Nothing.
No.
There isn’t any difference.
According to the EWTN article linked to, around the 12th century, extreme unction was mostly used " or at the point of death."
A conditional absolution is given.
People thinking that Anointing of the Sick is only for those at the point of death was the confusion that was corrected by moving away from the term “Extreme Unction”.
Young Trad Cath is correct. The priest will give conditional absolution. He will also give the Apostolic Blessing which carries the indulgence, so very important to the persons soul. The last sense that goes is often hearing so that is why the priest kneels and constantly whispers in the ear. He will say things like “repeat the act of contrition with me” " Say youre sorry for your sins". I even saw a young FSSP priest go to a nursing home to see a protestant and he knelt in the evening and and while she was unconscience, he kept saying when you see Jesus tell him you would have become a Catholic if you had known of the Catholic church. Do you know what kind of an impression it made to see a priest on his knees in cassock, surplice and biretta kneeling doing everything he could to save the soul of a heretic!!! How great God is to send us such holy men. Later this month we will be blessed with more of these great FSSP priests.
I pray that we do not make this yet another “blame Vatican II” issue. The Sacrament is based on the practice described in the Epistle of James. The wording is fairly clear that it is a Sacrament for the living. As to some additional procedure associated with the Sacrament in the case of the dying, I believe the OP may be thinking of the Viaticum (last communion), or “food for the journey” which is normally administered to those at the point of death. Since the Sacrament cleanses of sin, the recipient can worthily receive the Holy Eucharist.
I don’t think there’s anything “beautiful” about depriving someone of the graces and strengths of the Sacrament until they are a few minutes away from death and perhaps mentally unable to process what’s happening – as so often was the case in the “Extreme Unction” days when the mindset was not to call the priest until a few minutes (hopefully) before death.
As I see it, if we are going to go back in time to correct any perceived flaws in Church behavior, let’s go back to day one. We might like the Church at a particular point in time, but that is based more on a sense of nostalgia than it is on correct practice. Let us conform ourselves to the Church as Christ founded it. And, that does indeed include a Sacrament particularly for the sick, and not exclusively for the dying.
I think many misunderstand “Extreme Unction” and “Anointing of the Sick” and confuse it with “Last Rites”
What the Second Vatican Council actually did was restore anointing of the sick to its proper Biblical place as a sacrament instituted by Christ. In giving the sacrament of annointing of the sick only to people who were at the point of death, the Church was unnecessarily restricting the sacrament, preventing people from recieving the sacrament who because of illness should have actually recieved it.
This is what my mother received when she was very ill in the hospital. She could not respond, and was receiving emergency care, but the priest went into the room and annointed her, gave her conditional absolution, and the blessing. She did recover and I am very grateful.
What is taught is that the sacrament of anointing of the sick is always effective.
This is intended to be humbling for those who are healed. I am still working on that aspect of it.
James 5:14-15, and the CCC 1499-1525. The tradition for this Sacrament is found in the cited passages of James, where if anyone is sick, they should call on the elders of the Church for anointing and prayer, and forgiveness of sin. There is nothing in the passage which says that a person must be near death. Jesus healed the sick when He was alive. They did not have be near death. The Church has restored this tradition, which was present from Biblical times. Read the CCC for a full explanation.
I had a rare and aggressive non-Hodgkin’s T-cell lymphoma, for which there is no standard medical treatment. Stage IV. 50+ tumors throughout my lymphatic system and cancer in my bone marrow. About two months to live. I received the Anointing. This was almost four years ago now, and there is no evidence of the disease today. My Fred Hutchinson research oncologist, not a religious man, calls it a miracle.
Unlike the three Sacraments of initiation, or of Holy Orders, the Anointing is a Sacrament that we are intended to receive as often as we have need. The very humbling aspect of this is that, if we receive healing, it is a revelation from God that our salvation is not yet complete.sw85 said: