healing – Communio

Jesus heals the blind man

Today’s gospel is pointing the way as we move to the end of the civil year and the end of the liturgical year: Jesus cures the blind man Bartimaeus. With the gradual loss of light we are keen to see, and spiritually speaking, to see in a new way. The blind beggar gives us the direction.

The only other man singled out (named in this way) for such a healing is Lazarus. We know from our study of and prayer with sacred Scripture will help is to recognize that a significant portion of Jesus’ mission was healing and making whole of humanity. This beggar Bartimaeus, a blind man from birth, knows he can find healing only from Jesus alone. The gift of sight given to Bartimaeus is not only physical, but also spiritual. He recognizes the Lord. And the consequence of sight is the act of following. And in this healing and following Bartimaeus becomes a disciple. This is our goal too: follow Christ closely.

Saint Clement of Alexandria speak of the grace of uncreated light: “The commandment of the Lord shines clearly, enlightening the eyes. Receive Christ, receive power to see, receive your light, that you may plainly recognize both God and man. More delightful than gold and precious stones, more desirable than honey and the honeycomb is the Word that has enlightened us…Despite the other stars, without the sun the whole world would be plunged in darkness. So likewise we ourselves, had we not known the Word and been enlightened by him, should have been no better off than plump poultry fattened in the dark, simply reared for death. Let us open ourselves to the light, then, and so to God.”

The grace we ask for today is the grace to recognize the person of Jesus, the Son of David, Son of God, as the One who can give life, peace, and healing. As Clement indicates, from the Lord we are enlightened…the gift of openness to the Light of Faith.

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux gives us a hint of how to approach this enlightenment: “Miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice, here by a smiling look, thereby a kindly word; always doing the smallest good thing and doing it all for love.”

Healing the leper in all of us…Jesus touches our hearts

The Church prays today,

O God, who teach
us that you abide in hearts that are just and true, grant that we may be so
fashioned by your grace as to become a dwelling pleasing to you.

What other grace do we need but the grace to abide in Christ? The priest’s prayer at Mass in the anamnesis tells us and God that He lives hearts that are just and true.

The Gospel today relates something that calls to mind the work of Saint Damian of Molokai and Blessed soon-to-be-saint Marianne Cope who worked with and evangelized lepers in Hawaii. Their love was extroverted. No doubt the Lord’s touch and the saints’ humanity was likely the first substantial, real contact these “outcasts” experienced. The Lord’s touch of the leper is as the Prayer over the Offering prays, it “cleanses and renews” for the sake of our salvation. So much for us, too. May the Lord touch our uncleanness and sinfulness so that we may be close to Him.

What other than love and compassion did the Lord have for the marginalized? The medical leper and the spiritual leper always have on their lips Psalm 32: “I turn to you, Lord, in time of trouble, and you fill me with the joy of salvation.”

Sr Marie Simon-Pierre: If you believe, you will see the glory of God

Holiness is all that matters. Period. Being with God is the ultimate goal of every Christian’s desire. The holiness of
a person whose cause is being considered for beatification rests on the
verification of a miracle -done by God at the request of another, in the case
at hand, at John Paul’s intercession. The person who received the gift of the miraculous
healing was Sister Marie Simon-Pierre, a sister of the Congregation of the Little
Sisters of Catholic Motherhood. Sister Marie Simon-Pierre was living with Parkinson’s
and attributes a complete healing to the intercession of Pope John Paul II. The
pope suffered from the same disease. The following testimony given in 2006 and
verified by medical professionals last autumn, sealed the case to beatify Pope John Paul II. Zenit provided the text.

In June 2001, I was diagnosed
with Parkinson’s disease. The disease had affected the whole left side of my
body, creating great difficulties for me as I am left-handed. After three
years, the initial phase of the disease, slow but progressive, was followed by
an aggravation of the symptoms: accentuation of the trembling, rigidity, pain,
insomnia.

