Healing Part 2 - U.S. Catholic Bishops

If someone is going to write about healing, he really needs to know what he is talking about.  This is an area where an amateur like me should fear to tread. Yet I am encouraged by Christian healers like Agnes Sanford who is the subject of the last post, and I am not afraid to write about my encounter with her memoir 35 years ago.  Today more than ever we need the ministry of healing, and that includes emotional healing. 

To keep my feet on the ground when it comes to this subject, being Catholic has helped. The U.S. Conference of Catholic  Bishops issued a publication titled Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services which  makes this succinct statement on the subject of healing:

        The Church has always sought to embody our Savior's concern for the sick. The gospel accounts of Jesus' ministry draw special attention to his acts of healing: he cleansed a man with leprosy (Mt 8:1-4; Mk 1:40-42); he gave sight to two people who were blind (Mt 20:29-34; Mk 10:46-52); he enabled one who was mute to speak (Lk 11:14); he cured a woman who was hemorrhaging (Mt 9:20-22; Mk 5:25-34); and he brought a young girl back to life (Mt 9:18, 23-25; Mk 5:35-42). Indeed, the Gospels are replete with examples of how the Lord cured every kind of ailment and disease (Mt 9:35). In the account of Matthew, Jesus' mission fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: "He took away our infirmities and bore our diseases" (Mt 8:17; cf. Is 53:4).

         Jesus' healing mission went further than caring only for physical affliction. He touched people at the deepest level of their existence; he sought their physical, mental, and spiritual healing (Jn 6:35, 11:25-27). He "came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly" (Jn 10:10).

          The mystery of Christ casts light on every facet of Catholic health care: to see Christian love as the animating principle of health care; to see healing and compassion as a continuation of Christ's mission; to see suffering as a participation in the redemptive power of Christ's passion, death, and resurrection; and to see death, transformed by the resurrection, as an opportunity for a final act of communion with Christ.

For the Christian, our encounter with suffering and death can take on a positive and distinctive meaning through the redemptive power of Jesus' suffering and death. As St. Paul says, we are "always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body" (2 Cor 4:10). This truth does not lessen the pain and fear, but gives confidence and grace for bearing suffering rather than being overwhelmed by it. Catholic health care ministry bears witness to the truth that, for those who are in Christ, suffering and death are the birth pangs of the new creation. "God himself will always be with them [as their God]. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain, [for] the old order has passed away" (Rev 21:3-4).

          Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services,  a    publication of United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB/USCC issued June 15, 2001), available at  http://old.usccb.org/bishops/directives.shtml  (quote from the Introduction).

The Bishops agree with Agnes Sanford's concern for  healing beyond the physical  where they say, "Jesus' healing mission went further than caring only for physical affliction.  He touched people at the deepest level of their existence; he sought their physical, mental and spiritual healing."

The next step is to make sense of the suffering that does not go away.  The Bishops'  reference to St. Paul  "always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body" (2 Cor 4:10) points to deep mysteries of our faith.   We seek the restorative healing touch of Jesus, but if it does not come then we have his presence in  suffering and death - and resurrection in the new order.

What is the most practical advice here?  I would go with this sentence from the above quote from the Bishops:  "This truth [of 2 Cor 4:10]  does not lessen the pain and fear, but gives confidence and grace for bearing suffering rather than being overwhelmed by it."