The decision to seek emotional healing is always a victory. As a Christian, the desire for healing takes on a further dimension: we long to become the person we were created to be. We long to meet the person within whose “full stature in Christ” has been stunted due to wounds, trauma, or lack of confidence.
St. Catherine of Siena once said, “become who you were created to be, and you will set the whole world on fire.” It would seem that a great fire is being kindled.
Material poverty was the daily bread for early Catholic missionaries to North America. Now, most North American “missionaries” deal primarily with emotional poverty; those who are isolated, lonely, or disenfranchised. This is the new frontier for the Catholic missionaries in the affluent parts of the world.
The Church is undergoing a great struggle to reassert her identity and mission amid an unbelieving and hurting world. She is bleeding profusely. Many of the wounds are self-inflicted. Despite the mess (and the in-house causes of the mess), many of her members are responding to the gaping wounds of the Body of Christ. The John Paul II Healing Center is one such ministry that is in the business of binding up wounds.
The Center exists to “promote and inspire transformation in the heart of the Church,” by healing and equipping God’s people for the New Evangelization. Based in Florida, the Centre was founded by internationally renowned Catholic speaker, therapist, and author Dr. Bob Schuchts. Sister Miriam James Heidland is also one of the Centre’s celebrated speakers and is also well known for her top-rated Catholic podcast Abiding Together. A quick YouTube search for Sister Miriam James Heidland will help you understand her Catholic superstardom.
Through her own experience as a survivor of sexual abuse, Sister Miriam has come to the catchphrase “You are not a problem to be fixed. You are a person to be loved.” How often we approach others (and ourselves) as problems to be dealt with! We tell ourselves to smarten up and to keep going. We bury our pain and return to the same tired coping strategies which often leave us feeling depressed and isolated from others.
When we have been hurt, the ensuing isolation, depression, and loneliness make it difficult to imagine another way to live. Often such wounds are inflicted by physically or emotionally absent parents, an unstable home life, abuse, or the absence of a father’s blessing, which the Jewish people believed was indispensable for fulfillment and contentment in one’s life mission.
But it only takes one step to change direction.
The whole reason we seek to be healed is to bring healing with us wherever we go. If we choose to remain maimed by our pain, there are many negative consequences to our choice.
Many of us are so accustomed to our wounds and triggers that we normalize and anesthetize these areas instead of seeking to heal and restore them to health. As a result we are not only ineffective in our spiritual work, but we often end up causing harm to others.
Imagine a parish community in which emotional and spiritual healing were part of everyday parish life. Imagine a “listening ministry” where, instead of spending hundreds of dollars and waiting for months for therapists, people could come and open their hearts to a loving, healing brother or sister in their Christian community. They could pray together and journey together.
This is the next frontier in the Church’s encounter with the culture.
In our culture, euthanasia for any reason is coming not only to be accepted but to be seen as heroic. The mental health crisis among teens and young adults is staggering. We need mature Christians who are courageous enough to acknowledge their own shortcomings and wounds and in humility become channels of healing for others.
We don’t have to kick off official ministries in our parishes to start this great work of healing. By being open to healing ourselves, we avail ourselves to the Holy Spirit’s purified movements in our souls.
By being willing to visit painful areas in our hearts with Jesus, we can more readily listen and respond to the pain and poverty around us. Our empathy and authenticity will draw others back to God. One encounter at a time, we will experience a fresh outpouring of grace and zeal in the Church beginning in our own hearts. We have the makings of a strong revival if we are first willing to spend some time being vulnerable with the Divine Physician. May we rise from our collective graves with you, Lord! May zeal for your house consume us!