From April 2, 2005, I began to worsen week by week, I grew worse day
by day, I was unable to write (I repeat that I am left-handed), and if I
attempted it, what I wrote was unintelligible. I could drive only for short
trips because my left leg would stiffen sometimes, and my rigidity would have
impeded my driving. Moreover, to do my work in a hospital, it took more time
than usual. I was exhausted.

After learning my diagnosis, it was difficult for
me to watch John Paul II on television. However, I felt very close to him in
prayer and I knew he could understand what I was going through. I also admired
his strength and courage, which motivated me not to give in and to love this
suffering, because without love none of this made sense. I can say that it was
a daily struggle, but my only wish was to live it with faith and in loving
adherence to the will of the Father.

Continue reading Sr Marie Simon-Pierre: If you believe, you will see the glory of God

Healing and forgiveness: a spiritual & psychological path to renewal

Earlier today I had the space of time to begin my lenten observance by thinking about healing and forgiveness. Without these two legs of the spiritual life personal renewal won’t happen. A talk was hosted by the Franciscan Life Center in Meriden, Connecticut, a ministry of the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist. The executive director of the FLC Sister Barbara Johnson, FSE, made the presentation to about 75 people.

Sister Barbara, a licensed Marriage and Family therapist, began our discussion by eliciting areas that typically need healing and forgiveness: relationships (in families, among friends, infidelities, harmful family secrets, being alienated from others due to mis-awareness of reality), past events, yourself, deaths, trauma, illness, abortion, divorce, impatience, anger, acts of violence, abuse, addiction, etc. The list can be expanded. But you get the point: the human person is full of complexities.

Continue reading Healing and forgiveness: a spiritual & psychological path to renewal

Day of Prayer & Healing for Teens who have experienced abortion – November 20th

Many of you are in parishes with schools and/or youth groups
and have teens who are suffering from the effects of abortion. Please promote this
unique opportunity for them to come to a Day of Prayer and Healing for Teens –
November 20th.

For confidential registration or more information, please call Theresa at Lumina Hope and Healing after Abortion at 718-881-8008 and visit the Lumina website.

Healing after Abortion

There is a light that can break through any darkness.

Lumina is a post-abortion healing network helping women and men adjust and heal following the trauma of having an abortion or being closely connected with someone who has had an abortion like a spouse, significant other, or sibling. We can’t overestimate the power of the affective and spiritual life when a woman has an abortion. Because many people who support abortion will minimize the impact an abortion has on a woman (and her husband or boyfriend) and the emotional effects are discounted or dismissed. The dignity of the human person tells us, we know about this real dignity in our heart: we are not merely flesh and blood, but we have a soul, a spiritual life that is intimately connected with our body and we are made for God. We are made for greatness and love and happiness in this world, and the next.

Health issues may be plentiful. Intimacy issues may arise and the beauty of sexuality is objectified. What is often overlooked is that in some case a woman can’t conceive and bring to full term another child after having an abortion (or in other cases having been using contraception). What to do?

Some women report they have suffered for years with the memories of having a child that they aborted. The death of a child, whether born or yet to be born, is painful, full of dark moments, and seemingly a sin that’s unforgivable.

And today we are finding that men have similar issues of the affect to deal with because of their close connection with woman who had an abortion. A few years ago the Catholic Information Service at the Knights of Columbus published a great little booklet, “Men and Abortion: Finding Healing, Restoring Hope.” I recommend it.

The work of the Lumina as a post-abortion network is assist women and men realize that they can be healed, that they are loved by God even with the sin of abortion in their past and there is light that guides us along the path of life.

Prayer, hard work with a professional counselor and friendship contribute to one’s healing. We are made for other people, why not let good people help the healing of the post-abortion pain?

There are plenty of opportunities in the Tri-State area.

Days of prayer and healing for men are being planned.

Days of prayer and healing for women in the coming months:

November 13, January 15, 2011, February 19, April 2, and June 11.

For more information:

Theresa Bonapartis

877.586.4621 (toll free)

lumina@postabortionhelp.org

or the Sisters of Life organize people through their Hope and Healing network:

866.575.0075 (toll free)

hopeandhealing@sistersoflife.org

Is Lent a time of healing for you?

