Anointing and Prayer for the Sick
Anointing of the Sick is a sacrament for those seriously ill or weakened by old age; it gives grace, peace, strength, and union with Christ's suffering.
Historical context
Apostolic Constitutions VIII.29 preserves a prayer for blessed water and oil and for healing. The collection is a late-fourth-century church order writing in apostolic voices, not a document actually composed by the apostles. Its prayer is evidence for that later liturgical setting.
Pastoral note
Seek appropriate medical care and the pastoral guidance of your own church. Illness or failure to recover must not be treated as proof of inadequate faith.
Avoid overclaiming
Prayer for healing is not a guarantee of physical recovery or a substitute for appropriate medical care. James connects bodily distress, prayer, and forgiveness; Paul's unanswered request in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 prevents turning faithful prayer into a promised cure.
Strongest alternative reading
Orthodox and Catholic churches classify anointing sacramentally but do not restrict it to a person's final moments. Protestant churches that anoint may understand it as obedience to James, pastoral prayer, or a healing ministry without adopting the same sacramental classification.
Scripture
- James 5:14-16 — The sick call the elders for prayer and anointing in the Lord's name; the surrounding sentences also address forgiveness and mutual confession.
- Mark 6:13 — The disciples' mission includes anointing sick people with oil and healing, before the later formal classifications of sacraments.
- 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 — Paul repeatedly asks for his affliction to depart and receives a promise of sufficient grace, not the removal he requested.
- Romans 8:22-27 — Creation and believers groan while awaiting redemption; the Spirit helps in weakness and intercedes when believers do not know how to pray.
Primary sources
The church-order prayer asks God to:
The fourth-century Apostolic Constitutions preserves a prayer asking that blessed oil serve bodily and spiritual healing.
do Thou now also sanctify this water and this oil through Your Christ, in the name of him or her that has offered them, and grant them a power to restore health, to drive away diseases, to banish demons, and to disperse all snares through Christ our hope
Passage context and translation
This prayer asks God to sanctify water and oil offered for healing. The work presents itself pseudonymously as apostolic, so the record attributes it to the later anonymous compilation rather than to Matthias.
Before the excerpt
who hast given water for drink and for cleansing, and oil to give man a cheerful and joyful countenance
After the excerpt
with whom glory, honour, and worship be to You, and to the Holy Ghost, forever.