765 The Lord Jesus endowed his community with a structure that will remain until the Kingdom is fully achieved. Before all else there is the choice of the Twelve with Peter as their head. Representing the twelve tribes of Israel, they are the foundation stones of the new Jerusalem. The Twelve and the other disciples share in Christ’s mission and his power, but also in his lot. By all his actions, Christ prepares and builds his Church. (610; 551)

1506 Christ invites his disciples to follow him by taking up their cross in their turn. By following him they acquire a new outlook on illness and the sick. Jesus associates them with his own life of poverty and service. He makes them share in his ministry of compassion and healing: “So they went out and preached that men should repent. And they cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many that were sick and healed them.” (859)

1511 The Church believes and confesses that among the seven sacraments there is one especially intended to strengthen those who are being tried by illness, the Anointing of the Sick:

This sacred anointing of the sick was instituted by Christ our Lord as a true and proper sacrament of the New Testament. It is alluded to indeed by Mark, but is recommended to the faithful and promulgated by James the apostle and brother of the Lord.

73 When the Church asks publicly and authoritatively in the name of Jesus Christ that a person or object be protected against the power of the Evil One and withdrawn from his dominion, it is called exorcism. Jesus performed exorcisms and from him the Church has received the power and office of exorcizing. In a simple form, exorcism is performed at the celebration of Baptism. The solemn exorcism, called “a major exorcism,” can be performed only by a priest and with the permission of the bishop. The priest must proceed with prudence, strictly observing the rules established by the Church. Exorcism is directed at the expulsion of demons or to the liberation from demonic possession through the spiritual authority which Jesus entrusted to his Church. Illness, especially psychological illness, is a very different matter; treating this is the concern of medical science. Therefore, before an exorcism is performed, it is important to ascertain that one is dealing with the presence of the Evil One, and not an illness. (395; 550; 1237)

Question VIII

Who was the Author of this Sacrament

It having been shown, that extreme unction is truly and properly to be numbered amongst the sacraments, it also follows that it derives its institution from Christ our Lord, having been subsequently proposed and promulgated to the faithful, by the apostle St. James. Our Saviour himself, however, seems to have given some indication of this unction, when he sent his disciples, two and two, before his face; for the evangelist informs us that going forth, they preached that men should do penance; and they cant out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them. This anointing we cannot suppose to have been invented by the apostles, but commanded by our Lord; not endowed with some natural virtue, but mystical in its import; instituted rather to heal the maladies of the soul, than to cure the diseases of the body. This is affirmed by St. Dionysius, Ambrose, Chrysostom, and Gregory the Great; so that extreme unction is, beyond all doubt, to be recognized and most highly venerated as one of the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church.

III. The world of health care

139. The Church has always been concerned with health. She follows the example of Christ himself who proclaimed the word and healed the sick, and then gave his disciples the same authority “to heal every disease and every infirmity” (Mt 10:1; cf. 14:35; Mk 1:32, 34; 6:13, 55). Through her health care institutions the Church continues to show this same concern for the sick and for all who suffer. As the Synod Fathers stressed, the Church is resolutely engaged in the fight against infirmities, disease and the great pandemics.[192]

47. The mission of Jesus, with the many healings he performed, shows God’s great concern even for man’s bodily life. Jesus, as “the physician of the body and of the spirit”,37 was sent by the Father to proclaim the good news to the poor and to heal the brokenhearted (cf. Lk 4:18; Is 61:1). Later, when he sends his disciples into the world, he gives them a mission, a mission in which healing the sick goes hand in hand with the proclamation of the Gospel: “And preach as you go, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand’. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons” (Mt 10:7–8; cf. Mk 6:13; 16:18).

9. The Gospel of Luke (cf. 6:13) tells us that Jesus named the Twelve “Apostles”, which literally means “envoys”, “those who are sent”. In the Gospel of Mark we read that Jesus also appointed the Twelve “to be sent out to preach” (3:14). This means that both the election and the establishment of the Twelve as Apostles are directed towards mission. Their first sending (cf. Mt 10:5; Mk 6:7; Lk 9:1–2) comes to its fulfilment in the mission that Jesus entrusts to them after the Resurrection, at the moment of his Ascension into heaven. The Lord’s words remain as timely as ever: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Mt 28:18–20). This apostolic mission finds its solemn confirmation on the day of Pentecost with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

908 [DS 1695] This sacred unction for the sick, however, was instituted by Christ our Lord as truly and properly a sacrament of the New Testament, alluded to in Mark [Mark 6:13], indeed, but recommended to the faithful and promulgated by James the Apostle and brother of the Lord [can. 1]. “Is any man,” he says, “sick among you?” “Let him bring in the priests of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord and the prayer of faith shall save the sick man, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him” [Jas. 5:14, 15]. In these words, as the Church has learned from apostolic tradition transmitted from hand to hand, he teaches the matter, form, proper ministration, and effect of this salutary sacrament. For the Church has understood that the matter is the oil blessed by the bishop, since the unction very appropriately represents the grace of the Holy Spirit, with which the soul of the sick person is visibly anointed; and that these words are the form: “By this anointing, etc.”

926 [DS 1716] Can. 1. If anyone says that extreme unction is not truly and properly a sacrament instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ [cf. Mark 6:13], and promulgated by blessed James the Apostle [Jas. 5:14], but is only a rite accepted by the Fathers, or a human fiction: let him be anathema [cf. n. 907 ff.].