When Forgiveness Becomes Medicine | February 1, 2026

What if healing isn’t a narrow medical fix but a return to wholeness that touches body, soul, and community? We sit down to rethink the Anointing of the Sick as a living encounter with Christ’s presence—one that forgives, restores, and draws scattered lives back into order. Anchored in James 5 and the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ healing, we explore how the Church keeps that same hope alive at hospital beds, in family circles, and in moments when courage feels thin.

We walk through the misconceptions that reduce anointing to “Last Rites,” tracing how Vatican II renewed the sacrament’s breadth. Along the way, we talk about the many ways healing can appear: sometimes instantaneous and astonishing; often gradual, working with medicine and the body’s resilience; and, at times, integrative, where someone learns to live whole with lasting limits like disability or addiction. We also open the door to a wider circle of grace—how anointing can reconcile families, reset priorities, and make room for mercy when fear crowds the room. And we speak plainly about death as the final healing, when the promise of resurrection reframes loss with hope.

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Father Don Wolf is a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. Living Catholic also broadcasts on Oklahoma Catholic Radio several times per week, with new episodes airing every Sunday.

Transcript

Framing The Overlooked Sacrament

SPEAKER_01 0:04

This is Living Catholic with Father Don Wolf. Deals with Living Catholic faith in my time. And now your host, Father Don Wolf.

