Our blessed Lord has instituted a sacrament for our spiritual wounds, namely, the sacrament of Penance. He has a sacrament for the sickness of the body, the body that is united to the soul. The beauty of this sacrament is that though grace is communicated to the soul, it influences the body in a very special way.

Extreme Unction, or anointing of the sick, is only given in serious illness. The one who receives it must be in some danger of death through sickness. There need not be a certitude of death. The sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick may not be given to soldiers going into battle. They are in danger of death but not from sickness. If they are wounded, they could be anointed. 

The sacrament should not be delayed until the patient is unconscious and can no longer join in the prayers. It should be given while he can lift up his soul to the healing power of Christ who is refreshing his senses and his soul and his sins.

The sacrament does not mean that the person is going to die. There are many that believe that when a priest is called to administer this particular sacrament the patient is beyond hope. The Council of Trent refused to consider the Anointing of the sick only as a sacrament of the dying. 

In the administration of the sacrament, there is no mention of death. It is not necessarily the sacrament of the dying; it is the sacrament of the sick. Here is the prayer the priest recites after he has anointed the hands, feet, and other members of the body. Listen to the prayer and not that the word "death" is not used. Note the burden of the prayer is the restoration of the sick person:
 

Cure, we beseech Thee, O our Redeemer, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, the aliments of this sick man [or woman], his wounds and forgive his sins. Deliver him from all miseries of body and mind and mercifully restore him to perfect health, inwardly and outwardly, that having recovered by an act of kindness he may be able to take up his former duties. Thou, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit, liveth and reigneth God, world without end. Amen. 
 

Though the sacrament is given at a critical time it is more concerned with sickness than with death. Grace is always received by the soul. We are a unit, a composite of body and soul, and here this sacrament has a very special repercussion upon the body. To use a modern word, we might call it the psychosomatic sacrament, the sacrament of body and soul. It looks to the healing of the body, not clinically, because the Church regards the body differently than medicine. To the Church, the body is not just an organism; it is also the temple of God, the residence of divine life. That is why St. Paul says the body is for the Lord.

Therefore, this sacrament looks to the body. It seeks to give it relief so it will not impede the soul’s love of God. We fail if we do not see the beauty of this sacrament. I wonder if we really express the faith that we should have. Did St. James speak of the great faith demanded when the sacrament is received? The divine Physician comes to us and we should look less to our disease than we look to Him. The sickness does not preclude the possibility of death, because we are all under the penalty of death. If we are in danger of death then we receive the sacrament of the dying which is viaticum. The viaticum is the Eucharist that is given to the dying. Viaticum means “on the way you take the Lord with you.”

If it is God’s will that death be not postponed, then we see in the sacrament, because our senses have been cleansed, incorporation to the death of Christ. We were baptized in His death. The Eucharist reminded us of His death. We are incorporated in a special way. We say with our Lord on the Cross, It is finished. Our death is united to His and we’re also united to His Resurrection. This sacrament prefigures the anointing of future glory. It applies the resurrection of the body in anticipation by applying it to our thoughts and desires. We can go before God with all of the avenues of our body cleansed.

This beautiful sacrament throws out a bridge between earth and heaven. The saddest of our suffering is wedded to the yearning for God. If you want to witness this sacrament, just go with us priests into the sick room as we minister to the dying. Pray you may never die without this sacrament.

Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen
Your Life is Worth Living
radio podcast episode Sacrament of the Sick