T2 – Year 2 - 26 – The Sacraments of Healing
 26
Living the Sacramental Life:
The Sacraments of Healing
What’s the Point?
There is an old song which goes “what the world needs now is love,
sweet love; it’s the only thing that there’s just too little of”. Even the
world recognizes its brokenness, its need for healing, and its need for
love. We hold the ‘secret’ that there is not too little love, but not enough
application of the abundant love of God in Jesus Christ. Coming to
understand the power of these sacraments to heal us and the world helps
the teens to understand how they are more than just about us, they are
part of the mission of the Church.
Background Reference
 NAB: Is 26; 1 Cor 1:10-31;Rom 6; 1 Jn 1-2;
Information
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CCC: ¶1420-1479; 1485-1498; 1499-1532;
Fear drives so many aspects of today’s world. Fear of war, fear of
disease, fear of poverty, fear of loneliness, fear of loss of power, fear of
loss of identity, fear of loss of control. You name it, it is classifiable as a
phobia. We are in fact a nation of fear. Fear that ‘I won’t get mine’, fear
that someone will benefit from my hard work, fear that the government
is trying to remove my power to choose or some other vague notion.
Notice the word that most often appears in all fear is ‘I’, ‘me’, ‘my’, or
‘mine’. This sense of entitlement, of paranoia of attack upon self, this
‘self-ish’ attitude is root of our fear. The thing we fear is loss. Loss of
income, loss of self, loss of power, loss of prestige. I must fight rather
than loose. But are the things I choose to fight for, worth keeping?
War, famine, pestilence, death. The four horsemen of the apocalypse
pretty much sum it up for us. The interpretation of Revelation in terms of
fear drives many of our brethren in Christ to define all of life in terms of
fear: fear of punishment, fear of an angry God, fear of retribution, fear of
privation.
And He has reason to be angry! Certainly we see around us the effects
of sin. There is no denying that there is sin and evil and that all of
humanity shares in the responsibility for it. Sin has consequences. Bottom
line. Sin causes suffering. Bottom line. Sin separates us from the life of
God and plunges us into the life of suffering and death. “To the woman
he said: ‘I will intensify the pangs of your childbearing; in pain shall you
bring forth children. Yet your urge shall be for your husband, and he shall
be your master.’ To the man he said: ‘Because you listened to your wife
and ate from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat, ‘Cursed be the
ground because of you! In toil shall you eat its yield all the days of your
life. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to you, as you eat of the plants
of the field. By the sweat of your face shall you get bread to eat, Until you
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return to the ground, from which you were taken; For you are dirt, and
to dirt you shall return.’” (Gen 3:16-19) No surprises there: ‘the wages
of sin is death’ (Rom 6:23)
Yet, rather than embracing these things as part of the human condition,
most people want them to be overcome, defeated, eliminated; we seek to
deny their reality or at least our complicity and believe that by ourselves
we can make the good decisions which will create a better world. We
never leave the sin of the Garden! If we refuse to see God as the only
Creator, the only source of goodness, the only means to salvation and
redemption for ourselves and this world then we are doomed to relive that
exile from the Garden into a world of pain, suffering, toil, and death. If
we choose to try to work without expunging sin and without giving our
lives over to God’s will, how will we ever succeed?
Just stop by the ‘self-help’ section of your local bookstore, library, TV
network, or meeting room at a local hotel. The world offers easy
solutions. The world offers self-created solutions. The world offers the
call that if we just work hard enough, have enough discipline we can solve
any problem. But we know that any efforts from a human source are
doomed to only partial success or failure. “We conceived and writhed in
pain, giving birth to wind; Salvation we have not achieved for the earth,
the inhabitants of the world cannot bring it forth.” (Is 26:18)
So instead we offer “Christ crucified,” (1 Cor 1:23) “a stumbling
block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles”. Pain and suffering are not
eliminated, but utilized. Where is the logic in that, right? Is not the
alleviation of pain and suffering our mission? The passion and death of
Christ is the event and action which restores life to the world. Christ
gathers the pain, suffering and death of the world into his own pain,
suffering and death. We bind our pain, suffering and death to Christ’s.
