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Summary
- Nine prayers cover a new admission, surgery, intensive care, a long stay, a child in the hospital, the family waiting, the doctors and nurses, the patient’s own prayer and going home.
- Traditional prayers are quoted from the Visitation of the Sick in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer and the 1888 Catholic Manual of Prayers, and from the Orthodox Office of Holy Unction in Hapgood’s 1906 translation.
- James 5:14 tells the sick to call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil.
- The Catechism of the Catholic Church says the Anointing of the Sick is not only for those at the point of death and is fitting before a serious operation; the Orthodox Church in America says Holy Unction is not the “last rites.”
- Patients and families can ask the nurses to call the hospital chaplain, or call their own church.
- Prayer goes alongside medical care and never replaces it, and no prayer promises healing.
Bibliography (Click to show)
- Scripture quotations are from the King James Version (1611), text of Project Gutenberg eBook no. 10 (Psalm 27:14; 31:15; 41:3; 116:8–9; 139:12; Lamentations 3:22–23; Mark 5:23; Romans 8:26; Colossians 4:14; James 5:14). https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10
- The Book of Common Prayer (Protestant Episcopal Church in the U.S.A.), Standard Book of 1928. The Order for the Visitation of the Sick, opening rubric, p. 308, prayer “O Lord, look down from heaven,” p. 309, and “A Prayer for Recovery,” p. 315. PDF facsimile: https://www.artisticdailyprayers.org/uploads/3/0/1/6/30164961/bcp1928std.pdf
- A Manual of Prayers for the Use of the Catholic Laity, prepared and published by order of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore. New York: Catholic Publication Society, 1888. The Visitation of the Sick, p. 499; “Ejaculations to Jesus Suffering, for the Sick and Dying,” p. 506. https://archive.org/details/AManualOfPrayers1888/page/499/mode/1up
- Hapgood, Isabel Florence, trans. Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic (Greco-Russian) Church. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1906. The Office of Holy Unction, pp. 336–337. https://archive.org/details/cu31924029363128/page/336/mode/1up
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997. Paragraphs 1514–1515. https://www.vatican.va/content/catechism/en/part_two/section_two/chapter_two/article_5/ii_who_receives_and_who_administers_this_sacrament.html
- Orthodox Church in America. “Holy Unction.” The Orthodox Faith, vol. 2, Worship. https://www.oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith/worship/the-sacraments/holy-unction
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