Section III. On the Form and on the Union of Matter and Form

I. The ordinary form in the Latin Church is the prayer prescribed by the Roman Ritual for the individual anointings, namely: "Through this holy Unction, and His most tender mercy, may the Lord forgive you whatever you have committed through sight, or through hearing, etc. Amen."¹ That the words "and His most tender mercy" are not required for validity is gathered from the form to be used in a case of necessity, in which the aforesaid words are omitted. Nevertheless, outside a case of true necessity, the omission is held to be gravely illicit (St. Alphonsus, VI, 711, dub. 2).

Among the Orientals this or a similar form is used: "Holy Father, physician of souls and bodies, who sent Your only-begotten Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, healing every disease and freeing us from death, heal also Your servant N. from the bodily infirmity detaining him, and give him life through the grace of Your Christ, by the intercessions of N. N. and of all the Saints. Amen."

¹ Title V, cap. 1, n. 20. From the new editions of the Roman Ritual, the word "Amen" is to be said by the priest.

II. "In a case of necessity a single anointing in one sense, or more rightly on the forehead, suffices with this shorter form: 'Through this holy Unction may the Lord forgive you whatever you have committed. Amen.'" Thus the Roman Ritual,¹ canon 947, § 1, and the Decree of the Holy Office.² As it is useful to note in passing, everyone is under obligation to hold the aforesaid shorter form by memory.

Note. As is gathered from the words of St. James,³ it is required for the essence of the form that it be deprecatory formally, or according to sense (St. Thomas, Supplement, q. 29, a. 8; St. Alphonsus, VI, 711, dub. 1). But nothing seems to prevent a form that is grammatically indicative from being formally deprecatory, namely from the intention of praying to God, an intention, I say, sufficiently manifested by the very nature of the action.

¹ Loc. cit., n. 21.

² April 24, 1906.

³ James 5:14 sq.

III. With respect to the union of matter and form, it is sufficient to have noted: For validity, the union which we described in the treatise on the Sacraments in general suffices (n. 22). With respect to liceity, these words of the Roman Ritual are to be observed: "While the priest anoints the eyes, ears, and other members of the body which are paired, let him take care that, in anointing one of them, he does not complete the form of the Sacrament before he has anointed both members of this kind."¹

¹ Title V, cap. 1, n. 18.