Does this make me a heretic?

  • Thread starter Thread starter JesusLover12
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
J

JesusLover12

Guest
Hello all!

I recently attended a three week interdenominational program about ministering in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. It was really interesting and afterwards I witnessed some miraculous hearings when I prayed for people doing some things I learned there (e.g. Praying “Knee be healed in Jesus Name”). I had also seen similar prayer styles at a FOCUS conference, so I thought it was kosher.

Some Catholic friends have suggested that doing so is very bad news because it’s not Catholic, there are false prophets, I need to be healed, I’ve opened up a potential window to the demonic, etc. I was under the impression from CCC 819, and pope Francis’ visit to a pentecostal church and entertaining the evangelical delegation that praying and collaborating with other Christians was something positive. I am loyal to the pope, love the Eucharist, Confession, and embrace every paragraph in the catechism…but I’m wondering if I should also avoid all talks, worship, activities, and other programming not run by Catholics?

Pete
 
You don’t have to avoid everything not run by Catholics. Praying and studying with other Christians is fine. If you’re replacing Sunday Mass with their service that would be an issue, but it doesn’t sound like that’s what you’re doing.

The only thing I would worry about by going to these meetings is if they are teaching things contrary to the faith that you might be unconsciously absorbing. There’s nothing wrong with the Charismatic Movement itself. Like you said, there are even Catholic versions of it. But the problem is a lot of non-Catholic groups have some pretty iffy theology that a Catholic can’t really embrace.

So that’s the one thing I would watch out for if I were you. If you really want to be involved in this or other similar groups, just make sure you’re grounded in your own faith first.

I don’t know enough about the particular method you learned to say whether or not a Catholic can or can’t use it. I would ask a priest on that one. My gut says it’s probably ok but I don’t know for sure.

But bottom line is no, you’re not a heretic. A heretic is someone who obstinately denies a truth of the Faith, which you’re not doing. So don’t worry about that. 🙂
 
Thanks Robyn! I really appreciate you taking the time to help out a stranger. I’m welcoming all (name removed by moderator)ut on this and will touch base with a priest as well. Anyone else have any perspective on this?
 
JesusLover12 said:
Hello all!

I recently attended a three week interdenominational program about ministering in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. It was really interesting and afterwards I witnessed some miraculous hearings when I prayed for people doing some things I learned there (e.g. Praying “Knee be healed in Jesus Name”). I had also seen similar prayer styles at a FOCUS conference, so I thought it was kosher.

Some Catholic friends have suggested that doing so is very bad news because it’s not Catholic, there are false prophets, I need to be healed, I’ve opened up a potential window to the demonic, etc. I was under the impression from CCC 819, and pope Francis’ visit to a pentecostal church and entertaining the evangelical delegation that praying and collaborating with other Christians was something positive. **I am loyal to the pope, love the Eucharist, Confession, and embrace every paragraph in the catechism…**but I’m wondering if I should also avoid all talks, worship, activities, and other programming not run by Catholics?

Pete
Click to expand...
Just a very technical point here but since it was in the thread title I thought I might add this. By your statement boldened above you would not be a “heretic” as one of the criteria for such is obstinate refusal to renounce error.
 
Well…possibly.

The Church doesn’t like to suppress anything that might possibly be legitimate, and so the Church allows movements with problems to go on, sometimes for decades.

What ‘problems’? Well, in the Church we have sources of grace, called the sacraments…we even specifically have a sacrament for healing. It’s described in the book of James in the New Testament:
Is anyone among you sick?* He should summon the presbyters of the church, and they should pray over him and anoint [him] with oil in the name of the Lord,j
15
and the prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed any sins, he will be forgiven.
Click to expand...
…but in your description, which is common in charismatic settings, this command is not followed. Instead of the presbyter administering the sacrament of annointing, Tom, Dick, or Harry prays a particular prayer.

Now, you may be saying “But it works!”

I have been around this for a long, long time. I have investigated the miraculous cures in our local healing Mass. People are NEVER healed of medically identifiable conditions in any unambiguous way. It’s always something vague. One man was healed from ‘cold legs’. Another received remission of his leukemia, although the next week an aggressive lung tumor was diagnosed in him…etc.

I’d examine this, and determine if you wish to be involved in a movement which in which lay people offer a competing healing service (which has no power to forgive sins) against the sacraments of the Church, which do forgive sins.

Your choice.
 
modofac,

Thanks for your perspectives. Hasn’t the Church also suppressed things proactively, as in the case of Padre Pio for a time?

As per your healing observation, I would probably have the same perspective if I saw those results. Over on my end, I had a women with dramatic swelling in her legs due to Minimal Change Disease shrink massively as she lost 14 pounds of water weight in the immediate days afterwards. She also had a medical test confirm that the protein levels in her urine had returned to normal. Another woman had a cyst on her ovary shrink substantially in size. On another occasion, the Lord led me to a woman in the back pews at Mass who was suffering from suicidal depression. After praying for her, she confirmed the next day that the depression had indeed lifted and was nowhere to be seen. I could go on and on, but the point is that full-on confirmed healing seems to be going down.
 
Well, if that’s the case, I would suggest that the Catholic Church, as well as scripture, teach falsehoods.

Or, as is more likely the case, these are just the sort of medical events doctors see every day (wife is a doctor, she sees them every day) which do not rise to the level of impossibility or even serious unlikely-ness. They are just events that, retroactively, we can credit to a particular prayer or meeting.

In the last year, I have been healed of a really bad throat infection, a backache, an ear infection, and a sore knee. It is pure Hell getting old. At any given time this year, I’ve had some malady that was coming or going. A few I got pills for, some I just let take their course.

If I was a charismatic meeting-goer, it would be super-easy to say one of these healings was a miracle…in retrospect.

