Editing Viaticum

{{Short description|Last Communion, received near death}}
{{For|the Helstrom episode|Viaticum (Helstrom)}}
{{Eucharist|expanded=Practices and customs}}
'''Viaticum''' is a term used – especially in the [[Catholic Church]] – for the [[Eucharist]] (also called Holy Communion), administered, with or without [[Anointing of the Sick in the Catholic Church|Anointing of the Sick]] (also called Extreme Unction), to a person who is dying; viaticum is thus a part of the [[Last Rites]].

== Usage == 
The word ''viaticum'' is a Latin word meaning "provision for a journey", from ''via,'' or "way". For Communion as Viaticum, the Eucharist is given in the usual form, with the added words "May the Lord Jesus Christ protect you and lead you to eternal life". The Eucharist is seen as the ideal spiritual food to strengthen a dying person for the journey from this world to life after death.

Alternatively, ''viaticum'' can refer to an ancient Roman provision or allowance for traveling, originally of transportation and supplies, later of money, made to officials on public missions; mostly simply, the word, a [[haplology]] of ''viā tēcum'' ("with you on the way"), indicates money or necessities for any journey. ''Viaticum'' can also refer to the enlistment bonus received by a [[Ancient Rome|Roman]] [[legionary]], [[Auxiliaries (Roman military)|auxiliary soldier]] or seaman in the Roman [[Roman navy|Imperial Navy]].

== Practice ==
[[File:Alexey Venetsianov 25.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|left|Administration of the ([[Eastern Orthodox]]) Eucharist to a dying woman (1839 painting by artist [[Alexey Venetsianov]])]]

The desire to have the bread and wine consecrated in the Eucharist available for the sick and dying led to the reservation of the [[Blessed Sacrament]], a practice which has endured from the earliest days of the [[Christian Church]]. [[Justin Martyr|Saint Justin Martyr]], writing less than fifty years after the death of [[John the Apostle|Saint John the Apostle]], mentions that "the [[Deacon|deacons]] communicate each of those present, and carry away to the absent the consecrated Bread, and wine and water". (Just. M. Apol. I. cap. lxv.)

If the dying person cannot take solid food, the Eucharist may be administered via the [[Blood of Christ|wine]] alone, since Catholicism holds that Christ [[Real presence of Christ in the Eucharist|exists in his entirety]] (body, blood, soul, and divinity) in both the consecrated solid and liquid elements.

The sacrament of [[Extreme Unction]] is often administered immediately before giving Viaticum if a [[priest]] is available to do so. Unlike the Anointing of the Sick, Viaticum may be administered by a priest, [[deacon]] or by an [[extraordinary minister of Holy Communion|extraordinary minister]], using the [[Reservation of the Blessed Sacrament|reserved]] Blessed Sacrament.

==Relation to pre-Christian funerary practice==
{{Expand-section|date=August 2019}} In [[Late Antiquity]] and the [[Early Mediaeval]] period in the West, the [[Sacramental bread|host]] was sometimes placed in the mouth of a person already dead. Some claim this could relate to a traditional practice<ref>Gregory Grabka, “Christian Viaticum,” ''Traditio'' 9 (1953), pp. 38–42; G.J.C. Snoek, ''Medieval Piety from Relics to the Eucharist'' (Leiden 1995), pp. 103, 122–124; Edward T. Cook, ''A Popular Handbook to the Greek and Roman Antiquities in the British Museum'' (London 1903), pp. 370–371.</ref> that scholars have compared to the pre-Christian custom of [[Charon's obol]], a small coin placed in the mouth of the dead for passage to the afterlife and sometimes also called a ''viaticum'' in Latin literary sources.<ref>A. Rush, ''Death and Burial in Christian Antiquity'' (Washington, D.C. 1941), pp. 93–94; Gregory Grabka, “Christian Viaticum: A Study of Its Cultural Background,” ''Traditio'' 9 (1953), 1–43; Frederick S. Paxton, ''Christianizing Death: The Creation of a Ritual Process in Early Medieval Europe'' ([[Cornell University Press]] 1990), pp. 32–33 [https://books.google.com/books?id=zvG9jFdTszMC&dq=Charon+intitle:Christianizing+intitle:Death+inauthor:Paxton&pg=PA33 online]; G.J.C. Snoek, ''Medieval Piety from Relics to the Eucharist: A Process of Mutual Interaction'' (Leiden 1995), ''passim'', but especially pp. 102–103 [https://books.google.com/books?id=vXtHb-OODMkC&dq=Charon+intitle:Medieval+intitle:Piety+intitle:from+intitle:Relics+intitle:to+intitle:the+intitle:Eucharist+inauthor:Snoek&pg=PA103 online] and 122–124 [https://books.google.com/books?id=vXtHb-OODMkC&dq=%22obol+as+guarantee%22+inauthor:Snoek&pg=PA122 online]; Paul Binski, ''Medieval Death: Ritual and Representation'' (Cornell University Press 1996), p. 32 [https://books.google.com/books?id=_fV8xR5n4K8C&dq=Charon+intitle:Medieval+intitle:Death+inauthor:Binski&pg=PA32 online]; J. Patout Burns, “Death and Burial in Christian Africa: The Literary Evidence,” paper delivered to the North American Patristics Society, May 1997, [http://people.vanderbilt.edu/~james.p.burns/chroma/burial/Burnsburial.html full text online.]</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Bibliography==
* Rubin, Miri, ''Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
* Snoek, C. J. K., ''Medieval Piety from Relics to the Eucharist: A Process of Mutual Interaction'', Leiden: Brill, 1995.

{{CatholicMass}}

[[Category:Eucharistic devotions]]
[[Category:Christianity and death]]