Day 169 - Who can administer the Anointing of the Sick? // What is meant by "Viaticum?"
Who can administer the Anointing of the Sick?
Administering the Anointing of the Sick is reserved to bishops and priests, for it is Christ who acts through them by virtue of their ordination.
What is meant by "Viaticum"?
Viaticum means the last Holy Communion that a person receives before dying.
Rarely is Communion so vitally necessary as in the moment when a person sets out on the path that completes his earthly life: In the future he will have only as much life as he has in union (= communion) with God. (YOUCAT questions 246 & 247)
Dig Deeper: CCC section (1524-1525) and other references here.
Part 2: The Celebration of the Christian Mystery (1066 - 1690)
Section 2: The Seven Sacraments of the Church (1210 - 1690)
Chapter 2: The Sacraments of Healing (1420 - 1532)
Article 5: The Anointing of the Sick (1499 - 1532)
V. VIATICUM, THE LAST SACRAMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN ⇡
In addition to the Anointing of the Sick, the Church offers those who are about to leave this life the Eucharist as viaticum. Communion in the body and blood of Christ, received at this moment of "passing over" to the Father, has a particular significance and importance. It is the seed of eternal life and the power of resurrection, according to the words of the Lord: "He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."141 The sacrament of Christ once dead and now risen, the Eucharist is here the sacrament of passing over from death to life, from this world to the Father.142
141.
142.
Cf. Jn 13:1.
Thus, just as the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist form a unity called "the sacraments of Christian initiation," so too it can be said that Penance, the Anointing of the Sick and the Eucharist as viaticum constitute at the end of Christian life "the sacraments that prepare for our heavenly homeland" or the sacraments that complete the earthly pilgrimage.