Gift of Healing

[dsimo]

Last nite at a Charasmatic prayer meeting something happened that I never experienced in my life. An indvidual who was struggling with back and leg problems for years was told by someone I quote.
" You are healed in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ"
Is this type of behavior sanctioned by the Catholic Church. The person wasn’t healed. Please explain if this type of behavior is acceptable. There have been know recorded healings by the person that declared the healing.

thank you
Dominick

 

[threej_lc]

It is unfortunate that the lady wasn’t healed. A few points to keep in mind.

1. Christ willed for healings to occur in his church. Such healings still occur today.
2. Certain people have the gift of healing when praying over eachother.
3. Most people don’t know if they have the gift of healing/how to use it until they’ve tried it a few times, which invariably, comes with failure.

No clue if this person was justified in saying what they did. Take it at your own discernment. We’re human, God works through us, but we’re not always right. Some are closer to God in their ministry then others. Sometimes we, in attempting to be obediant in the direction of the spirit, judge incorrectly. Alternately, perhaps the speaker was correct, it just wasn’t immediate?

It all comes down to making your own discernment. The Holy Spirit enlightens us as to whether an individual word or event truly was of God’s will and giving glory to Him, or an act of man seeking man’s own glory.

Josh

 

[dsimo]

Josh

Thank you for enligtening me. However I still have a problem with the gift of healing. For example, it has been recorded that many healings were performed by Padre Pio and witnessed. How can one assume that they have the gift of healing. Doesn’t one have to be in the state of grace and go to confession regularly. I do believe in healings, but our Catholic Church has a procedure to document such healings to obtain sainthood. And is it possible that healings come from the person that needs the healing by prayer and fasting not from someone who just shouts out “That you are healed by the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Can this also be from Satan?

Dominick

 

[Joysong]

Dear Dsimo,

I have read many books on healing written by those who were gifted by God to minister to others in this way. For the most part, the person God sends to exercise this gift receives His assurance amidst an inclination to hold back. This may be due to humility, or to sensing that they did not hear His inspiration correctly, etc. God strengthens them if it is truly He who is calling them.

Sister Briege McKenna is a Catholic nun who received this call, and her ministry has been proven. She wrote a book called “Miracles Do Happen” in which she describes her reluctance to use the gift, and how God intervened through others to get the message to her that it was indeed He who was sending her. She finally began to obey, and healings resulted.

I have seen false prophets use a command in the manner you described. Perhaps they watched healing evangelists do this and did a copy-cat action, believing that their words have supernatural power to effect what they command. When God inspires it, healings may occur. When He does not, it becomes a sham and a poor witness to those who observed this.

In any event, you need to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak, and not become a total disbeliever in all healings because of the bad witness of a few. Many healings take place privately, without fanfare. I tend to shy away from public manifestations such as these, personally, though I would not rule out completely that God is the Author of them. The “healer” may THINK they are hearing God, and like the rest of us, be mistaken at times, without jeopardy to their holiness.

Carole

 

[Joysong]

I was thinking a little longer about this after I posted, and I remembered something that might help. In Acts 14:8-9, there is an imortant phrase that gives us the heart of God’s work. "The lame man listened to Paul as he spoke; when Paul, gazing at him and seeing that he had FAITH TO BE CURED, said with a loud voice, “Stand upright on they feet!” And he sprang up and began to walk.

It is not enough to go about shouting commands for healing. The “shouter” should be able with God’s grace to discern faith present in the person who needs healing. This seems to be absent in the example you gave us.

 

[threej_lc]

How can one assume that they have the gift of healing.

As was already mentioned, you don’t “assume” you have a gift. Rather, God leads you to it. A person with a healing gift me someone who is sick and feel a strong longing for God to heal that person. They may have a strange desire to pray over the sick person for their healing. But as I said before, you usually don’t know unless you try. You pray over the person for healing, knowing that if it is God’s will to heal the person through you, He will do so, and that if it isn’t, no prayer said in good heart is wasted.

Doesn’t one have to be in the state of grace and go to confession regularly.

Whereas these things increases one’s sanctity, and one his is closer to God will undoubtedly be more able to use their gifts for the glory of God, this is not a requirement. Gifts of healing, and others, are called gifts, BECAUSE THEY ARE GIFTS. We can not earn them or deserve them. Got distributes them in his mercy to where they can best be used, not to those who are most worth of them.

