These two sacraments are called the “Sacraments of Healing.” The mystery of illness (both spiritual and bodily) is reflected in sin and disease in the human story. Healing both in terms of the forgiveness of sins and the healing of the body has individual and social dimensions. The unit will study the scriptural foundations of the two sacraments, and the subsequent traditions that have emerged, and then sometimes subsided, in the history of the Catholic Church. The unit will study the theology of both sacraments that has developed and changed as pastoral situations and issues emerged. As one form of reconciliation (Public Penance) dies, a new form of anointing of the sick begins to emerge. The current rituals of both sacraments are studied: the Ordo Penitentiae (1973) and the Ordo Unctionis infirmorum eorumque pastoralis curae (1972). Reference is also made to the document Misericordia Dei (2002). Some pastoral implications that have emerged in more recent years will also be examined.

Undergraduate Prerequisites

Grduate and Postgraduate Prerequisites (CD357)

CD101 or CD350

Requirements

2 hours per week

Undergraduate Assessment

Graduate and Postgraduate Assessment (CD357)

Equivalent to 4,000 words.
See Coursework Assessment for Graduate and Postgraduate Students.

Bibliography

• Dallen, James. The Reconciling Community: The Rite of Penance. New York: Pueblo, 1986.
• Empereur, James L. Prophetic Anointing: God’s Call to the Sick, the Elderly, and the Dying. Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1982.
• Gusmer, Charles W. And You Visited Me: Sacramental Ministry to the Sick and the Dying. New York: Pueblo, 1984.
• Hellwig, Monika. Sign of Reconciliation and Conversion: The Sacrament of Penance for Our Times. Rev. ed. Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1982.
• Martos, Joseph. Doors to the Sacred. Rev. ed. Liguori, MI: Liguori/Triumph, 2001.
• O’Loughlin, Frank. The Future of the Sacrament of Penance. Strathfield, NSW: St Paul’s, 2007.
• Osborne, Kenan B. Christian Sacraments in a Postmodern World: A Theology for the Third Millennium. New York: Paulist Press, 1999.
• ——. Reconciliation and Justification: the Sacrament and its Theology. New York: Paulist, 1990.
• Poschmann, B. Penance and Anointing of the Sick. Translated and revised by Francis Courtney. Freiburg: Herder, 1964.
• Power, David N. “Let the Sick Man Call.” Heythrop Journal 19 (1978): 256–70.