Conflicted — Laying on of Hands

  • Thread starter Thread starter seeker_of_God
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
seeker_of_God said:
Yes, my wife swears that I do. I do not see it, but she says it 99% of the time takes away the pain when I do. Who knows.
Click to expand...
You should look into this then. This is God’s grace that flows through you - you need not necessarily feel a thing. It is the recipient who receives the healing. It is a fairly rare gift, actually. As Bonnie says, do it out of love. You would give your wife a shoulder massage just because she’s sore, right? How much greater a gift that God’s healing grace flows through your hands!

Consider the following from the catechism (bolding mine):

800 "Charisms are to be accepted with gratitude by the person who receives them and by all members of the Church as well. They are a wonderfully rich grace for the apostolic vitality and for the holiness of the entire Body of Christ, provided they really are genuine gifts of the Holy Spirit and are used in full conformity with authentic promptings of this same Spirit, that is, in keeping with charity, the true measure of all charisms."
 
seeker_of_God said:
Yes, my wife swears that I do. I do not see it, but she says it 99% of the time takes away the pain when I do. Who knows.
Click to expand...
I believe that healing comes from the spiritual exchange, for which the physical touch is an outward act that demonstrates an inward powerful desire (i.e. prayer) for healing.

So it serves a bit of the same function as the sacraments. An outward sign of an inner spiritual process (however that goes – I was post-Baltimore). When you touch her, it creates a visible act that shows the inner spiritual connection involved in the love between you two. Kind of like a bridge is a physical manifestation that symbolizes the freedom and ability of people to cross it – but that interpretation takes a bit more contemplative thinking… because that presupposed that the bridge is actually a part of the process. And your wife seems to believe it is.

Just like the Mass involves all the senses, so that over the centuries the Mass provides experiences involves sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste. If you communicate your desire to heal her with both your heart AND your hands, then you have increased the number of “channels,” if you will, of your loving concern. So the difference between touching her while you pray and just praying, is like the difference between TV and radio. It adds another dimension to the experience with the recipient of the healing experience.

Besides, for my taste, any time my wife wants me to touch her more instead of less, I’m totally on board with the plan, unconditionally. 😃

I don’t squabble about whether touching her in this way or that looks too Protestant. 😉

Just ask any old man who claims to be ;in a long, happy marriage, how it’s done. The answer will be, “you do as you’re told.” 😛

Alan
 
I’m not comfortable with the charismatic movement either…it’s definitely not my thing, and I’m not convinced that everyone who claims to have certain “gifts” really has them. Not saying it can’t happen, but I don’t believe it happens as much as others might. Just my opinion.

Having said that…when you and your wife began your relationship…and your marriage…you were both on that page. You are the one who has changed. And she’s not asking you to do something wrong. If it were my situation, I would hope my husband would put up with his own discomfort at that type of prayer and do what I asked to please me and relieve my pain, if I believed it was helping me.
 
po18guy said:
You should look into this then. This is God’s grace that flows through you - you need not necessarily feel a thing. It is the recipient who receives the healing. It is a fairly rare gift, actually. As Bonnie says, do it out of love. You would give your wife a shoulder massage just because she’s sore, right? How much greater a gift that God’s healing grace flows through your hands!

Consider the following from the catechism (bolding mine):

800 "Charisms are to be accepted with gratitude by the person who receives them and by all members of the Church as well. They are a wonderfully rich grace for the apostolic vitality and for the holiness of the entire Body of Christ, provided they really are genuine gifts of the Holy Spirit and are used in full conformity with authentic promptings of this same Spirit, that is, in keeping with charity, the true measure of all charisms."
Click to expand...
How can I “look into this”?
 
seeker_of_God said:
Sorry, I posted a thread about this a few weeks ago, but I am still conflicted about this issue, so would like more information.

When I met my wife, we were both at a charismatic university (Franciscan University of Steubenville). I was just coming into the Catholic Church, and thought I’d try the charismatic thing. I received some “gifts of the Spirit” (I’m still not sure how I feel about this) and my now wife and I prayed over each other regularly.