We offer not a denial, or a quick easy fix, or shelter, but understanding
and the means to spread peace in the midst of suffering and death.
Christ’s peace, the peace that the world cannot give (Jn 14:27) is the
only solution. What is the source of that peace? What is the source of the
healing of the World? Grace. It is always grace. We live sacramental lives
to avail ourselves of that constant grace, that ‘constant help and
protection’ (Eucharistic Prayer I). Until we reach the peace of the
fullness of the Kingdom (heaven), we live in a flawed world, twisted and
broken by sin, held safe and sound within the bosom of Christ’s peace.
This is what the Church, the Body of Christ offers not just to ourselves
but to the whole world. “Those live whom the LORD protects” (Is 38:16)
Healing Grace
This ‘protection’ is based solely in God’s gift of Grace. We receive
that grace in Baptism, breath it in during Confirmation and renew it in the
Eucharist. Those graces make us part of the Body, able to continue
Christ’s work in ourselves and the world. This work spreads God’s love.
It is the message of the Kingdom which Christ proclaims as “a year
acceptable to our Lord.” (Lk 4:19)
The Kingdom exists here and now as well as to come. We live in the
benefits of the death and resurrection of our Lord, albeit not as fully as
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we will after death. But who cares! We have the “foretaste and promise”
(Preface 34, for Ordinary Time VI) of those days here and now.
Grace heals the world. The grace of forgiveness is a central one for
our Church. We proclaim it directly in our Creed: we “believe in the
forgiveness of sins”; it is that much a part of who we are. Not just the
‘once for all’ forgiveness of sins, but the “you are Peter, and upon this
rock I will build my church and the gates of the netherworld shall not
prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.
Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you
loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” on-going reality of the
forgiveness of sins. If Christ’s death was sufficient (and it was) for the
forgiveness of sins, why do we have reconciliation? Why did Jesus, who
knew his death would be sufficient, bother to pass the power of
forgiveness on to us mere mortals?
Grace. Grace is not a one-time event. Our God, in the Holy Spirit,
continues to interact with His creation, so it makes sense that his power
to save is on-going. Certainly, He has the long-term view in mind. All
sins for all times...wiped out. The consequence of sin...painfully still with
us.
We deal with the effects of sin, both the spiritual and the physical,
through the sacraments of Reconciliation and Anointing. While these two
are aimed at different situations in our lives, they are inexorably linked
through the effects of grace which they provide. It is easy to see if we
keep in mind the effect of sin in the world. Death is the main effect of sin.
Suffering, pain, alienation, fear...these things two are the effect of sin.
These sacraments deal with these effects, the one through the mitigation
of the effects through forgiveness of sin and the call to penance and
action, the other through consecration of the effects to the betterment of
the world and the overcoming through grace and love.
They both turn the effects of sin into the grace of God. Our resolve
through reconciliation to better ourselves means less sin and more of
God’s grace, love and healing in the world. The binding of our suffering
to the gracious effects of the suffering of Christ plays a part in the
lessening of the effects of sin in the world.
We look at the saints, both canonized and otherwise, to help us to
understand the power of forgiveness in the world. So often the two
sacraments go together (aside from the fact that Reconciliation can be a
part of Anointing), in that the saint often calls for reconciliation and
forgiveness in the midst of suffering and pain, and that often, per healing
miracles, the saint shows the power of God’s love to overcome the effects
of sin in the world. Cures are that sign. If the world is the way it is because
of sin, we can see how it should be were sin to go away: a place where
“He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death
or mourning, wailing or pain, (for) the old order has passed away.” (Rev
21:4)
We are not Christ, but we are his body. We do nothing except through
the grace that comes to us through God, yet “I have the strength for
everything through him who empowers me.” (Phil 4:13) “a thorn in the
flesh was given to me, an angel of Satan, to beat me, to keep me from
being too elated. Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it might
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leave me, but he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is
made perfect in weakness.’ I will rather boast most gladly of my
weaknesses, in order that the power of Christ may dwell with me.” (2 Cor
12:8-9)
We revile the sinner who is unrepentant and we pity the sick who turn
to bile; we extol the sinner who becomes a saint and we marvel at the
power of the sick to reach beyond their illness to minister to others. The
effects of sin takes many forms, both physical and mental and we look
for the grace that comes from them both in order to heal not just ourselves
but the world.