Anyway, that’s not the best reason to question the Charismatic movement. The best reason is that a Catholic knows, dogmatically, that the Church is the first, best, regular means of salvation. If someone claims the Holy Spirit came into them and spoke through them and used them for some miracle, but He didn’t bother to tell them the most important truth about Catholicism, well, I think smart money is on Him not being the one doing the talking. And that describes the larger, interdenominational charismatic movement pretty much to a T.

Play with it at your own risk. God Bless.
 
Dear Pete, you may find this Vatican document helpful

CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH
September 14, 2000, the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger and Tarcisio Bertone

INSTRUCTION ON PRAYERS FOR HEALING

itmonline.org/bodytheology/prayerinstructions.htm

I understand your sincerity, and also that God uses various paths to lead us where He wishes us to go, and this He may have done if He wished and there had not been another available possibility in your environment.

I think we do need to be mindful of the experience of good men like Luther who wished to bring about some reforms, but as he continued, he did come to abandon the faith-family to which he belonged, something that would have shocked his younger self. You may think it is not possible, but sometimes when we are older we do find we have lost some of our important connection to our faith-family. A divergent spirituality can enter our lives and thoughts even with our failing to notice until it is too late.

This may not ever occur, but perhaps best not to expose ourselves to the possibility. Life can be very humbling even to the most devout and rooted of us.

There is no definite way to determine how much a healing is due to to remarkable healing power of hope and faith. Much happens in our minds and bodies that is below consciousness.

Why is my sister who almost died several time with her illness now in better health shape than she has been for many years. Medically there is no cure, it’s a life /genetic condition. Is the wonderful health that she now enjoys due to the love that flows through her as she works in grief counseling and support in her parish, and the loving upbringing she has given to two children whom she and her husband adopted, handicapped children abandoned as hopeless by their own parents, these children in addition to her healthy natural children? God’s love, God’s gentleness and compassion in her have acted within her to make her the most extraordinary woman who barely needs any medication upon which her life formerly depended.

My brother-in-law, who has no feeling in his hands, none in his body above the upper chest due to an accident, yet his bright trusting, hopeful spirit his trust in God and prayer, and he can stand unaided, walk with a walker, feed himself, take care of himself in many ways though the plumbing isn’t under his conscious control. Hard work, but also prayer and faith. He doesn’t know how he walks, he just simply does so. If you are familiar with the research you will know that we can even alter aspects of our genetics and pass that alteration on to our children. We are extraordinarily complex, and our attitudes and hidden working can cooperate to promote healing (or to make and keep us ill) Healing isn’t simply either a medical or a spiritual event or process, it is a cooperation of expectation, faith, and hope, with God’s healing. Both aspects are of God as the complex nature of our immune systems and brains is greater and more functional than we realize.

Stress, distress, hurting for others, can impact in a reverse manner on our bodies and minds, on our immune systems. Even I, a couple of years ago when my son was going through a prolonged dreadful experience, my autoimmune level doubled to the extent that my doctor was saying Lupus" “Connective tissue disease” (When my children suffer I hurt so much for them) Not only Mary has the mother’s sword of suffering in her heart when the Child suffers, so do we other mothers. The danger is past, my son has peace and happiness in his life…subsequently my autoimmune levels had returned to their normal level. Because others prayed? Perhaps some did, but because joy and returned hope bring healing from within

Yes there are miraculous healings, but the miracle is also written into our human nature by God, as His intrinsic gift, when we offer our trust, humility, hope and thankfulness. But we are not always healed, sometimes illness is part of our journey and our teaching from God and sometimes it’s part of our sacrifice to Him, which is something that some evangelical Christians forget. You may have a God given gift of facilitating His gift, but whether or not ther is apparent or real healing, the prayer will never be wasted, for the soul if not the body of the person. Sr Briege McKenna, a Poor Clare nun, cured of crippling arthritis as a young Sister, and later sharing her own gift off healing, pondered why God sometimes heals, sometimes there is no apparent result. I’ve had her book “Miracles do happen” since she came out to my country years ago.She focuses on the healing that is possible through the Eucharist…we need to to be struck with the lightning of really seeing what an extraordinary thing the Eucharist really is. May God grant this to us all.

It is indeed possible that you have the gift of healing, that is, of cooperating with God’s gift of healing. I’ve met nuns and priests with the gifts of healing. I did at one time go to some Catholic Charismatic meetings. I did not become caught up in any hype as I have a practical mind and tend to resist being overcome by what can seem to be an overly emotional and even self-deluded response that some people may appear to have, but do happen to have a charism myself. It’s just quietly woven into my life. It was a surprise but it has its purpose.

God bless you Pete. May He lead you and protect you according to His loving will for you, and for others through you.

Kind wishes and a prayer, Trishie
 
You have a good patron, Pete. St Peter, an enthusiasitc man, sometimes inspired, sometimes mistaken, sometimes fearful, sometimes courageous, humble in sin, and despite his terrible sin of denying and abandoning Jesus in the worst time of His life as man, he had the trust to expect Jesus to believe that even so, he loved Him. And despite Peter’s failure, Jesus still entrusted to him the mission He had already promised him before his betrayal. Wonderful!
 
I’m not sure I could add much to this discussion, but I pray for people and I think we all do. At mass we have the prayer for the sick. We are asking God to heal these people according to His will. Sometimes we see these people get better and we believe it must have been all the prayers to God. Other times they do not get better (that we can see) and we have to accept it that God is doing things according to His will. It’s not that He doesn’t love us or that person, but that cross has been placed in that person’s life for a reason, and we will never know what that is.

So do I think praying for someone to be healthy is wrong? No. Just remember that God has the healing power and not you. All good things come from God.

God bless,

John
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top