www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Holy Wednesday Anointing

I am not following this. Is it saying that people may ask for the holy Mystery of Anointing from their priest even when tyhey are not physically ill but feeling the need for relief from their sins? Or is it saying that this is restricted to just one occasion per year -Holy Wednesday? If itr can be allowed then, could it not be allowed on every day of the year? People's spiritual ailments are not needing treatment just once annually.

I do not see the connection between the Holy Wednesday Anointing and the Rite of Forgiveness?

More then just physical ills, or relief from sins. They may ask for the Sacrament for spiritual healing as well. If one examines the wording of he prayers the anointing is for the healing "from every passion and every physical and spiritual sickness".

Could one ask for the Sacrament every day? Yes. Just as one could ask for the Sacrament of Confession every day. It seems to me that the Church in her wisdom chooses to limit the Sacraments. The average person is always in need of the Church's forgiveness and healing yet the Church has wisely placed Confession as the 'ordinary' (typical) form of forgiveness and healing.

I do understand there is a line of reasonableness here. We've all heard about those well intentioned people who used to run from Mass to Mass to take Communion 5 or 6 times every Sunday. This abuse lead to the "one Communion per day rule" in Roman Catholicism. While I am fairly sure such abuse did not happen in the Church (East or West) regarding Anointing it doe seem to have fallen into a wise use of the Sacrament. I'd have to check my history for dates (and maybe someone has the reference handy) but we do know that that Anointing on Holy Wednesday (probably once a more integrated part of Matins for Holy Thursday) was certainly used for those who had been excommunicated but who had spent the Great Fast being ready to be fully reconciled with the Church. They would engage in works of prayer, fasting and almsgiving during the Great Fast and then during Holy Week make a good Sacramental Confession, be Anointed on Holy Wednesday, and the take Eucharist on Holy Thursday. They they would be all set to join the Church in celebrating the Passion and Resurrection as once again full members of the Church.

I have also been told (but have no reference) that also at one point the Church also offered the Anointing at the beginning of the Fast for those who could be fully reconciled to the Church then. Supposedly that custom fell away as the custom of Anointing everyone on Holy Wednesday developed. In this light I can easily see the "Rite of Forgiveness" being celebrated prior to the Anointing (perhaps not on the same day but as part of a "Festival of Healing and Reconciliation" that included the Rite of Forgiveness, individual Confession, Anointing, and then partaking of the Eucharist on Holy Thursday). All very fascinating! I'm not saying with authority that this is the way it happened, but everything points to this or something like this. Hope someone can validate this, or give a fuller time line of what the Church did and when. We all know parishes that set up a special night for Confession during the Fast, and make available visiting priests. Close up the time line a bit and put that on Holy Tuesday, the Anointing on Holy Wednesday, and Eucharist on Holy Thursday. Much food for thought there.

Not sure about that. As I've mentioned, in this Australian diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad the bishop reserves to himself the right to travel around the parishes during the Great Fast and administer the Mystery of Anointing to the sick and the well. He does this because he sees anionting the physically healthy as an anomaly which is covered by the fulness of his episcopal grace and his authority to bind and loose. He is accompanied by our Dean who receives just one anointing, in his home parish, and refrains from further anointings in the other parishes. He says that Anointing should be limited to once a year (except in the case of ongoing serious illness or in the case when a person is struck by more than one illness in the course of a year.

Thought that I would *bump* this message, hoping that ByzantineTX has recovered or maybe someone else is able to give us Page 98?

Obviously one follows the directives of one's bishop. But I was speaking in terms of general theology. Baptism heals physically and spiritually. So does Anointing. How often the Church allows Confession and Anointing is up to the Church. One can seek it everyday but that would be - as I mentioned - overkill - so the Church makes decisions. It sounds like your bishop reserves the Sacrament of Anointing for spiritual healing to himself. There is precedence for that - the Roman Catholic bishops reserve Chrismation for themselves (though these days in large dioceses they ofter delegate it). But I think my ideas on how the customs of Holy Week developed are probably accurate.

Sometimes the Word can be instructive for liturgical questions; The Gospel for Wednesday's Presanctified from St. Matthew gives the account of the anointing of Christ, an anointing which happened in the house of Simon the Leper (whom quite a few scriptural commentors link to the leper Jesus had previously healed, the one of the cleansed nine lepers alone who praised God from Luke 17).

It is perhaps also symbolic for the development of the Mystery on Holy Wedensday that the Gospel account occurs in the house of a leper. A miraculous healing from leprosy was called "cleansing" rather than healing in the restorative sense, and as such leprosy had a much closer perceived relationship between sin and physical ailments than many, if not most, ailments of that time, likely because of its accute way of physical disfigurement.

It also makes sense that all appropriate sacramental preparation, namely Confession and anointing for sickness, be performed so the full spiritual health of the soul as much as possible be cleansed and ready for the glorious Pascha.

I think noone save God can really declare any man truly healthy, whether of soul, mind, or body.

My only negative comment is not that the anointing happens, which I believe is a positive development, but that in some parishes the Anointing occurs but the Presanctified Liturgy with its linking scriptural account of mercy and anointing is not taken.