But over time, I was more attracted to traditional Catholicism, and grew less comfortable with the charismatic. Now, I am nearly completely on the traditional side. This has been very difficult for her, but recently she’s been able to understand a lot more and accept my own position.

But it makes me feel bad, and her, too since she knows I’m not comfortable with it. She loves healing — it’s been almost the center pillar of her life for as long as she can remember. She’s had glaucoma since birth, and growing up, many people prayed over her eyes for healing. She strongly believes God will one day heal her miraculously, and a few people have given her “prophecies” saying as much.

So, a lot of times when she is in a lot of pain, she will ask for me to pray over her (lay hands on her). She asks less now that I am more uncomfortable with it though. Sometimes I pray for her without touching, but she prefers that I touch the spot that is in pain when I pray, and she claims that this helps the most. She says she feels something come through me when this happens. She says it always helps.

I’m extremely skeptical of this. I don’t see why a prayer said at a distance wouldn’t work just as well as one said while touching the pained area. She says that i have a “healing gift” (another thing I’m not quite sure about).

So we’re having trouble balancing this. We both feel bad: me for not feeling comfortable with it and allowing her to be in pain, and her for asking me when I’m not comfortable with it.

I’m very skeptical of the charismatic movement as a whole. I think it has some good elements, but I also think that a lot of it has been really exaggerated. Such as with healing, I think there is often too much of a focus on wanting God to heal us, and we forget to offer up our sufferings in union with Christ’s sufferings as a redemptive act. So, I’m not really sure.

Any help or advice would be appreciated. It’s a point of contention between us, so I don’t know how to resolve our differing spiritual expressions.
Click to expand...
As a former minister to the sick and dying, I found that “touch” can be very comforting. Soothing the forehead works with some people. Offering my hand and letting a person grab it is also a way of communication. Did the people I physically touched feel healing coming through my hand? Maybe yes, maybe no. But for me “healing” was secondary to the love I wanted to give them. Did I pray? When I did, it usually was within me, i.e., not vocal. Giving love was my mission. Healing, in any case, is up to God in the manner He wishes.

It is your love that you give with the touch of your hand or the sound of your voice. If something she wants is “charismatic” and you know how to respond – yielding to her request is not necessarily approval of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. It is putting aside your own preference so that you can give yourself in love to her.
.
 
seeker_of_God said:
Sorry, I posted a thread about this a few weeks ago, but I am still conflicted about this issue, so would like more information.

snip – due to limit of words in a post.

So we’re having trouble balancing this. We both feel bad: me for not feeling comfortable with it and allowing her to be in pain, and her for asking me when I’m not comfortable with it.
Click to expand...
May I address this comment from a different perspective –
“So we’re having trouble balancing this. We both feel bad: me for not feeling comfortable with it and allowing her to be in pain, and her for asking me when I’m not comfortable with it.”

Sometimes, with all the emphasis on the Charismatic Movement as this or that, we lose sight of the meaning of praying in Tongues. Sure, we know that it is a personal prayer to God, etc., etc., but do we realize that it is a personal prayer for life? Do we connect our prayers in English, Spanish, Tongues, etc., with our place in the Mystical Body of Christ? St. Paul has an amazing teaching about us in the Mystical Body of Christ, 1 Corinthians 12; 12 - 31 and continued in 1 Corinthians, chapter 13.

I am asking these strange questions simply as a way of shaking off the problem of balancing two people’s feelings about charismatic stuff so that we can go back to square one. Square one is when we love God and want to serve Him. When we are willing to follow in the footsteps of Jesus as He lovingly cared for others. As St. Paul points out, we are not clones of each other. Our prayer life is what we, as individuals, are able to do and in what way we choose to do it.

Praying in Tongues is one of the many gifts of the Holy Spirit. Often it is referred to as the “common gift” meaning that everyone can use it. Does that imply that everyone has to use it? Of course not. Read 1 Corinthians 12: 17 and 1 Corinthians 13: 1-3.