In the Syriac Christian tradition the healing power of
Christ is presented to the faithful, by the Church, by knowing that the believing community of faith, is the Lord’s bride and our
mother. We know this experientially through the sacramental ministries of the priesthood. Saint Ephrem prays to Christ crucified and risen:

With three medicines

You have cured our sickness;

Humanity was weak, suffering and failing;

You have strengthened it by you blessed bread,

You have consoled it with your sober wine,

And You have given it joy with your anointing.

Lent is the springtime of our healing in mind, body and soul. Lent is a time to have the
great reversal happen: from weakness to strength, from sickness to health, from sinfulness to a
life of grace. This is all possible in the confession of sins, the worthy
reception of the Holy Eucharist, and the luscious anointing of the Holy Spirit
pour out over us.

Sickness & suffering can become a school of hope, Pope says on the 18th World Day of the Sick

On the 18th World Day of the Sick observed each year on the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes the Pope Benedict sends to the world a message. The Pope draws my attention, and perhaps yours, to the fact that Jesus tells us to do what He has done: be an instrument of healing by allowing divine grace to actually work. To “go and do likewise” is the reason why priests reconcile sinners, strengthen the sick through the sacrament of the sick, to “go and do likewise” is why Sr Mary Ellen Genova visits the sick weekly bring the Gospel and the Eucharist to those who can’t come to church, to “go and do likewise” is why Fr Jordan Kelly and the NY Dominican Friars have a healthcare ministry at 4 of the world’s prestigious hospitals, to “go and do likewise” is doing what Jesus did when we had the anointing of the sick for breast cancer survivors on the feast of Saint Agatha on February 5th, and to “go and do likewise” is why Fr Thomas Berg and the Westchester Institute works on healthcare ethics. There is no end to what we do in order to follow Christ more closely, focusing not on ourselves but on God the Father asking for the grace to deal directly with illness and suffering in a graced-filled manner.

I extracted three paragraphs from the 2010 message for our consideration here today. The points emphasized are what I think the crucial elements of the papal message to be used for prayer and consideration.

At the end of the parable, Jesus said: “Go and do likewise” (Lk 10: 37). With these words he is also addressing us. Jesus exhorts us to bend over the physical and mental wounds of so many of our brothers and sisters whom we meet on the highways of the world. He helps us to understand that with God’s grace, accepted and lived out in our daily life, the experience of sickness and suffering can become a school of hope. In truth, as I said in the Encyclical Spe salvi, “It is not by sidestepping or fleeing from suffering that we are healed,
but rather by our capacity for accepting it, maturing through it and finding meaning through union with Christ, who suffered with infinite love” (n. 37).

The Second Ecumenical Vatican Council had already recalled the Church’s important task of caring for human suffering. In the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium we read that “Christ was sent by the Father “to bring good news to the poor… to heal the contrite of heart’ (Lk 4: 18), “to seek and to save what was lost’ (Lk 19: 10)…. Similarly, the Church encompasses with her love all those who are afflicted by human misery and she recognizes in those who are poor and who suffer, the image of her poor and suffering Founder. She does all in her power to relieve their need and in them she strives to serve Christ” (n. 8). The ecclesial community’s humanitarian and spiritual
action for the sick and the suffering has been expressed down the centuries in many forms and health-care structures, also of an institutional character. I would like here to recall those directly managed by the dioceses and those born from the generosity of various religious Institutes. It is a precious “patrimony” that corresponds with the fact that “love… needs to be organized if it is to be an ordered service to the community” (Encyclical Deus caritas est, n. 20). The creation of the Pontifical Council for Health-Care Workers 25 years ago complies with the Church’s solicitude for the world of health care. And I am anxious to add that at this moment in history and culture we are feeling even more acutely the need for an attentive and far-reaching ecclesial presence beside the sick, as well as a presence in society that can effectively pass on the Gospel values that safeguard human life in all its phases, from its conception to its natural end.

