To be taught Dec 14.
From Michael Ruse:
The holy oil of the Church heals our pain. In our modern age, just as in the age of paganism and classical antiquity, we still strive to find remedies for our body and mind. The world seems to be thrown in a crisis of mental health and there is also a fascination with books that teach us how to achieve wholeness on our own. There is a genuine yearning for bodily health through education, diet, exercise, pills and food products. These ideas assume that the physical world can help us heal entirely. So too, in the Orthodox Church, we also use matter like oil to find not only physical cures but spiritual rejuvenation.
The sacrament of unction heals the sickness of the body and the soul. That isn’t a superstition or a throwback to pagan worship of nature. In fact, the Old Testament and the Gospels tell us about the use and symbolism of oil in Jewish religious contexts. Oil was also a common product with various uses in many Mediterranean and Near Eastern cultures, and oil was as familiar as bread and wine. Oil represents almost everything we need and want out of life: health, love, beauty, happiness, friendship, joyfulness, and harmony with God and mankind. That may all sound “new-agey” but it is actually Orthodoxy.
In the Greek language there is a wordplay between eleos (mercy) and elaion (oil). In the New Testament, oil and healing are brought together in the sacrament of unction. The Apostle James in Jerusalem records this sacrament and it influences the practice and meaning of unction thereafter. But Metropolitan Hilarion reminds us that the “spiritual healing” comes to us not from mere molecules of oil, but it comes from faith in the prayers that are said in giving the oil.
He also discusses who is meant to receive the sacrament of unction. It was intended for the healing of soul and body. The restriction of the service to the dying only, as in Roman Catholicism, or to the general public without specific need of physical healing, sometimes the Byzantines or Russians, are both a little out of step in keeping with the original meaning of unction, which was to find outer and internal wholeness through the forgiveness of sins with faith that the bodily healing would follow. When we reflect on all the sacraments discussed so far, which are baptism, chrismation, eucharist, confession, ordination, then we start to see that the Church’s purpose is to bring healing to body and soul, and even today the whole world seeks these in various ways. Metropolitan Hilarion explains that although modern physicians are a most highly regarded profession in the Church, we shouldn’t forget to also consult our priests, spiritual fathers, and the sacraments of the Church, which can be said to be the most proven and trustworthy therapy we can receive for our spiritual well-being on earth. Join us this Saturday at 4:00 p.m. to discuss these topics more in detail.