Oil on the Fingers
Updated: Sep 3
“Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.”James 5:14
It stays after the work is finished. A thin film on the skin. The faint smell of metal and care.
You wipe your hands, yet a trace remains. The oil has entered the small lines of the fingers.
Jesus was anointed, and he also anointed others. Oil marked bodies for healing, for burial, and for kingship. It was never only practical. A woman poured oil on him and the house filled with the smell. The apostles put oil on the sick. The Church still does. A small amount. On the hands. On the forehead. A sign that God has come close to a body that needs help.
Some work leaves a residue that cannot be fully washed away at once. Engine oil. Cooking oil. The oil used on a lock or a hinge. It stays as a quiet reminder that you have touched something that needed tending.
You do not have to scrub every trace immediately. The oil will fade in its own time.
At Mass, and in the anointing of the sick, oil is not a decoration. It says that grace can enter the same places work enters: skin, wound, tiredness, the body itself. Christ does not save us from a distance. He meets us in what can be touched.
For now it is enough that your hands smell slightly of the work they have done.