Fr Jim Cogley
One of my very early questions of a religious nature is still current. It has to do with the place of healing in the Christian Church or more accurately why the absence of healing? When we read the Gospels, it becomes abundantly clear that healing was what Christ was about. He preached and he healed, that was his ministry. As a result of his preaching people were healed and then they either witnessed to his miracles or became his disciples. He never told people that their suffering was good for their souls, or that it was the will of God, or that they just had to grin and bear it. Instead, wherever he encountered souls in distress he brought healing and comfort. How many churches today can we associate with being centers of healing? If a church is fulfilling Its mission, and is in alignment with its Gospel purpose, should it not almost by definition be a center of healing? It has to be argued that somewhere, sometime, we badly lost our way.
The Franciscan priest Richard Rohr, who has been a light in the darkness for so many for so long, is quoted as saying that ‘if religion is not about healing it really doesn’t have much to offer. Without an understanding of healing the word salvation which comes from the Latin word salus meaning wholeness becomes a matter of hoping for some delayed gratification’. Likewise, he remarked that in his opinion, ‘if preaching doesn’t bring about some level of healing, then it’s not even the Gospel being preached. He believes healing to be the simplest criterion for preaching the Word’. The truth he says, ‘heals and expands us in its very hearing. It allows and presses us to reconfigure the world, with plenty of room for gentleness and peace for ourselves, and for those around us. Only whole people can imagine or call forth a more whole world.’
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