Gift of Healing

St. Paul points out that human beings have a variety of gifts. He mentions preaching, teaching and healing among several more. He thinks healing is a special gift to some people. I think that all of us are healers.

Medicine, podiatry, chiropractic, Chinese, herbal and other kinds of healing are available to us.  We go to the experts when we break a leg or have a specific ailment. We should seek help when we are sick and also in order to prevent illness.

Our own human bodies are healing instruments.  A minor finger cut just heals all by itself. Nausea is usually self-healing and takes care of itself. Stomach cramps go away in a couple of hours. Headaches usually get better.

A patient who has had major surgery or a major illness must want to heal and recover in order to improve more quickly. The desire to get better is a healing help.

As a pastor and priest I know that I have healing power.  When I visit sick people and listen carefully to whatever the patient wants to talk about, that person may get better. If I hold their hand or give a gentle touch, often they relax and become more open perhaps to their own healing power.

Often, when it is appropriate, I anoint the patient with the holy oils and lay my hands on their forehead and pray with the., I sense they are healing.

When I lay my hands on their foreheads I will say,”In the warmth of my hands feel God’s  healing power coming to you.  In the warmth of my hands feel my healing power coming to you.  In the warmth of my hands feel your own healing power in your body and mind.”

During the AIDS epidemic of the 80s and early 90s I did this prayer with many dying men. They did not get cured, most died. But they sensed the healing power of God and my touch.

Healing is not curing.  Healing means wholeness, a sense of being all together in one’s being. The cliché “I’m getting it all together” is not all wrong. It points toward that sense of wholeness and fullness of life that is needed to be healthy.

Holiness is wholeness. Holiness and wholeness come from the same roots. Holiness is the sense that religious people have that there is a God, an ineffable being, spirit, a ground of being, being itself, a power which passes our human understanding. These are not scientific words. They are akin to what people sense in viewing art and sculpture or listening to music. Many get this sense of the holy from being in nature. Poetry, reading and sexuality elicit such mysterious realms. When people touch holiness even for a few moments they feel whole, complete, healthy, creative and fulfilled. Cultivating holiness is a healing activity. That is why people pray, meditate, attend church, sing, listen to readings, sermons, and enjoy the sacraments and community. They are among the tools to cultivate holiness and wholeness.

The gift of healing has a political and social dimension. Working toward providing health care for all helps people get medical care, medicine and disease prevention. Vast numbers of Americans have no health insurance. Many cannot afford the cost of medical insurance.  I think only government is big enough, far reaching enough and powerful enough to develop programs for full health care for all.

Waging peace instead of war is a healing process. The purpose of war is to maim and kill other people so that the will of the strongest party may survive. Seeking peace by all means is a healing process.

Here is a story of healing from war.

Healing may come through education and hard work:

 For years, Gac Filipaj mopped floors, cleaned toilets and took out trash at Columbia Universi­ty. A refugee from war-torn Yugoslavia, he eked out a living working for the Ivy League school. But a recent Sunday was payback time: The 52-year-old janitor donned a cap and gown to graduate with a bachelor’s degree with honors in the classics. As a Columbia employee, he didn’t have to pay for the classes he took.

We visit, pray for and support the veterans in hospital and all those who are ill and suffering. We send them healing love and in fact feel healing and healed ourselves.

                                                               -RWC