James, Confession, And Forgotten Commands

Jesus’ Healing: Body And Soul As One

Restoring The Paralyzed Man’s Whole Life

Extending Christ’s Presence Through Anointing

Vatican II And A Wider View Of Healing

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Welcome, Oklahoma to Living Catholic. I'm Monsignor Don Wolf, pastor of Sacred Heart Parish and rector of the shrine of Blessed Stanley Rother. One of the great sacramental experiences of the whole church is the anointing of the sick. I confess it's one we don't mention that often. And when we do, it's usually a kind of add-on to the principal experiences of grace and growth we promote in the lives of the faithful. We prepare people to receive baptism in communion, we advocate the coming of the Holy Spirit in confirmation, we constantly remind people of confession, and we certainly point people to the direction of matrimony. But we don't spend that much time on the anointing of the sick. Because of our lack of directed attention, it often loses its place in a lifetime of grace. It shouldn't be that way. In fact, anointing of the sick is prescribed in the scriptures and is a direct command of the Apostle James to the church about what to do in the pastoral life. It's funny that it's become relegated to a minor role in our Catholic imagination and has disappeared completely in the life of so many non-Catholic believers. It reminds me of an exchange I had once on the phone about a small line in the letter of James in the New Testament. It's an odd story. It's not directly about anointing, but it is in fact a story about a citation, one sentence removed from the quote in the letter of James about healing. And it illustrates how forgetful we can become as a Christian community concerning what we're required to do and what's good for us as believers. It went something like this. One day, when I was at St. Eugene's Parish, I got a phone call just out of the blue. On the phone was a man who asked if I was a Catholic priest and whether we had confessions in our parish. I told him I was, and that we did. Then he asked me how it was that the Catholic Church demanded people go to a priest to ask their sins be forgiven, when it says plainly in the scriptures that Jesus forgives sins and that the believer trusts in God's reconciling love in order to be righteous before him. Where did we get off thinking that we priests were in a position to do any forgiving? It was an intriguing exchange, especially because I had no idea who this guy was, and he was clear he had no idea who I was, or where the parish of St. Eugene's was, or indeed what the Catholic Church was all about. He just wanted to know whether we heard confessions or not, and if we did, he wanted to tell me we were directly in the wrong. It was a little odd, to say the least. But I was happy to inform him. I told him, go to the fifth chapter of the letter of James and look up the citation in verse 16. It says there, Confess your sins one to the other. I know, I said, it's not a complete explanation of the sacrament of confession. There's a whole lot more to it than that. But what is plain is that we are commanded by the apostle to confess our sins. And my guess is that you haven't done that. Why do you think that is? Why don't other people in other places than the Catholic Church follow that command? He confessed that he didn't know. In fact, he began to stumble about in his response. Whereupon I heard his wife say, Give me that, meaning give her the telephone receiver. She then proceeded with her side. He's new to all this, he doesn't know what to say. Why do you priest make people go to confession? I told her again, go to the letter of James and see what the apostle tells us to do, to confess one to the other. As I said to your husband, it doesn't describe the sacrament of confession perfectly, but it does cause us all to ask, why don't you confess your sins one to the other? Hmm, she said. Our pastor hasn't told us about that. Well, maybe he should, I said. Then she hung up. The letter of James is grouped in what's called the pastoral epistles. They contain advice and instructions on how to care for the people of the church. Curiously, as such, they are routinely ignored by a large swatch of those who have pastoral concerns for their people. It's an oddity when you think about it. Then again, the revolution in the life of the church, sparked about 500 years ago, deliberately turned against some aspects of the pastoral life in favor of other concerns. And when it did, the practices of confession and anointing of the sick were left behind. It's a pity. Fortunately, the sacraments have been preserved in our pastoral practice. The sacrament of the sick is a direct extension of the practice of the presence of Christ in our midst. This is what the sacramental experience is actually supposed to produce, the practice of the presence of Christ with us. And there is nothing more obvious, nothing that was more obvious in the ministry of Jesus than his healing ministry. Virtually from the first moment of his appearing in his public ministry, Jesus began to heal those who were brought to him. Those whose lives were marked by physical disability and disease came to him for healing, and he restored them to health. Not only that, those who came to him, burdened by their sins and failings, also came to him to be relieved, to find forgiveness and restoration to the community. In fact, in their experience, there was little difference between healing of the body and healing of the soul. Both were injuries to the person and both needed divine intercession to bring the person back to fullness of life. Now we've been schooled to think of these aspects of our person as two distinct elements, sinfulness and sick and sickness. But in the mind and experience of the people in Jesus' world, they were simply elements of the same reality. A person who was sick was someone who had a spiritual problem, just as someone who was sinful had a health problem. Both were intertwined. In our day and time, we're coming close to begin to think somewhat in these terms, but in the world of Jesus' understanding, they were much the same. Sin and sickness were as one. Often our notion of sickness is simple. People get sick because they get infected by a disease or because some part of the body or body process has worn out or been disrupted. We're more likely to think of a body as a machine in need of a smooth operation or a factory or computer that relies on complicated processes than to think of us ourselves as a whole being integrated as flesh and spirit. We also imagine that the state of our soul never really touches the truth of our body, one being spiritual, the other being carnal. We're also schooled to imagine what happens to our body doesn't touch our souls. Even while we believe these things, we know the realities of infection are still mysterious to us. Some people get infected, others don't. Being tired and stressed out can result in sickness, sure, but we also know by experience that infection often results once the stress goes away. And we know that psychic blows, like betrayal or surprise or failure or the death of another can result in sickness. It's plain for