Ave Explores Series | Stress, Anxiety, and Mental Health | Week 4
Healing is Essential
by Bob Schuchts
Healing is an essential dimension of the apostolic mission and of Christianity. When understood at a sufficiently deep level, this expresses the entire content of redemption.
Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth
Jesus came into our broken world to heal our wounded hearts and to set us free from the many entanglements of sin that bind us (see Isa 61:1-2; Lk 4). He understood more than anyone how underlying sins and wounds are often the root of what afflicts us physically, spiritually, and psychologically. Likewise, when Jesus sent his disciples on mission, he commissioned them to proclaim the Kingdom of God, to heal the sick, and to liberate those who were oppressed.
This understanding of Jesus’ work inspired Pope Benedict XVI to assert that healing is an “essential dimension” of the Church’s mission. It is vital to both her evangelization and sanctification. All the teachings, sacraments, spiritual disciplines, and ministries of the Church are meant to bring us into wholeness in Christ and into communion with the Holy Trinity. Sin fragments and divides us; healing is ultimately about growing in wholeness and in communion in Christ.
This Catholic vision of wholeness is much different than the world’s rather shallow understanding of health and healing. The world’s health systems often treat symptoms rather than root causes. Even at a personal level, each of us looks to relieve our suffering so that we can get back in control of our lives. If I am honest with myself, I was looking for this kind of relief in my late twenties when I began my healing process after panic attacks left me feeling hopelessly out of control with anxiety. I sought Jesus’ help to restore my sense of being in control. But he had something much more essential and enduring in mind. He wanted me to face the deeper places of my heart where sin and wounds had accumulated for many years so that I could grow in my capacity to love and be loved.
As a young teenager, my heart had been broken by my father’s infidelity and my parent’s divorce. These events, along with a series of other betrayals, left my once-secure world shaken to the foundation. With no guidance at home or in the Church to face these wounds, I buried them and found solace in my achievements, relationships, and profession. I didn’t know how much I needed the Divine Physician’s intimate care until Jesus gently led me to face these deeper wounds. I began to see that my sins, past and present, kept me imprisoned in ways that were not obvious to me. Yet the more I faced this brokenness, the more I encountered Jesus’ merciful compassion and the more I desired healing for myself and for everyone I knew.
Are you aware of your personal need for healing? What deeper needs and desires have not yet been fulfilled in your life and relationships? Where are you bound by sin, addictions, fears, or self-protection? Where have you been afflicted physically, psychologically, and spiritually? Are you aware of anxiety, depression, or any physical ailments that may have deeper psychological or spiritual roots? Depression is often a symptom of suppressed pain and anger. Anxiety can be a signal of your pain emerging to the surface. We all have symptoms like these. The question is how do we deal with them and who do we turn to for help?
I recommend you start by asking the Holy Spirit to show you the areas in which you are currently struggling with sin, unfulfilled desires, physical infirmities, difficult relationships, or emotional distresses. Then offer these to Jesus, inviting him to be your Divine Physician. Ask him to show you the root causes and to reveal his love and truth in these areas of affliction. Adoration is a great place for this kind of prayer, but you can do it anywhere. Furthermore, invite Jesus to encounter you in the Sacraments of Reconciliation and Eucharist or in meeting with a spiritual director or with a Christian therapist
In your discernment about which steps to take, the key questions to ask are these:
- Will this healing process ultimately lead me into greater wholeness and deeper communion with God?
- Will it enable me to have a greater capacity to love and be loved?
- Will this bring true freedom through the Holy Spirit and greater fulfillment into my life mission and purpose?
- Will this healing process benefit my family and community as well as myself?
As we embark on our healing journey, it is easy to get lost in the process with its many twists and turns. Through it all keep your eyes on the end goal: The Beatific Vision. Seeing him face-to-face is not only our ultimate healing, but also the means of our healing now. Pope Benedict XVI describes this encounter beautifully:
Before Jesus’ gaze all falsehood melts away. This encounter with him, as it burns us, transforms us, allowing us to become truly ourselves. . . . His gaze, the touch of his heart heals us through an undeniably painful transformation “as through fire.” But it is a blessed pain, in which the holy power of his love sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God. (Pope Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi, 47)
Healing is essential for all of us. It allows us to become ourselves and to give ourselves totally to God.
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Bob Schuchts is the bestselling author of Be Healed and founder of the John Paul II Healing Center in Tallahassee, Florida. In December 2014 he retired as a marriage and family therapist after thirty-five years of practice.
If you are in crisis or you think you may have an emergency, call your doctor or 911 immediately. If you're having suicidal thoughts, dial 988 to talk to a skilled, trained counselor at a crisis center in your area at any time (National Suicide Prevention Lifeline). If you are located outside the United States, call your local emergency line immediately.
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