Healing Part 3 - Words and Deeds of Jesus

This is my last  of three posts  on the subject of healing.  The need for Christians to reach out and provide a healing touch to others was the subject of the first  post.    In the post following that, the U.S. Bishops  explain the ministry of healing with an excellent list of references to the Gospels and they also provide  insights into the redemptive meaning of suffering.  Here my concern is with one particular aspect of  the individual’s personal  relationship with God – the study of the words and deeds of Jesus.   What does such study have to do with healing? The answer involves the healing effects of the believer's  adoption as a child of our heavenly Father.

 To explore this issue I rely on an article written by Fr. David M. Stanley S.J.  The article does not mention healing.  But the ideas from the article, for me, are all about healing.  By healing in this post I mean that a person experiences an emotional change:   The person is hopeless, discouraged, selfish and depressed, and then by turning to Jesus the same person becomes hopeful and even cheerful, or if depression remains it is no longer overwhelming.  (The previous sentence does not mean that spirituality solves all mental health issues for which a person should seek expert medical care.)   With healing, a person bears the fruit of the Spirit,  love, joy, peace, kindness, faithfulness and self control, as described in Gal. 5:22-23, and becomes helpful to others.   Yes, I know that life is not that simple.  That's why I put up my last post from the U.S. Catholic Bishops.

I realize that books have been written about religious faith and emotional healing, and that there are many spiritual facets to consider.  There is the connection between confession of sin and healing.  James 5:16.  Psalms, hymns and songs have a healing effect.  Eph. 5:19.  Support from the Christian community, the body of Christ, brings healing. There is a contrarian approach which would be to avoid this subject as too introspective; instead,  look  outward to the Kingdom of God which Jesus initiated with his resurrection, and  courageously figure out how we can help to move the kingdom forward in all spheres of life.      I understand all of this, but I can't address these subjects here.  And I realize that we live in a world where trouble comes in waves, which never stop rolling in, and sometimes come  crashing in to our shores.  But here I am suggesting that contemplation of the words and deeds of Jesus can become a kind of safe harbor, not as a place of 'escape' from trouble, but  as a safe place where the healing grace of God can work.   

I.   Words and Deeds of Jesus


Jesus is alive today and  that is why  believers  turn to him for healing.   We call on the risen  and exalted Jesus seated at the right hand of the Father to heal  those in need. Why then should we contemplate the words and deeds of Jesus,  “the days of his flesh” (Heb. 5:7)?     Contemplation of Jesus’ earthly life takes the believer into an ‘event’  in which the person experiences  life as a member of  God’s family.  That spiritual experience of  ‘family’  provides healing which comes directly from God the Father.    

Fr. David M. Stanley in an article published in Theological Studies,  says this:

The Christian of today feels compelled to ask the very relevant question, “Why contemplate the earthly history of Jesus of Nazareth?”   …

[I]t is clear that St. Ignatius relied mainly upon the contemplation of the earthly history of Jesus for the effectiveness of his carefully constructed program of Spiritual Exercises. This form of Christian prayer unquestionably constitutes the wellspring of Ignatian spirituality.  “Contemplation of the Gospels, Ignatius Loyola, and the Contemporary Christian,”   Theological Studies, Vol. 29 - 3 (1968) at  417, 421  (hereafter “TS”).    

This is a good question because, after all, the Gospel writers themselves did  not have an attitude of  looking back at the past:

Search as you will, you will discover in their books no nostalgia for "the good old days."   As a result of the coming of the Holy Spirit, Jesus' first disciples had no desire, made no attempt, to live in the past, or to turn back the clock by wishing to return to the privileged intimacy with Jesus which they had enjoyed during the years of His public ministry. Their newly-given Christian faith directed their attention towards the glorified Lord Jesus, who now stood revealed to them as the very incarnation of aggiornamento, forever up to date, continually abreast of the happenings of this world.

TS  at 425-426 (italics in original). 

 If the Gospel writers with this enthusiasm for the risen Jesus had no desire to return to their existence during the years when they had followed Jesus in his public ministry, why do they devote their written works to “what Jesus began to do and  to teach” (Acts 1:1)?”   TS at 428.  Stanley’s answer to this is lengthy, but this comment on  'participation' is key:       

The answer lies undoubtedly in their conviction that it was precisely through the prayerful assimilation of Jesus' earthly history that the Christian must be led to a personal participation in the paschal mystery. Mark states the principle thus (and he is echoed faithfully by the three other Evangelists) : "If a man decides to come after me, he must say 'no' to himself, shoulder his cross and follow me" (Mk 8:34). To be a genuine disciple of Jesus, the Christian must repeat in his own life—and expressly at the cost of his own ego, as Mark immediately adds in the passage just cited—the redeeming experiences of Jesus' own mortal existence.      

TS at 428-429. 

You can see that Stanley introduces radical thoughts here, and to grasp them fully  a person would benefit from a  careful  reading the whole TS  article. Available on line at  http://www.ts.mu.edu/content/searchArticles.html     Also, an Ignatian retreat is an excellent tool to help develop understanding of  this kind of “personal participation” in the life of Jesus.   But keep this one thing in mind as necessary background:  The  participation as just quoted, with these words of Jesus from Mk. 8:34,  calls the believer to a life in which the believer must shoulder the cross.  That means a life lived for the benefit of others, not for ourselves.  