Note to St. Paul. Please excuse me if I add some thoughts to your words. No offense intended.

“Love is patient, love is kind.” 1 Corinthians 13: 4, reminds us that Jesus is patient. Jesus is kind. Jesus seeks the hurting lamb. Washing our feet on Holy Thursday, Jesus, humbly, addresses our needs. In this spirit, we are to serve others in the name of Jesus.

As a suggestion, a way to seek the balance between two different opinions is to focus on one’s place or mission in the Mystical Body of Christ and then bring love, the greatest of gifts, to the person you love with all your heart. That is the theory.

In practice, one may have to use a personal gift that has been set aside for legitimate reasons. I am not about to discuss the pros and cons of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal within the Catholic Church. What I want to do is to remind you that praying in Tongues is one of our personal ways of praying to God. It is independent of agreement with this or that of the Catholic Renewal. Its use does not depend on a commitment to this or that. One is free to use it at any time. It is a permanent gift, used or not.

Touch is also independent. One can view it as a “laying of hands” or simply the communication of love. Your wife could very well see it as a healing gift from God. Never underestimate the power of God to work through us in ways different from what we imagine. We may not consider ourselves as having the gift of healing. But is God really bound to that? Sometimes, we may have to say to God that frankly we do not agree with this or that in the Catholic Renewal. Then, we need to say – but here is my hand and here is my voice, please use them as You wish.

One of the unique things about praying in Tongues is that we have to freely yield our speech mechanism to the Holy Spirit. Here is a thought which may or may not work in your situation. When in a discussion about the current Catholic Charismatic Renewal, go back to the early days and recall committing one’s life to Our Lord. Consider that it is possible to have the same commitment and a similar giving of our voice to the Holy Spirit in English. Too often prayer is lip service. Sometimes we need to pray with our whole body, tears and all, regardless of whether it is in English or Tongues.

I can understand that you may have difficulty with praying in Tongues out loud during this period in your life… You can pray in Tongues with no sound. It is still a matter of letting your speech mechanisms relax. One may feel the tongue or lips barely moving, but there is no vocal breath. In a sense, the sounds are in one’s mind instead of the usual words. This may or may not be the same for everyone. I only speak from my own experience and yes, I did check to make sure that praying “quietly” is possible.

In any case, there is always some kind of compromise. Perhaps, “laying your hands” can be used because in any case touch can be healing in the sense that touch is comforting. Perhaps, you can ask permission to pray out loud in English because prayer is prayer and is not limited to one means.

1 Corinthians 13: 13, but the greatest of these is love.
 
Reading through this thread reminds me of when my wife and myself were involved in Charismatic Prayer. In fact, it was in the days when Fr Ralph DiOrio had just begun his hearing services at a parish in Central Massachusetts.

Various parishes had prayer groups, many in people’s homes. They would pray over people, i.e. laying on of hands and there were so many negative and serious events that took place, it moved Fr DiOrio to tell people to stop praying over people as they were doing, without having a trained priest involved.

I don’t know if he still holds this position?

I won’t get into the negative issues, but mostly they had to do with the lack of training lay people have in dealing with praying over people and understanding the issues involved.

Anyway, a priest friend of my wife and myself told us, that if we grow spiritually, we will grow out of the Charismatic Movement and into contemplative prayer. We didn’t know what he meant or his justification for saying this, but it turned out to be true.

I think the reason was that most people in the Charismatic Movement at that time, were reverts and converts to the Church. The spiritual experiences they have are real, but they’re the beginning stages of the spiritual life and as long as you’re part of it, that’s where you’ll remain. When we stop seeking signs and wonders, we’re drawn to a deeper relationship with Christ, that contemplative prayer is more conducive toward.

Charismatic Prayer has it’s place and brings many people to Jesus, who would otherwise not have found a spiritual way of life. So, don’t take what I said as a negative about Charismatic Prayer. God leads we follow, and if it’s Charismatic Prayer, so be it.

