Forgiveness and Healing
By Father Brendan Williams
Mike Shanahan was a warm and jovial Irishman and a fellow Kerryman. Our com-mon heritage gave us a natural bond and offered much familiar ground for warm and lively exchanges when we got together. However, our deepest and most memorable encounters always centered on the Lord and the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. Mike had been baptized in the Holy Spirit back in the late-sixties and had been active in renewal ever since. His warmth and wit, anointed by the loving flame of the Spirit, were infectious and brought a spirit of joy, love and genuine Christian friendship wherever Mike went.
I feel very fortunate indeed to have had the privilege of sharing his faith and friendship and of being enriched by the wisdom that flowed from his lived experience of the Gospel. One lesson he taught me I will never forget.
I was on one occasion a dinner guest at his home and, as was always the case with Mike and his wife Mary, the conversation turned to spiritual matters. He shared his experiences in Charismatic Renewal and how the Holy Spirit had changed his life. He had come to know many of the well-known leaders and recalled his inner journey that brought about deep spiritual transformation and many healings. One affliction, however, he could not discard, was a heavy addiction to nicotine. Despite numerous prayer sessions with some of the most gifted people in the healing ministry, he was still trapped in a three-pack-a-day habit. While he experienced God's love in so many areas of his life, he was at a loss to explain why his Lord seemed to ignore his pleas in this one area of his life.
One night he and some friends were in prayer and suddenly one of the participants received a word of knowledge. He saw Mike as a youth in Ireland deeply hurt by a teacher. Then it all came back. Mike was a student at the Christian Brothers High School in Tralee. At that time smoking was strictly prohibited on the campus but that did not deter some students from taking chances. One day during lunch period as Mike was sneaking a cigarette in the handball alley, one of the Brothers came upon him and gave him a severe beating and then proceeded to humiliate him before the class. Mike developed an intense hatred for that Brother for the remainder of his high school years and never forgave him.
As the years past he forgot about the incident and went on with his life. However, forgetting did not delete the memory - it simply buried it alive . The buried memory now was transformed into an addiction to the very substance that occasioned the altercation in the first place - nicotine. As this memory was awakened before his eyes, Mike got on his knees and forgave that Brother. He repented his sin of hatred and resentment and begged God to forgive him. Then the group gathered around him and prayed for an infilling of the Holy Spirit to cleanse the infection of that memory and break the shackles of addiction that resulted from it. Immediately Mike felt the healing balm of our Father's unconditional love. He was set free: he had smoked his last cigarette.
I was deeply moved by this sharing. Somehow my eyes were being opened to a new level of Gospel wisdom and power. Through my human vision I had seen much of the Sermon on the Mount as an obstacle course that was meant to test the fiber of Christians and cause religion's version of natural selection - the survival of virtue's fittest. Now I began to realize that forgiveness was not part of an endurance test but a necessary means to health - spiritual, emotional and oftentimes even physical. In all of my studies of psychology I had never seen forgiveness promoted as an essential in the stages of therapy. It seems that the wisdom of the Gospel eluded Freud and his followers too. It is not surprising then that there is so little real healing in secular models of therapy. As my former professor of Basic Psychiatry warned us when I began Graduate studies in 1969, psychotherapy's goal was not to heal; its aim was to help patients cope and become functional in society. The goal of coun-seling was 9tto aid normal people to achieve higher level adjustment skills which manifest themselves in increased maturity, independence, personal integration, and responsibility" Robinson 333. "Higher level adjustment skills" undoubtedly add to the healing process but cannot take the place of that bedrock sense of wholeness that comes from the freeing and empowering love of Christ.
