Viaticum

Viaticum is the term the Roman Catholic Church uses for the Eucharist (Communion) given to a dying person. It is not the same as the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick, but rather it is the Eucharist administered in special circumstances. According to the L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's newspaper, Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan explained, "The Catholic tradition of giving the Eucharist to the dying ensures that instead of dying alone they die with Christ who promises them eternal life."

The Latin word viaticum, an adjectival form of the noun via, means "for a journey", and when used substantively means "provisions for a journey". The Eucharist is seen as the ideal food to strengthen a dying person for the journey from this world to life after death.

The need to have the consecrated bread and wine available for the sick led to their reservation, a practice which has endured from the earliest days of the Christian Church. St. Justin Martyr, writing less than fifty years after the death of St. John the Apostle, mentions that “the deacons communicate each of those present, and carry away to the absent the blest bread, and wine and water.”(Just. M. Apol. I. cap. lxv.)

If the dying person cannot take solid food, the Eucharist may be administered in the form not of bread, but of wine. The sacrament of Anointing of the Sick is often administered immediately before giving Viaticum if a priest is available to do so. Unlike the Annointing of the Sick, the Viaticum may be administered by a Priest, or by Lay minister using the reserved sacrament.