I do believe in healings, but our Catholic Church has a procedure to document such healings to obtain sainthood

The church has a procedure to document such healings that take place AFTER A PERSON"S DEATH for sainthood. Usually, if someone is truly devoted to the Lord and active in their healing ministry, they have a sense of humility, and won’t go advertising to the Church healings that take place. The person seeking healing knows they were healed, and draw closer to God as a result. Its not particularly important to advertise it to anyone else.

And is it possible that healings come from the person that needs the healing by prayer and fasting not from someone who just shouts out “That you are healed by the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Of course! God is the healer, not the person shouting the the prayer of healing. God can heal through whatever means he chooses. Usually, however, he uses both the faith of the one being healed, and to a much lesser extent, a catalyst of someone with the gift of healing. This is not because the person with the gift is holy or powerful, but just as a confirmation to the one being healed that their thanks is due to God.

Can this also be from Satan?

I suppose possibly, but Jesus in the gospels makes it very clear that when good is being done in the miraculous realm, one should assume it is from the Lord and not from the enemy without reason. As all revelation, test all things in Christ, and hold fast to that which is good, bringing about grace and salvation.

Josh

 

[Didi]

We also have to remember that the greater healing is a spiritual one. While physical healing may not have occurred, spiritual healing may be happening.

 

[Annunciata]

Didi:

We also have to remember that the greater healing is a spiritual one. While physical healing may not have occurred, spiritual healing may be happening.

You beat me to it!!! I have received and know of far more people who have received “Spiritual and Emotional Healings”…

 

[John-the-Seeker]

Others have answered your questions quite well so I will only venture a couple of opinions.

How can one assume they have the gift of healing?

I believe we all have the potential to be instruments through which Jesus the Healer heals. The extent to which this gift is manifested depends on (a) God’s Will, (b) our Faith and (c) the extent to which we give permission and cooperate with God in this mission. The ‘proof’ of this mission is, I believe, evidenced in the fact that all people have the potential to ‘touch’ one another lovingly whether through words, physical contact or a loving look and through these acts Jesus ‘heals’. Sometimes it is a mother’s hug or a friend’s encouragement or even a stranger’s smile that a burden is lifted from us and a feeling of hope and well being returned. Healings come in all shapes and sizes.

Can this also be from Satan?
Yes, many false healers have come suggesting that if people pay certain amounts of money or do this or that which is contrary to scripture, healings will occur and they do. But usually the healing is short lived and soon returns usually worse than before

 

[Traditional_Ang]

John-the-Seeker:

Others have answered your questions quite well so I will only venture a couple of opinions.

How can one assume they have the gift of healing?

I believe we all have the potential to be instruments through which Jesus the Healer heals. The extent to which this gift is manifested depends on (a) God’s Will, (b) our Faith and (c) the extent to which we give permission and cooperate with God in this mission. The ‘proof’ of this mission is, I believe, evidenced in the fact that all people have the potential to ‘touch’ one another lovingly whether through words, physical contact or a loving look and through these acts Jesus ‘heals’. Sometimes it is a mother’s hug or a friend’s encouragement or even a stranger’s smile that a burden is lifted from us and a feeling of hope and well being returned. Healings come in all shapes and sizes.

Can this also be from Satan?
Yes, many false healers have come suggesting that if people pay certain amounts of money or do this or that which is contrary to scripture, healings will occur and they do. But usually the healing is short lived and soon returns usually worse than before

John:

Well said.

I think the emphasis on the spectacular Gifts (physical healings, prophecies, tongues, etc.) causes many Charismatics to overlook the more lasting but not so spectacular Gifts of Faith, Hope and Charity (“Agape”), and at the same time causes us to overlook the healing impact of ordinary things such as a kind word or an empathetic look…

May whatever we do be to the greater glory of God and to the benefit of His holy Church.

In Christ, Michael

 

[threej_lc]

Traditional Ang:

May whatever we do be to the greater glory of God and to the benefit of His holy Church.

Amen Michael. I think that sums about everything up.

Josh

 

[dsimo]

Thanks to everyone with their (name removed by moderator)ut. I have a broader view of the gift of healing. But we all must be open to the sacrament of reconcilliation to let God’s grace work within us. I understand that it is a gift. But only one of you admitted that is may be a sham. Christ ask us to walk in humility. Not to seek self glorification. What happens to the poor soul who is not being healed under such acts. What happens to the prayer group as a whole. Do we sit back and let such acts continue? One needs to have self control and go quietly on that person with others to lay hands and ask our God for healing.