My wife and myself have been involved in contemplative prayer for over 30 years now and God has enriched our lives very much through it.

FYI, the Charismatic Prayer Groups we use to belong too, all disbanded long ago.

Jim
 
grannymh said:
May I address this comment from a different perspective –
“So we’re having trouble balancing this. We both feel bad: me for not feeling comfortable with it and allowing her to be in pain, and her for asking me when I’m not comfortable with it.”

Sometimes, with all the emphasis on the Charismatic Movement as this or that, we lose sight of the meaning of praying in Tongues. Sure, we know that it is a personal prayer to God, etc., etc., but do we realize that it is a personal prayer for life? Do we connect our prayers in English, Spanish, Tongues, etc., with our place in the Mystical Body of Christ? St. Paul has an amazing teaching about us in the Mystical Body of Christ, 1 Corinthians 12; 12 - 31 and continued in 1 Corinthians, chapter 13.

I am asking these strange questions simply as a way of shaking off the problem of balancing two people’s feelings about charismatic stuff so that we can go back to square one. Square one is when we love God and want to serve Him. When we are willing to follow in the footsteps of Jesus as He lovingly cared for others. As St. Paul points out, we are not clones of each other. Our prayer life is what we, as individuals, are able to do and in what way we choose to do it.

Praying in Tongues is one of the many gifts of the Holy Spirit. Often it is referred to as the “common gift” meaning that everyone can use it. Does that imply that everyone has to use it? Of course not. Read 1 Corinthians 12: 17 and 1 Corinthians 13: 1-3.

Note to St. Paul. Please excuse me if I add some thoughts to your words. No offense intended.

“Love is patient, love is kind.” 1 Corinthians 13: 4, reminds us that Jesus is patient. Jesus is kind. Jesus seeks the hurting lamb. Washing our feet on Holy Thursday, Jesus, humbly, addresses our needs. In this spirit, we are to serve others in the name of Jesus.

As a suggestion, a way to seek the balance between two different opinions is to focus on one’s place or mission in the Mystical Body of Christ and then bring love, the greatest of gifts, to the person you love with all your heart. That is the theory.

In practice, one may have to use a personal gift that has been set aside for legitimate reasons. I am not about to discuss the pros and cons of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal within the Catholic Church. What I want to do is to remind you that praying in Tongues is one of our personal ways of praying to God. It is independent of agreement with this or that of the Catholic Renewal. Its use does not depend on a commitment to this or that. One is free to use it at any time. It is a permanent gift, used or not.

Touch is also independent. One can view it as a “laying of hands” or simply the communication of love. Your wife could very well see it as a healing gift from God. Never underestimate the power of God to work through us in ways different from what we imagine. We may not consider ourselves as having the gift of healing. But is God really bound to that? Sometimes, we may have to say to God that frankly we do not agree with this or that in the Catholic Renewal. Then, we need to say – but here is my hand and here is my voice, please use them as You wish.

One of the unique things about praying in Tongues is that we have to freely yield our speech mechanism to the Holy Spirit. Here is a thought which may or may not work in your situation. When in a discussion about the current Catholic Charismatic Renewal, go back to the early days and recall committing one’s life to Our Lord. Consider that it is possible to have the same commitment and a similar giving of our voice to the Holy Spirit in English. Too often prayer is lip service. Sometimes we need to pray with our whole body, tears and all, regardless of whether it is in English or Tongues.

I can understand that you may have difficulty with praying in Tongues out loud during this period in your life… You can pray in Tongues with no sound. It is still a matter of letting your speech mechanisms relax. One may feel the tongue or lips barely moving, but there is no vocal breath. In a sense, the sounds are in one’s mind instead of the usual words. This may or may not be the same for everyone. I only speak from my own experience and yes, I did check to make sure that praying “quietly” is possible.

In any case, there is always some kind of compromise. Perhaps, “laying your hands” can be used because in any case touch can be healing in the sense that touch is comforting. Perhaps, you can ask permission to pray out loud in English because prayer is prayer and is not limited to one means.

