EXTREME UNCTION.

New Zealand Tablet, 4 August 1921, Page 45

EXTREME UNCTION.

I have been surprised to find some of your correspondents wishing to alter the time-honored name for the last anointing (writes Bishop Vaughan to the London Universe). I have been administering that Sacrament for more than 40 years, and I cannot call to mind a single instance in which the patient was unduly alarmed. I have often found relatives of the sick making objections, because they feared lest he might be frightened, but this has never actually been the case, so far as my experience extends. Consider, in the first place, that, as soon as a man is known to be in danger of death, it is the duty of those who are responsible, to make the fact known to him. There is no greater want of true charity than to conceal from a dying man his real condition. Now, once ho is aware of the serious state in which he finds himself, he will (if he is properly instructed) ardently desire to receive the Sacrament. He already knows that he is in some danger of death. But he also knows that this Sacrament has been especially instituted to free the soul from the languor and infirmity produced by sin and to comfort and strengthen it, amid its sufferings, and also to restore even bodily health, if God see that this be for the good of the sick person. If he be a man of any faith, these motives will inspire him with hope, and will fill him with a strong desire to receive Extreme Unction. That, at all events, has been my experience. So far from driving the sick man to despair, it should have the very opposite effect. For the Sacrament should be conferred while there is still hope of recovery. Indeed, they sin grievously who, before consenting to anoint the sick, are accustomed to wait till all hope of recovery is at an end, and the dying have become unconscious. Nothing is to be gained by changing the name of the Sacrament ; but much is to be gained by carefully instructing the faithful in all that the Church teaches in regard to it. Anyone who has been taught to appreciate its immense benefits and its quite admirable effects, will feel consolation and confidence rather than fear, at the prospect of receiving it. • ✓ . Durin S my long experience I have seen, not one, but quite a number of cases in which men and women, who have been actually given up by the doctors, have been restored to health and strength after being anointed. And I feel sure that my experience is by no means exceptional. Nearly all priests who have been long on the mission will bear the same testimony. Personally, I should have the gravest possible objection to any change in the name of this singularly comforting and beautiful ordinance.