in the most ancient ritual that has come down to us, that of the Celtic Church: “I anoint thee with sanctified oil in the name of the Trinity, that thou mayest be saved for ever and ever.”²³ Pope Benedict XIV insists on the validity of the indicative form, but at the same time admonishes parish priests to employ the form prescribed in the Roman Ritual, “which,” he says, “most assuredly cannot be altered by private authority without committing a grave crime.”²⁴ The congruity of the deprecative form is shown by the Roman Catechism,²⁵ and its necessity is defended by De Augustinis.²⁶ It should be noted, however, that an indicative sentence may be virtually deprecatory,²⁷ and that all the formulas of Extreme Unction which we know to have been used at some time or other in the Church have in fact virtually embodied a petition.²⁸ Hence Fr. Kern is fully justified in concluding that the validity of the form in itself, i.e., necessitate sacramenti, does not require an explicit mention of the act of anointing, or of any sacramental effect, or of the divine mercy, or of the organs anointed, but that the sole essential requisite is a (formal, or at least virtual) prayer for the recipient.²⁹

Chapter 2: Necessity of Extreme Unction

A Sacrament is necessary for salvation either as a means (necessitate medii) or by way of precept (necessitate praecepti).

1. Extreme Unction Is Not Necessary as a Means of Salvation. This is evident from the fact that the Sacraments of the living presuppose the state of sanctifying grace, and the graces bestowed by Extreme Unction can, in case of necessity, be supplied by extraordinary helps.³⁰

It follows that one who is dangerously sick is not obliged to have a desire for Extreme Unction (votum sacramenti) if he cannot actually receive it. However, if his conscience is burdened with mortal sin, for which he has only imperfect contrition, and he finds himself unable to go to confession, Extreme Unction may be for him the only, and therefore a necessary, means of salvation.

2. Whether Extreme Unction Is Necessary by Way of Precept. Theologians are not agreed as to whether or not a person who is seriously ill is per se under a grave obligation of seeking this Sacrament.

a) St. Thomas, Suarez, Gotti, Billuart, and the majority of modern authors hold that no such obligation exists. Billuart³¹ points out that the phrases “inducat presbyteros” and “ungi debent” in the Epistle of St. James have been interpreted by various synods as embodying merely a counsel, not a command. The Council of Trent speaks of Extreme Unction as a “sacramentum fidelibus commendatum,” which it would be a crime to contemn. Now mere neglect or refusal to receive a Sacrament is not contempt. Billuart adds that if Extreme Unction were absolutely necessary for salvation, the Church could not suspend the administration of this Sacrament, as she sometimes does during an interdict, because a divine law is always binding.

b) Peter Lombard, St. Bonaventure, Peter Soto, and Tournely, on the other hand, interpret the “inducat presbyteros” of the Jacobean Epistle as a divine command and the “ungi debent” as an ecclesiastical precept.

Billuart’s appeal to the Tridentine Council is not convincing, for that Council interprets the words of St. James as follows: “This unction must be applied to the sick,”³² and rejects the assertion that Extreme Unction “is a human figment or a rite received from the Fathers, which neither has a command from God, nor a promise of grace.”³³ Moreover, thoughtless neglect or obstinate refusal to receive the Sacrament undoubtedly verges on that “contempt” of which the Council says that it involves “a heinous crime and an injury to the Holy Ghost Himself.”³⁴ The new Code of Canon Law says (can. 944) that “no one is permitted to neglect” Extreme Unction and that those who have charge of the sick (physicians, nurses, relatives, etc.) should exercise great care and diligence, in order that this Sacrament is administered while the patient still has command of his reason. Christ would not have instituted a special Sacrament for the dying if it were merely useful. Extreme Unction is necessary. Only on this assumption is there any force in the well-known argument that congruity demands a Sacrament of the nature of Extreme Unction in the septenary number of the Sacraments. Justly, therefore, does Dr. Schell observe: “The necessity and obligation of Extreme Unction is of divine right and follows from the simple fact that this Sacrament was instituted by Christ… . In sickness and danger of death the duty of properly providing for body and soul is self-evident; there is no need of an express law.”³⁵