all of us to see that even while we view the body as separate from our person, our experience of personhood is united as body and soul. What affects one affects the other. And it's commonplace to know that being sick can cause our spirits to droop and our outlook to narrow. Anybody who's been sick or disabled for a time gets tired, becomes tried and angry and irritable. In fact, we saw the whole country become depressed and neurotic during the pandemic. What touches the body touches the soul. What affects the soul affects the body. So when people came to Jesus to be healed, he addressed their needs. Remember the story of the paralyzed man who was brought to Jesus on a stretcher by his friends? Jesus took a look at him and told him his sins were forgiven. That caused an uproar because only God could forgive sins, and Jesus had taken on that role. We often use this passage as a revelation of Jesus' true identity, but we seldom stop to notice that Jesus identified this man's condition as that of a sinner, as someone whose disability unbalanced and threw into chaos the whole community. To address the disarray of his life was what Jesus was after when he addressed his needs. Imagine, this disarray was not just that he had committed some secret offense against God, something hidden from all those around him. That may have been true, but sin wasn't just a secret violation of the moral order staining the soul. Sin was also the experience of the natural order that did not function or was interrupted by the chaos of human choosing. God's presence created order. God's absence resulted in disorder. And Jesus addressed the man's disorder. Jesus told him that he was going to demonstrate that he, Jesus, had the power to address the disorder and the chaos of this man's life. So Jesus ordered him to stand up, pick up his mat, and then go home. Notice, his healing power was not extended simply to causing the blockages in the nerve pathways from the brains to the limbs to be fixed up so that the paralysis was taken care of. Jesus did something more than simply heal his legs and give him his confidence back. Jesus told him to take the symbol of his helplessness, put it over his shoulder, and then go back to where he belonged. Jesus ultimately restored him. He didn't just heal him. The chaos of his life was quelled, the power to walk was returned, and the man who was restored, body and soul. That's the healing Jesus offered. This was the principal ministry of Jesus, too. It introduced the whole countryside to the coming of the kingdom of God. When Jesus was present, he healed those who were brought to him, and it restored their bodies and their souls to the goodness of God's creation. It was by way of this power that his mission was revealed, and the promise of God's initiative was uncovered. And nothing was the same after that. The ministry of the anointing of the sick is to extend the presence of Jesus into the challenges of those who are sick and sinful in our world today. To this end, when a person comes to us in need of healing, we extend to that person the promise of Jesus' own presence and the action of Jesus in his life here and now. After all, the purpose of sacramental life is to collapse the passage of time from Jesus' ministry on the roads around Galilee to the hospital beds here in Oklahoma City or wherever. Jesus' healing is offered to those sick and suffering here and now. We should also note that in the letter of James, the ministry of the sick is also the ministry of forgiveness. As the Apostle says, those who are sick should call for the priests of the church so that they might pray for them, lay hands on them, and anoint them with oil. As they do, their sins will be forgiven and they will be healed. The sacrament of the anointing of the sick is a sacrament of forgiveness. That aspect is sometimes forgotten in our time. We ought to remember it. In fact, it really is a challenge to keep those aspects in balance, both soul and body, both sin and sickness. It was the re-emphasis of the healing aspect of the sacrament as a result of Vatican II that has been the gift to us in our time. When I was a child, this sacrament was called rather than the sacrament of the anointing of the sick or the sacrament of healing, by the title of extreme unction. That was a stilted and somewhat obsolescent way to say the last anointing. And it was explained as the anointing offered in the final part of a person's journey in life. The focus was almost exclusively on healing the soul rather than praying for the health of the body. It was often reserved only for the final moments of life, rather than integrated into the whole panoply of living. The Vatican Council's call to renew the sacramental life of the church helped to re-establish the emphasis on the healing of the person, including the body, rather than simply concerning oneself only with the soul. The sacrament should prepare us for living, not just for dying. The most important aspect of the sacrament is the expectation of healing. We anoint in order that a person be healed, and we approach everyone who is in need of the sacrament with the fullest promise from the Scriptures that God will heal body and soul. It's important, however, to know healing comes in many forms, just as it comes about in a variety of ways in the ministry of Jesus. The first kind of healing is the one we all think of and want to see, the immediate, spontaneous, miraculous healing at the moment of anointing. So many of those Jesus touched were able to stand, walk, see, move, stretch, and otherwise go about their lives at the moment of Jesus' touch. And that's what we want. And it does happen. Every priest I know of has a story of someone he has anointed who has been restored in this precise, miraculous way. It certainly has happened in my sight in just this way. It's amazing and supernatural, a stunning blessing to everyone. But that's not the only type of healing. There is often a more deliberate, gradual healing process that takes place. Remember, there were times when Jesus healed and the people were restored, but only later on. Once Jesus touched a man's eyes to cure his blindness, and the man confessed he could see, but only incompletely. Jesus had to touch him again that his vision could be restored wholly. It happens most often this way with us. Our bodies have great powers of recuperation and healing. Our prayer is in accord often with the body's power to heal itself. That's not some far-fetched or evasive explanation. Most pharmacology, in fact, is simply to allow the body's natural processes to unblock or to catch up so that its natural restorative powers can get to work restoring itself. Anointing often results in just this same process. There's also the healing moment when a person is restored, even when the body is not returned to its prior functioning. If somebody has a limb amputated, for example, we all know the prayer for healing is not going to restore it. Nothing will make the limb grow back. Healing will be the process of becoming a whole person, even though an arm or a leg might be gone. The amputee will become wholly healed when he or she is integrated into the fullness of life without his or her limb. That's