MAKING ROOM FOR THE HEALER Liz O’Neill
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any years ago, I asked Sr. Briege McKenna, a Saint Clare sister who has a gift of healing, a question which you may have pondered in one form or another: should we ask God to heal someone? Underlying this question are many other concerns about faith, raising false hopes, and more. Sr. Briege responded with her own question: If you knew someone who was in desperate need of healing and you met Jesus in the street, would you ask him to heal them? It seemed to me that the answer hinged a lot on how much I cared for the person. The more I loved the person, the more likely that I would directly ask Jesus to heal them. I would probably pour out the whole story and beg him to act! In the Gospels, all of the people who came to Jesus seeking healing on behalf of someone they loved did just that. I had my answer. We ask Jesus for what we see the person needs, and then we leave it up to him to respond as he sees best. Each of us needs healing in one form or another. When we think of sickness, we usually think
of its physical, or possibly emotional, manifestations. But all of us, if we are honest, know that we also need healing in our spiritual lives. Sin wounds others and it wounds us. In St. Mark’s Gospel, Jesus talks about helping sinners like a physician coming to help the sick.
“We ask Jesus for what we see the person needs, and then we leave it up to him to respond as he sees best.” Our parish Healing Ministry grew out of our pastor’s desire to see people receive healing in every part of their lives. In 2017, inspired by his own experience of healing through the ministry of Dr. Bob Schuchts and the John Paul II Healing Center, Fr. Steve began sending parishioners to the Center to be trained in the ministry of healing prayer. The John Paul II Healing Center draws its view of the human person from St. John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body.” They focus on the whole person, asking God to heal in whatever way He wishes, be it physical, emotional, psychological or
HEALING ENCOUNTER Though we could not open our April Healing Encounter to the public, it was broadcast on our Resurrection Church YouTube channel. Our next Healing Encounter will be on Saturday, June 6 at 7:00 pm. Godwilling, you will be able to attend in person. If this is not yet possible, we will broadcast the event online.