When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, your lives will produce these evil results: sexual immorality, impure thoughts, eagerness for lustful pleasure, idolatry, participation in demonic activities, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, divisions, the feeling that everyone is wrong except those in your own little group, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other kinds of sin. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God. But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives, He will produce this kind of fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. - **Galatians 5:19-23 **

---

Thank you
Dominick

 

[Joysong]

Dear Dominic,

Is this type of behavior sanctioned by the Catholic Church. The person wasn’t healed. Please explain if this type of behavior is acceptable. There have been known recorded healings by the person that declared the healing.

In light of the fact that there have been “known recorded” healings by this person, I see no reason to be upset, for as I explained above, the person may have been amiss in hearing the Holy Spirit correctly in that instance; but it does not negate his “proven” ministry in the past. Better to call out in faith what we think the Lord has inspired, than to miss the mark totally in case the inspiration was true. In that way, had God really inspired it, the person would have missed his healing by his (the healer’s) failure to call it out.

I think the knowledge of these gifts is rather well known in charismatic circles and prayer meetings, so I doubt it would bother the regular attendees. It could cause some alarm in a person who has just casually dropped in to observe. In that case, rather than call the chancery with ruffled feathers to report the alleged charlatan, it could be an opportunity to acquaint oneself with more knowledge of how the gifts operate through personal study, and/or make inquiry from those who moderate the prayer meeting or host it, such as the local pastor.

Peace, Dominic

Carole

 

[dsimo]

Carole,

You must of misunderstood me…THERE HAVE BEEN NO RECORDED HEALINGS BY THIS PERSON…Why do you keep evading the sacrament of Penance?

Dominick

 

[threej_lc]

dsimo:

You must of misunderstood me…THERE HAVE BEEN NO RECORDED HEALINGS BY THIS PERSON…Why do you keep evading the sacrament of Penance?

AHH!!! Your original post said “There have been know recorded healings”… most of us read this to say “There have been known recorded healings”, that is to say, the person was known to have healed before.

I know personally in my posts that’s why I gave the person such a strong benefit of the doubt.

Furthermore, I don’t think any of us are “evading” the sacrametn of penance. ALL CHARISMATIC GIFTS EXIST TO BRING US TO THE SACRAMENTS. You are correct that the most powerful grace for healing is in the sacraments of penance and eucharist. God provides special charisms outside these sacraments, to draw the faithful into deeper communion with him in the church and the sacraments. That is perhaps the easiest way to judge fraud from grace: Are those involved growing deeper in love with God in the church as a result? All other factors are negligible in light of this.

Why aren’t we mentioning, then, the sacraments explicitly in our posts? Because this thread seemed to ask about the charismatic gift of healing… so we were addressing that specific aspect of grace, with no intention of neglecting the role of the standard avenues of grace GOd provides Hish church.

Josh

 

[dsimo]

Josh

I’m glad to hear that PRIDE is not involved in the equation. I suggest you read some of Padre Pio’s RECORDED healings. You may have a different attitude toward healings. I believe in healings but only if they are from God’s GRACE. And our CATHOLIC faith teaches us that grace is obtained by going to CONFESSION ON A REGULAR BASIS. GRACE is also obtained by searching for God continously.

Dominick

 

[Joysong]

Dear Dismo,

You must of misunderstood me…THERE HAVE BEEN NO RECORDED HEALINGS BY THIS PERSON…Why do you keep evading the sacrament of Penance?

Yes I truly did misread your original post, due to your misspelled word. Reading it again, you wrote: “There have been know recorded healings by the person that declared the healing.”
I thought you forgot the last letter “n” and substituted it for you to finish the word “known.”
Now that is entirely different a meaning from what you meant to type, “there have been no recorded healings …”

You asked me, “Why do you keep evading the sacrament of Penance?” What does this have to do with God calling a person to minister His healing?

You:

Doesn’t one have to be in the state of grace and go to confession regularly. I do believe in healings, but our Catholic Church has a procedure to document such healings to obtain sainthood

.

I think you are confusing the two miracles that the Church requires prior to canonization with the ordinary gift of healing. .Reading your thoughts, I think your belief is that the person who exercises the gift of healing must be more or less walking in perfection and be in the state of grace, almost like Padre Pio. That is not so, for God has given this gift in the Church to those whom He wills, and I cannot question whom He chooses — I only know that He does this, for there are quite a few in the Church today whom the world would not recognize as giants in holiness like Padre Pio.

Are you having a problem in faith with this Dominic?

Carole

 

[Joysong]

You’ll think I’m a nutcase, Dominick, but I mull over these posts for awhile afterwards, and sometimes I get other ideas that I forgot to share. Here is something that might help you.