1 Corinthians 13: 13, but the greatest of these is love.
Click to expand...
I appreciate your post, but I have no interest in praying in tongues. I’e done it, but it simply doesn’t match my spirituality, and I feel very uncomfortable with it. I agree with Jim above who says that as you grow deeper, you naturally move toward contemplative prayer.
 
JimR-OCDS said:
Reading through this thread reminds me of when my wife and myself were involved in Charismatic Prayer. In fact, it was in the days when Fr Ralph DiOrio had just begun his hearing services at a parish in Central Massachusetts.

Various parishes had prayer groups, many in people’s homes. They would pray over people, i.e. laying on of hands and there were so many negative and serious events that took place, it moved Fr DiOrio to tell people to stop praying over people as they were doing, without having a trained priest involved.

I don’t know if he still holds this position?

I won’t get into the negative issues, but mostly they had to do with the lack of training lay people have in dealing with praying over people and understanding the issues involved.

Anyway, a priest friend of my wife and myself told us, that if we grow spiritually, we will grow out of the Charismatic Movement and into contemplative prayer. We didn’t know what he meant or his justification for saying this, but it turned out to be true.

I think the reason was that most people in the Charismatic Movement at that time, were reverts and converts to the Church. The spiritual experiences they have are real, but they’re the beginning stages of the spiritual life and as long as you’re part of it, that’s where you’ll remain. When we stop seeking signs and wonders, we’re drawn to a deeper relationship with Christ, that contemplative prayer is more conducive toward.

Charismatic Prayer has it’s place and brings many people to Jesus, who would otherwise not have found a spiritual way of life. So, don’t take what I said as a negative about Charismatic Prayer. God leads we follow, and if it’s Charismatic Prayer, so be it.

My wife and myself have been involved in contemplative prayer for over 30 years now and God has enriched our lives very much through it.

FYI, the Charismatic Prayer Groups we use to belong too, all disbanded long ago.

Jim
Click to expand...
Thanks for your account, Jim. My wife loves Fr. DiOrio and has been prayed oer by him a couple of times at his Masses. It makes sense what you say, as she told me that he has a policy that when he’s praying over someone, no one else is allowed to touch that person besides him. Interesting story, and I agree with what you say about contemplative prayer. I’m really trying to grow deeper in this form of prayer, and now two people have mentioned it in this thread. 🙂
 
seeker_of_God said:
Thanks for your account, Jim. My wife loves Fr. DiOrio and has been prayed oer by him a couple of times at his Masses. It makes sense what you say, as she told me that he has a policy that when he’s praying over someone, no one else is allowed to touch that person besides him. Interesting story, and I agree with what you say about contemplative prayer. I’m really trying to grow deeper in this form of prayer, and now two people have mentioned it in this thread. 🙂
Click to expand...
My only advice is, go gently with your wife and don’t push any agenda.

I began contemplative prayer while my wife as still attending prayer groups. She still needed that connection and God was still feeding her there.

However, she slowly started growing toward contemplative prayer until she was with me, and we ended up both becoming Secular Order Carmelite’s,

Let God lead her, while you follow where God wants you. Eventually, God will lead her to where you are.

Jim
 
What’s the big deal? Touching the wife while praying? Some people hold hands during the Our Father. Why can’t a person place their palms on another person? It’s like we’re so stiff and paranoid because … ummm … because why?

If she’s expecting you to spout gibberish to pretend to be speaking, that’s where I’d draw the line because I don’t think I could do it with a straight face.

Alan
 
JimR-OCDS said:
Reading through this thread reminds me of when my wife and myself were involved in Charismatic Prayer. In fact, it was in the days when Fr Ralph DiOrio had just begun his hearing services at a parish in Central Massachusetts.

Various parishes had prayer groups, many in people’s homes. They would pray over people, i.e. laying on of hands and there were so many negative and serious events that took place, it moved Fr DiOrio to tell people to stop praying over people as they were doing, without having a trained priest involved.