My early efforts at counseling were in all honesty a failure. Not only was very little visible good being done for my clients, but I was becoming emotionally exhausted in vain attempts to put into practice what I had learned. Three years later in 1975 my whole outlook and ministry would change after I experienced baptism in the Holy Spirit. Catholic Charismatic Renewal opened up to me a new world of spiritual experiences that included a healing ministry unlike anything I had witnessed in my studies. The writings of Kathryn Kuhlman, Agnes Sanford, Francis MacNutt and others; testimonies I was hearing at conferences and prayer groups; even the reform of the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick (1974), all indicated that the healing ministry of Christ was coming back in full force through His Church. This was a source of great joy to me that Jesus' love could be touched in such a concrete way as in the witness of a healing. Francis MacNutt reflected my inner feeling in his well-known book, Healing "I believe that the ministry of healing is what lifts the central doctrine of redemption and salvation from the realm of the abstract into the reality of men's lives. One of the greatest losses the Church has suffered has been her full heritage of healing power"(p.33). Now this "full heritage" was becoming again the ordinary heritage of the Baptized. As people were being baptized in the Holy Spirit they were experiencing an inner transformation that made Jesus real, alive and present. The Word of God was taking on a new force and meaning that was truly life-giving and enriching. Jesus' powers to save and heal were now seen as flowing from the same source - the fruits of His Cross and Resurrection, now bestowed as gifts to the Church to be shared and celebrated.
While this was exciting good news for me, it also brought with it a
certain inner panic. It meant that I would have to adjust my approach
to ministry and take a step out in faith. As a priest I was accustomed
to praying for people. This was indeed a good and beneficial practice,
but it allowed me to remain distant and in control. If nothing happened
we could always chalk it up to God's will and go on with life. Interiorly
now I was being moved to pray with people. This was a scary move. I
was no longer removed and in control. When I prayed with someone, I
was called to surrender: the Holy Spirit was in charge. I can still
remember those first sessions of uncertainty and helplessness, waiting
on the Holy Spirit to do His work. Yet, reaching this point of helplessness
was the necessary step in faith to connect with the awesome power of
God. Almost immediately things began to happen. Not only were people
experiencing the Lord's healing love, I myself was being touched by
it. Gone was that emotional fatigue that was so familiar in my counseling
days; I was now being refreshed and renewed when I surrendered in prayer
to the healing power of Christ. The words of Proverbs were indeed being
fulfilled for me: "He who confers benefits will be amply enriched
and he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed
(11:25).
Healings did not come in any one pattern. The Holy Spirit moves as
He wills. However, as I always experienced His assuring presence when
I prayed, my anxieties soon diminished and my trust in His gentle, healing
love, grew. Due to the nature of the illness, the client's disposition,
and a number of other intangibles, progress
varied. The initial prayer would open us up to the love of Christ as
revealed by the Holy Spirit. As the person began to experience this
love, the way was being gently paved to openness and trust. This would
lead to the courage needed to face one's sins and the deep-rooted hurts
of life. Opening up this inner pain is a form of emotional surgery that
unravels intense feelings of rage, anger, rejection, self-hatred, self-destruction,
guilt, shame, bitterness, and a host of other related painful feelings.
At this point we would "bathe" these wounds in the Wounds
of Christ so that the client would find courage and strength to go on
to the next step which is forgiveness. I would remind them that it was
when Jesus hung from the Cross in His excruciating pain that He forgave
His enemies. It was here that he gave us the eminent example of practicing
what He preached: "You have hear that it was said, "You shall
love your neighbor and hate your enemy." But I say to you, love
your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be
children of your heavenly Father, for he makes the sun rise on the bad
and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and unjust" (Mtt.
5:43-45).
We must remember that this kind of forgiveness does not come naturally; it is not a product of the flesh. It is through the power of the Holy Spirit that we can let our enemies go and surrender them to the mercy of Christ. This act of forgiveness must be an act of the will that flows from the depths of the heart precisely as the person is experiencing again the uncovered pain and hurt. To ensure that it is an act of the heart and not just a mental exercise, I will take them through a special faith imagination exercise. We put ourselves in the presence of Christ, Who has promised to be with those who gather in His name (Mtt. 18:20). We visualize Jesus knocking at the door of our heart and calling us by name. We go to the door, open it and invite Jesus. We allow Him to embrace and love us and breathe on us the Holy Spirit so that the healing process can get under way. We then ask Jesus to take us on a journey back in life to the hurtful memories that He wants to heal in the person's life. When we are brought face to face with the person who hurt us, we allow the inner pain to resurface once again.
