Summary

Part VI, Anointing of the Sick", begins with Chapter Twenty-Nine, “Oil.” In this introductory chapter, the author identifies the relatively large number of times different sorts of oil are referenced in the Bible. She also looks at the different ceremonial ways it was used to mark important transitions and changes in identity, commenting that the word “Messiah, or Christ, means ‘Anointed One’” (204) and focusing particularly on the qualities of oil to enable a sense of grace in a person being anointed, particularly the sick and/or the dead. She discusses briefly the science behind the power of scent to trigger memory and/or feeling, finally commenting that “there is nothing magical about oil,” she adds. “It is merely a carrier – of memory, of healing, of grace” (205).

In Chapter Thirty, “Healing,” the author begins with the story of a woman who struggled to find...