I don’t know if he still holds this position?

I won’t get into the negative issues, but mostly they had to do with the lack of training lay people have in dealing with praying over people and understanding the issues involved.
Click to expand...
For a long time, I had a sheet in my bible which explained some of the difficulties involved with “praying over people”. I am not concerned that it is gone, because I know that the classical gift (listed by St. Paul in 1 Corinthians, chapter 12) of healing(spiritual, psychological, physical) is not to be mine. Thus, I understand what Fr. DiOrio was talking about. His advice is timeless.

Today, lay people are being trained in the Gift of Healing provided that it has been discerned that the individual is called to seek this gift. This is a link to the official website of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. nsc-chariscenter.org/ However, my suggestion is to check with either the Renewal Liaison to one’s diocese or check with the diocesan Vicar for spiritual matters when it comes to the unique Gift of Healing. Obviously, if there is a knowledgeable priest nearby, check with him first. If a “healer” is coming to one’s parish, it is important to check the Diocesan list of approved speakers.

The reason for the above information is to emphasize that the classical Gift of Healing is different from praying for someone in a formal manner. For example, at some charismatic functions, there are prayer teams who pray “over people” in the sense that they are offering prayers for an individual in their presence. Often they will place a hand on the person’s shoulder. Sometimes the prayer team will pray in Tongues only or sometimes there is prayer in both English and Tongues. When there was an active Catholic Charismatic Renewal prayer group in my area, we would often ask each other to pray for such and such a reason. Simply because of who I am, when someone would stop me on the street and ask for prayers, I would respond “Let’s pray right now” and I would offer my hand. I always enjoyed the “look” in the person’s eyes.

Am I explaining, in an understandable way, the difference between “praying over someone” and “praying over someone”? 🙂

When it comes to the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, terminology becomes confusing. All of us are called to pray where two or more are gathered and also within the silence of our room. Common sense is in order.
 
seeker_of_God said:
I appreciate your post, but I have no interest in praying in tongues. I’e done it, but it simply doesn’t match my spirituality, and I feel very uncomfortable with it. I agree with Jim above who says that as you grow deeper, you naturally move toward contemplative prayer.
Click to expand...
Then pray in English with all your heart. 👍

As for contemplative prayer, I am glad to know that there are CAF participants who pray this rich form of prayer. Prayer is not either one way or the other.
 
Even when I was Eastern Orthodox, I never heard that it was wrong to touch the person you are praying for. My parents put their hands on me when they pray for me. The only sin would be to try to confer the Sacrament of Annointing the Sick. Anyone can pray for anyone and touch those that they are praying for. Example: Would it be sinful for Mother Teresa to touch you while praying for you? I personally would like a holy person to touch me lay or ordained.
 
Zekariya said:
Even when I was Eastern Orthodox, I never heard that it was wrong to touch the person you are praying for. My parents put their hands on me when they pray for me. The only sin would be to try to confer the Sacrament of Annointing the Sick. Anyone can pray for anyone and touch those that they are praying for. Example: Would it be sinful for Mother Teresa to touch you while praying for you? I personally would like a holy person to touch me lay or ordained.
Click to expand...
My piano teacher’s daughter went to Africa during the world hunger efforts about 25-30 years ago (btw the donated food never got to the actual hungry people) and ended up meeting Mother Teresa. She said she talked to Mother Teresa for an hour across a table, and MT held her hand across the table, the whole time. :cool:

Alan
 
AlanFromWichita said:
My piano teacher’s daughter went to Africa during the world hunger efforts about 25-30 years ago (btw the donated food never got to the actual hungry people) and ended up meeting Mother Teresa. She said she talked to Mother Teresa for an hour across a table, and MT held her hand across the table, the whole time. :cool:

Alan
Click to expand...
Cool! :cool: I went to confession one with Fr Leo Maasburg who was close to Mother Teresa. 🙂
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top