I explain that when we are hurt it is as if we are bound in chains. However, bound at the other end of the chains is the person who hurt us: they are victims of their own aggression. The process of forgiveness then is to have the victim visualize these chains of bondage. Since the power to forgive is a gift of the Holy Spirit, we visualize it in the form of a golden key that Jesus gives us. The act of forgiveness then is acted out as the patient goes to the aggressor, unlocks the padlocks, removes the chains and surrenders him to the merciful embrace of Jesus. The patient now begins to realize that he too is freed from the chains. We will then ask Jesus to fill all the inner wounds with His healing love. What follows is an exhilarating feeling of freedom and well being. The painful memories are transformed into moments of loving, divine intervention where Jesus entered and set the captives free (Lk. 4:18-19).
After all my years of professional counseling, I have never felt the peace or total renewal as I felt when I left your office. Since I've seen you my attitude has completely changed and I feel that the overbearing feelings of depression, anxiety and guilt only remain in the slightest bit. It still remains a mystery to me how one hour can change my way of life and my thinking, but I guess the mystery of God is hard for any of us to understand as earthly beings. We just have to believe..."
"The day after the first day of the rest of my life!...After the experience I had with you yesterday, it is hard to know where it has left you, but I want you to know, this experience has really nourished my inner soul. Thank you for being a brother in Christ Jesus to me, and for assisting me to receive a healing in faith which is bringing me to a new level of knowing the Lord and walking one with the Lord. It was the most difficult task for me to expose and disclose some of my very personal issues, but with the Lord's love it became very easy. Praise God from whom all blessings flow!!"
The healing steps we followed in these instances are valid in every situation. Take the situation of a woman who has had an abortion. The first step is that she confesses her sin in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. She forgives all those who hurt her in life. Through Jesus, she asks her aborted child for forgiveness. She receives back her mother relationship that she discarded in the intention and act of abortion. She acknowledges that her child is a person by giving a name that is applicable to either gender (in many cases in which I have ministered, the mothers seemed to have known whether it was a boy or girl). In prayer we surrender the child to Jesus and ask Him to baptize the child in His Precious Blood and receive him or her as one of the Holy Innocents. The final stage in healing the effects of abortion is often the most difficult: self-forgiveness. Again, so that it becomes an event of the heart, I ask her to visualize herself at the time of the abortion and to go to that young woman, with the compassion of Jesus, and unlock the chains of bondage. As she completes these stages, it is then that the merciful love of Christ begins to flow in this mother's heart that was filled with guilt, shame, regret and remorse.
The end results of healing are expressed in joy, deep inner freedom, a sense of well being; a new outlook on life; a new vision of self, others, and especially, God. As Christ's healing touch and the warm glow of the Holy Spirit bring forth a new inner life, we then pray for an empowerment to ministry. Like Peter's mother-in-law (Mtt. 8:14), we are healed not just for our own well being. We are now called to share this unconditional love and mercy of Christ with others. In fact, it seems to be part of God's plan to use the wounded and broken to be among His most pow-erful ministers of healing and evangelization once they have experienced His saving and healing touch.
Before I finish let me bring you up to date lest my friends in the field of Clinical Psychology become angered at me. It seems that this august body has been playing catch-up with Gospel values, in its diverse fields, as is evident for the theme of a forthcoming conference entitled: "National Conference on Forgiveness in Clinical Practice". All we can say is: Thank God the word is out!
Now here is an ironic twist. Theologian, Morton Kelsey, has written a history of healing in the Church and claims that today medical doctors and psychiatrists are more open to healing prayer than clergy. He states: "Except for Pentecostal semi-naries, we have found that, of the hundreds of Christian seminaries, less than half a dozen offer any courses in the religious dimensions of healing. In most seminaries the subject is dismissed with scorn." (Psychology, Medicine and Christian Healing:p.3)
Our Holy Father has asked us to make this a special year of self-examination and conversion. This is a time of repentance, a time of forgiving and asking for forgive-ness. It is a time of facing our sinfulness and dealing with our hurts. It is a year of openness and surrender to the Holy Spirit, Who will prepare us to encounter more deeply the three Persons of the Holy Trinity over the next three years. With Mary as our model of anticipation, let us prepare for the new millennium with expectant joy and hope, and the assurance of faith that when we embrace the Gospel we are entering into the highest quality of life possible on this earth, which is only a shadow of the life of heaven.
This article may be reprinted for personal use.