also the case when dealing with addiction. The insight of Alcoholics Anonymous was that the addiction does not cease even when healing takes place. The person doesn't stop being an alcoholic, but that person can be healed inside the reality of the disability of addiction. Talk to someone from AA about being restored. It's the focus of the 12 steps. The addiction remains, but it's real healing. Another aspect is one we don't usually focus on because our sense of community and family is so scattered and unappreciated, but it's real and important. And this is the healing that can take place when the whole family or community is restored in the process of the restoration of a person. That's something that we often see among very old heads of households when they're ill. We come into the hospital room to anoint and pray, and the whole family's there. And as a result of the prayer, and sometimes as a result of the instructions of the person for whom the prayer is directed, the whole family is healed. I've heard mothers and grandmothers tell their kids and grandkids, all gathered around their bed, that they need to get their lives together and forgive one another and be decent to each other, especially because of the fragility of the moment of crisis and fear. And they do. That's real healing too. Everyone is healed, even though they're simply the ones gathered around the bed of the one who's sick. Of course, the final great moment of healing is when we see God face to face. All those Jesus healed eventually died. All those who appeal for the celebration of the sacrament will also die. When we leave this mortal coil, assured of the forgiveness of our sins and promised of the hope of the resurrection, we will come before the Lord of life with the gift of faith in God's goodness and love. That is the great healing moment of body and soul, when the fullness of life, robbed of us by sin, is restored to us. That's when we shall all be healed completely. We're often disappointed when we don't see healing right away, and in truth, we're often not empowered to see the fullness of life that can result, since we are not often connected to the communal life of those around us, much less can we see into their interior lives or to the state of their souls. Often our expectations are aroused and endoused with what we see. For example, we could go into a hospital room of a young mother who's been diagnosed with cancer, praying that God heal her. Next to her, there might be a room in which a woman of 85 also has cancer. We also pray she be healed. But what we expect, if God's promise is fulfilled, is that the young woman be restored to her family and live fifty more years, while the older be healed by seeing God face to face. In truth, though, the young mother may be healed by her passage to the Father, while the older woman may receive spontaneous healing and live, what, fifteen more years? All is in accord to the glory of God, not necessarily according to our wants or our expectations. When someone is sick, they should call for the priest to anoint them. In the last few years there's been some call for limiting the anointing of those who are seriously ill. There has grown up a feeling that too many approach the sacrament too facile and may even make a mockery of it. And it's true, in our age, we can make mountains out of molehills and define some bothersome aspect of our lives as great illness. So I appreciate the caution that's exercised by those who want to be sure that we respect the integrity of the sacramental experience. However, I don't want anyone to decide their illness isn't serious enough to warrant prayer for them. At a previous parish, one of my associates complained that when there was communal anointing of the sick, one of the women always came forward, no matter how often he insisted it was only for those who were seriously ill. She was always there, asking to be anointed. I counseled him to trust the person who knew her own illness. What I knew of her was that she had come from a long history of abuse and injury spanning decades. It had affected her in just about every way possible, physically, mentally, spiritually, and soulfully. If there was anyone who was in need of healing in every way imaginable, it was her. So keeping that in mind, I hesitate to tell a person they're not to ask for the anointing, even when it is appropriate to caution that it is a prayer for true healing amid true injury and true sickness. Often we're asked to come and do the final anointing in the same manner as was expected in previous years. This often goes by the title of Last Rites. Previously, this was the extreme unction and the final prayers for the disposition of the soul of the one who's dying. This becomes less dramatic if the person has been anointed and prayed for, graced with the prayers of forgiveness and healing, and that's all taken place before the final grave hour. But to be called to share the prayers of the dying, which are powerful and beautiful, is still a wonderful pastoral opportunity. I can't tell you how many times I've been a part of a beautiful death, as the final part of those prayers, commending the soul of the sick one to the gift of the Father, are said. They are an extension of the prayers for the final great healing for which we all long. Anointing of the sick is a gift to the whole church. It's a powerful sacrament shared by all of us, because all of us will eventually need it. Certainly all of us live in need of forgiveness, and when the incompletion of our lives overcomes us, we're in need of healing. By the ministry of the church, entrusted it by Christ Himself, we have these gifts poured out upon us. Looking out over the landscape of Christian life and the promise entrusted to all of us, it almost makes you glad you're a Catholic. After all, if there's any reason Reason to be grateful or to be a Catholic, it would be that you can live as one so that you can die as one. And we do both bathe in the gift of graces poured out into the church by Christ Himself. Back in just a moment. We have a poem today called Bless Me Father. Bless Me Father, for I have sinned, he said, his knees dimpling the cushion down. Of course, of course, I could lend you a word of aid and help you color your world of brown. For all I hear every day is the litany of wrong, endless in sorrow and fault, as if this were a surprising way to live for us all, as if there were a means to bring life to a halt. So as to renew and refresh our souls, make them some measure separate from the realm of true men, to fill and tend the looming holes of our foibles and weakness, an alternative to living, to real living, then. We seldom imagine our confession is for our chance to celebrate rescue and salvation. Grace amid our obsession is the open door to walk into the bright lights of a new creation. When sin abounds, grace abounds greater, the chance to encounter the flagrant love of God alone, arriving at the moment then, and then later, when we find the pathway lit to our true home. Bless me, Father.

SPEAKER_01 24:39

Living Catholic is a production of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City for Oklahoma Catholic Radio. To learn more, visit okcr.org.