Edmond Grace SJ offers a helpful response to a woman who wonders if joining in a ‘healing circle’ to help her deal with depression is compatible with her Catholic faith.
I have suffered from depression for a number of years. Recently I wrote to a woman who claims to have the gift of being able to send out healing. She invited me to join, twice each day, what she called a ‘healing circle’ of people around the world, simply placing my finger on a point on a page which she sent me. I have tried this and found it helpful but I also feel confused about whether or not it is right for a Catholic to be involved in such .an activity.
The first thing to be clear about in all this is your own faith in the Lord and your belief that all good comes into the world through Him. Having to endure suffering over a number of years can lead either to a weakening or a deepening of faith in Christ. What you are enduring, as with all suffering, is part of the mystery of the cross, but this certainly does not mean that it does not test the very limits of your faith. Jesus himself felt forsaken by God on the cross.
Being honest with God
That you should struggle against your illness in every way you can, is a sign of your desire to live life to the full. It means that the Spirit, the Giver of Life, is at work in your heart. Jesus himself resisted what lay in wait for him during his last days and he pleaded with the father to free him from it. When he accepted what lay ahead – your will, not mine, be done – it was far from a passive putting-up with suffering, but an acceptance that this was a way of revealing his love for all of us.
A good example of a similar attitude is someone donating a kidney. No one in their right mind would go through the pain and trauma of an operation to remove one of their kidneys just for the sake of it, but to save someone they love from death they might be genuinely happy to do so.
Why?
Suffering such as yours, however, does not serve a practical kind of purpose. Indeed, part of the pain of illness is that nagging question: Why? Why does God allow it? That is a question which can make us bitter and resentful unless we ask it directly – and even angrily – of God.
Have you spoken to God about your frustration and anger at having to endure your illness, when you want so much to be healthy and fit? It is important, for your own peace of mind and heart, that you have this openness in prayer with God. Nothing closes us off more from God’s love than the tendency always to be polite in prayer. If you look through the psalms, particularly those written in time of suffering, they are anything but ‘polite.’
A good neighbour
All this may seem far removed from your question about the healing circle, but it is relevant because if you are not clear in your own mind about your relationship with the Lord then your participation in such a circle will bring you no peace.
You wonder whether it is right for a Catholic to engage in such a circle. You do not say anything about the religious beliefs of the woman who organises the circle, but I will assume that she is neither Catholic nor Christian and that you feel troubled that your acceptance of help offered by her might in some way be a turning away from Christ.
The fact that you are anxious about this is a sign that you want to be faithful to the Lord and that your love for him is very real as, of course, is his love for you. It can be tempting, when our prayers appear to go unanswered for a long period, to give up on God and on his son, especially when we find some real solace through something which is not explicitly Christian.
Jesus himself, in his parable of the sheep and the goats, told us that our entry into eternal life depended, not on whether we said Lord, Lord, but on whether we fed the hungry, clothed the naked and cared for the sick. In offering help for those who are suffering, this woman is engaged in holy work no matter what her religious beliefs may happen to be. In short, she is a good neighbour.
At peace with the Lord
I assume that she is not demanding that you abandon your own faith and accept hers. That would be a violation of basic humanity. Imagine someone like Mother Teresa of Calcutta saying to the suffering people she met that she would only help them if they became Catholics!
The woman to whom you wrote seems to be making no claims other than to have a gift of healing and she is offering it to others without any conditions attached. You accept her neighbourly offer of help and are grateful for it. Is that not good and right? If you had a friend who was a Muslim Or Jew or a Hindu or Buddhist and if they offered to pray for you in your suffering, would you not accept? And might not their prayers be as effective as those of any Christian?
Some years ago, Pope John Paul prayed in Assisi with a number of non-Christian religious leaders. Do you think his faith in Christ was lessened by praying with these other religious leaders? Or was it deepened? Take courage from the many ways in which the Spirit of the risen Lord works in our world, but if, having said all this, you continue to find yourself disturbed, simply follow your conscience and do whatever brings you most peace.
This article first appeared in The Messenger (Feb 2000), a publication of the Irish Jesuits.