In this Year for Priests, my thoughts turn in particular to you, dear priests, “ministers of the sick”, signs and instruments of Christ’s compassion who must reach out to every person marked by suffering. I ask you, dear presbyters, to spare no effort in giving them care and comfort. Time spent beside those who are put to the test may bear fruits of grace for all the other dimensions of pastoral care. Lastly I address you, dear sick people and I ask you to pray and to offer your suffering up for priests, so that they may continue to be faithful to their vocation and that their ministry may be rich in spiritual fruits for the benefit of the whole Church.

Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us.

Saint Richard Pampuri, pray for us.

Pope calls for prayers and care for those living with HIV/AIDS

This coming December 1 the World AIDS Day will be
observed. My thought and my prayer go to all persons affected by this sickness,
in particular children, to the poorest and to those who are rejected. The
Church does not cease to combat AIDS, through her institutions and the
personnel dedicated to it. I exhort everyone to make their own contribution
with prayer and care, so that those who are affected by the HIV virus will feel
the presence of the Lord who gives support and hope. Finally, I hope that, by
multiplying and coordinating efforts, this sickness will be halted and
eradicated.

Pope Benedict XVI

Sunday Angelus Address

29 November 2009

Vatican City State

The Church is for sinners, not saints; the Church is NOT a club

Dear Friends united in love and service of Jesus Christ and His Church:

The Church is one big leper colony! You heard me right. All of us in the Church are lepers! My mind is still on last Sunday’s Gospel when Jesus healed the leper.

Jesus, the Divine Physician, often cleansed lepers of their hideous disease. It was thought incurable then. It was so dreaded that lepers had to live together in colonies where they could at least welcome and care for one another. There, they were all alike. There, they were all lepers.

Our Lord, of course, knows that there is also a spiritual leprosy, a leprosy that affects the soul, a moral disease, called sin. He can and will cure that, too, if, like the leper in last Sunday’s gospel, we ask Him to do so.

Those who realize they have this interior leprosy come together in a leper colony, called the Church. The Church is filled with spiritual lepers who welcome one another, care for one another, and turn to Jesus, the Divine Physician, for cleansing, through prayer, worship, and the sacraments.

The Church is then a hospital for the sick, not a country club for the spiritually sleek. We belong to the Church, not because we’re saints, but because we’re sinners, not because we’re proud, but because we’re humble, not because we want to do God a big favor, but because we need a big favor from God.

Not long ago a high school junior, preparing for the sacrament of confirmation, wrote me: “Archbishop Dolan, I hate going to Sunday Mass. All I see around me are hypocrites, two-faced people who act holier-than-thou on Sunday, and then put everybody else down all week.”

I wrote him back, “You’re right. And now there’s one more hypocrite among them on Sunday morning — you, because you just judged all of them, dismissed them, and considered yourself holier-than-them. So, welcome to the Church! You’re one of us.”

Sure, there are a lot of saints in the Church. But, odds are, if you told them you thought them a saint, they’d be the first to tell you they were only recovering sinners.

You have heard me talk before about my beautiful niece, Shannon. When she was eight, she was diagnosed with perilous bone cancer. Odds were she would loose her leg, maybe her life. Her major worry, though, was that she would loose her hair, and her friends, who might, she was afraid, shun her because she was bald and had cancer.

During her surgeries and chemo, her third grade classmates made and sold what they called “Shannon caps,” stocking caps with her name on it. The benefits helped cover some of her expenses.

When the day came when she could finally return to school, she was scared. Would the kids welcome her? Would they make fun of her, bald, in a wheelchair, with that dreaded disease of cancer? She wore her “Shannon cap” to cover her cue-ball head.

When her dad pushed her into the third grade classroom, every child, and the teacher, were wearing a “Shannon cap”. They all stood and cheered. Shannon smiled. She was back home among friends.

That’s the Church . . . we’re all lepers . . . we’re all unclean . . . we all need the only one who can heal us. We’re all in it together.

See you at Mass.

Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan

The Journal Times.com

February 17, 2009