My impression from your posts is that you think a person who is so gifted as to be able to heal should be full of sanctifying grace which is received in the sacraments, notably Penance and Eucharist. That may be the source of your confusion, for God often bestows this gift on a person who is walking in grace, but not sanctifying grace.

Remember when Jesus gave the apostles authority and power over the devils and to cure the sick? (Lk. 9:1-2) Wasn’t this prior to any of the sacraments having been instituted? Yes, it was actual grace supernaturally at work through the power Christ gave them, and not sanctifying grace which is received in the sacraments. The apostles had not received them yet. There are examples in the old testament, too, when Elijah raised a boy from the dead - no sanctifying grace, huh?

I have heard of noncatholics who have this gift, yet they do not have access to our sacraments, either; but they are very holy and righteous, and committed to God - operating in actual grace as they minister the gift. Maybe you have heard of Agnes Sanford, who wrote two books on healing. As I read her testimony, I could find nothing amiss and I really believe she is authentic. By the way, there is a lot of good advice in both of her books.

Let us know if we can help you further.

Carole

 

[dsimo]

Carole,

No Carole, I am not having a problem with my faith. And I do nothave a closed mind to healing. We just need to be careful with the sheep dressed in lambs clothing. I do appreciate all your references and I am not trying to disagree for the sake of disagreeing. To quote Father Corapi, " We are in battle. good against evil" and we pray that we can recognize the enemy.

God Bless you
Dominick

 

[Traditional_Ang]

dsimo:

Josh

I’m glad to hear that PRIDE is not involved in the equation. I suggest you read some of Padre Pio’s RECORDED healings. You may have a different attitude toward healings. I believe in healings but only if they are from God’s GRACE. And our CATHOLIC faith teaches us that grace is obtained by going to CONFESSION ON A REGULAR BASIS. GRACE is also obtained by searching for God continously.

Dominick

Dominick:

God’s grace is always involved in healings, even those that occur in Protestant Churches or as a result of an Orthodox Jew placing a slip of paper in the Kotel in Jerusalem. It is all Grace - A gift of God freely given to us.

I think the word "Obtained’ is probably not a fortunate translation for something that God gives us freely simply because He loves us and we respond to that by putting ourselves into a position by going to Confession and by receiving Jesus in the Eucharist frequently,

The reason the Church used to have us receive the Sacrament of our Lord’s body and blood on our tongues while on our knees at an alter rail was to make sure that we understood that God was giving us His grace and that we were being fed our Lord’s body and blood, and that, aside from being in a position to receive the grace, we had very little to do with the actual transmission of the grace or of the benefit that we received.

Dominic, I think you kind of misrepresented what you wanted people to talk about. The way you phrased it, people thought you were asking about whether there were healings within the Charismatic Movement and what were the limits.

So that’s what we answered and provided caveats for.

If you had asked whether we thought that going to Confession was encouraged within the Charismatic Movement, I couldn’t have spoken to that. I have no knowledge. I do know one woman who hasn’t gone to Confession for at least 3 years who claims it’s not mentioned in her parish. This is the same one who claimed her parish hadn’t taught that Jesus had said that He was God.

I know that parish is now subject to frequent guest preachers and has been the subject of multiple complaints by various Traditionalist groups across the West. As a visitor, I was even forced to do a campaign to pressure the parish to include the Creed during the Sunday Liturgy.

And, Except for the guest preachers, I never heard significant parts of the faith or of the “Culture of Life” mentioned during the Homily or the Prayers of the People.

I have to conclude that some basic catechesis simply wasn’t happening there.

I think that’s worse than the bit you heard during the prayer meeting… What you heard during the meetingt can be corrected by going to the person’s pastor and by having the pastor talk to him to be sure that he actually is exercising the gift of healing.

The parish were protected by a Bishop who was afraid to confront them until the situation got out of hand.

In Christ, Michael

PS: I believe that you might be confusing the types of Grace or trying to limit God’s Grace to the Sacaments. God doesn’t. He just wants us to know where we can always “Obtain” the Grace we need to live our lives. I think that might sometimes be different from the Grace He applies to heal a broken bone or to bring a sinner home.

I’ve seen the grace applied to bring someone back from near death, and it was applied because an Orthodox Jew placed a slip of paper in the Kotel, and because God wanted to bring a very lost soul back home to our Lord.

God heals whom He will, and it’s best that we don’t question why, esp. if we see someone crawling on his knees to the foot of the cross.

I’ve posted what it took to bring me home. I’ll only say here that I witnessed the healing and that I was the lost soul our Lord did it for so he could come home.

I really do hope this ends the debate that never should have been.