II.               Contemplative  Steps

Contemplation of scripture is a ‘saving event.’   TS  at 434.   With the sending of the Spirit, the events from the earthly existence of Jesus become present in our lives.  TS  at 435.    Contemplation of the mysteries of Jesus’ life brings about an experiential knowledge of Jesus.  TS at  438.   Begin with the text of the  Gospel, and proceed from there:

[The] believer must begin with the sacred text of the  Gospel narrative, since that is by its inspired character the privileged  locus of the action of the Spirit of the exalted Lord Jesus. If He is now present in this world, as the Christian faith asserts, by a dynamic involvement in the contemporary historical process, He is present in a unique way in the Gospels, just as He is uniquely present in the Eucharist.     TS at 439.

How does one conduct theological reflection upon a narrative in the Gospels? The technique may be reduced to one simple, searching question: "What is the Lord Jesus attempting to say to me now through this particular text of the Gospel?" If I can plumb the depths of meaning in the words of the Evangelist to the best of my ability and with the power of my faith, I shall assimilate them to myself—or better, I shall be disposed to be assimilated or conformed to the mystery which I am contemplating.    TS at 440.

The final step in the exercise of contemplation is the religious experience, the saving event. One might best describe it by saying that the mystery must happen for me, to me.  It is thus in the OT that the sixth-century author of Deuteronomy described the event-character  of the ritual proclamation of Yahweh's covenant to his own contemporaries many centuries after Israel's great initial experience at Sinai.  It is instructive to note how the author phrases this covenant renewal: "Yahweh our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. It was not with our ancestors that Yahweh made this covenant, but with ourselves who are all here alive today" (Dt 5:2-3). Similarly, when I reflect upon the parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:30 ff.), I must consider Jesus' final words as addressed to myself in my contemporary situation:  "Go, and do likewise yourself!" (v. 37).   TS at 441.

Finally, those immersed in the words and deeds of Jesus are in the event!  This is where the healing based on membership in God’s family enters the picture.   We know that the Eucharist is an event in which we participate in the paschal mystery.   And now  God offers participation from this encounter with the word of God.

III.            Healing - Sense of  Family

For the believer who is living out the ‘participatory’  faith commitment to Jesus as just described, how does contemplation heal a person?    Scripture provides an answer by teaching that  God is our Father and believers are his adoptive children.

         

The creator of the contemplative  ‘event’  is “the Spirit of the risen Christ, who through His intimate presence in the believer makes the mystery [Gospel account]  happen for him.”   TS at 441.    St. Paul describes God’s adoption of the believer: "Those who are led by the Spirit of God are God's sons. For you have not received the mentality of slavery forcing you back again into fear; you have received the mentality proper to your adoption as sons, thanks to which we cry 'Abba' (dear Father!)."    Rom. 8:15-16 (trans. by Fr. Stanley, TS at 441).   And St. Paul also says:     "The proof that you are sons is that God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts crying 'Abba! (dear Father!)"  Gal. 4:6 (trans. by Fr. Stanley, TS at 441). 

   

Jesus teaches this special relationship between God (“Our Father who art in heaven ….”) and his children in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5-7), and many other places in the Gospels.  See also TS at 442.    The believer develops a spiritual  “sense of family.”   TS at 442.

   

When Fr. Stanley uses the word “mysteries” he means the earthly words and deeds of Jesus.   To connect the dots,  here is an  explanation of how  contemplation of the mysteries helps the believer to experience this relationship as a child of the heavenly Father:

     It remains to suggest some explanation of how our contemplation of  the mysteries of Jesus' earthly history is truly efficacious in assisting us to advance in this consciousness of our relationship as sons to the heavenly Father. The answer quite simply is that it was through these very events that Jesus Himself deepened His sense of His unique filial relationship to the Father. For it was through His experience of those events in His own earthly life that our Lord's human nature was gradually transformed by the paschal mystery, which reached its culmination in His death and resurrection. This statement may sound somewhat strange to us, until we recall Paul's startling assertion that Jesus Christ was "constituted Son of God in power by resurrection from death in accordance with His Spirit of holiness" (Rom 1:4). There is, then, a very real sense in which this sonship of the incarnate Son was fully realized only at the climax of His earthly career.   TS at 442.

   As a result of this paschal mystery, Jesus “can  ‘touch’  me in  the innermost recesses of my being, imparting to me the grace-filled capability of relating to Him in these very mysteries.”   TS at 443.  

 Contemplation of the mysteries heals the suffering believer by taking the believer into the very life of Jesus as a member of his family.    As you become part of these events  you see that you are not alone.   The suffering believer looks forward with hope to the future:

Not only that, but we ourselves who possess the first fruits of the Spirit articulate our yearning in the inmost depths of our being, as we await expectantly our adoptive sonship, the redemption of our bodies" (Rom 8:23). St. Luke  repeats the theme by means of his version of Jesus' words to the Sadducees in the controversy over the general resurrection: "They cannot die any more, since they are like angels; and they are sons of God, since they are sons of the resurrection" (Lk 20:36).

 TS at 443.   

It is the close relationship of child to Father which provides the healing - and if you have suffering which does not go away, you are not alone. Your heavenly Father is with you, now on this earth and after death as you become a child of the resurrection.

 A contemplative  study of  the Gospels gives the believer as a special member of God's family a healing touch,   a spiritual  participation in the events of Jesus’ life.  This is not all about technique and methods.  No one can come to Jesus unless the Father draws him.  Jn 6:44.   But it is also true that "one who comes to me I will in no wise cast out" (Jn 6:37).