A Note On Sin
When we think about the notion of sin, we often harp on the effects
of sin, because, after all it is the effects of the actions which we tend to
read about in the paper. So by way of definitions, we have a language
by which we discuss sin and evil. Basically there are two main types of
evil:
1. Moral evil - This covers the willful, anti-commandment sort of
acts made by human beings such as murder, rape, etc.
2. Natural evil - This refers to natural disasters such as
earthquakes, famines, floods, etc.
These two types have temporal effects:
1. Physical evil - This means bodily pain or mental anguish (fear,
illness, grief, war, etc.)
2. Metaphysical evil - This refers to such things as imperfection
and chance (criminals going unpunished, physical and mental
deformities, etc.)
Illness and sin, the foci of the two sacraments, fall under both types of
evil. Because it really is our focus today, first we will tackle the moral
evil. Sin exists because of our actions. Sin is something which is against
the Natural Law, or ‘that way God created everything to work’. We see
that Law in various and sundry places but most obviously in the 10
Commandments and the Beatitudes. Natural Law differs from human law
in that it is based in God and creation, the natural order of things, if you
will. Human law is based in human judgment, or opinion, if you want. It
changes like the wind. God’s Law is immutable, unchanging, and cannot
be questioned.
Sin as we have already noted, is a part of the human condition. “If we
say, ‘We have not sinned,’ we make him a liar, and his word is not in
us.” (1 Jn 1:10) and “Whoever says, ‘I know him,’ but does not keep his
commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” (1 Jn 2:4)
Sin is a twisting of Truth. Temptation is possible because it ‘sounds
right’, it is the Truth slightly bent. Think of the Garden: after the serpent
told the woman about the fruit, she “saw that the tree was good for food,
pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for gaining wisdom.” (Gen 3:6); what
the serpent said ‘made sense’ to her. We can see this in our culture today.
Truth: Love is everything. We all need love, we need to share love. Sin:
you deserve love; love equals fantasy...you get the idea. The devil takes
the Truth and presents it in such a way as to sound like the Truth. We fall
into sin when we say ‘yes’, that meaning is the ‘Truth’, and ignore the
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real Truth we have been given. We separate ourselves from God’s Truth
and substitute our own human truth for it. Again, just re-read the Garden
incident in Genesis 3.
Well, that leads us to the question of culpability, or responsibility for
sin. Sin happens. Ultimate individual responsibility for sin is based on
three factors:
1. The action is immoral and against conscious and the Natural Law
– it is just plain wrong.
2. We understand that it is wrong
3. We freely choose to act anyway.
Without going too deeply into this here (and you should go deeper into it
someplace else), each of these must be in place for us to have individual
responsibility. If one or more is missing (at least of the last two) then that
does not stop it from being a sin. Evil still enters the world through my
action. There is still a temporal consequence to the action. And if in the
future I realize #2 or #3 then I must take on that responsibility and seek
forgiveness and penance.
On to evil type two. If evil is the result of sin, then what about
hurricanes and earthquakes and meteors, you know, those ‘acts of God’?
There are several lines of thinking on this (a line of theology known as
theodicy – basically why does God allow evil) The simplest answer is
because the World is not yet perfected either; Eden is gone, sin has
entered the world and affected it as well. We have sickness and death and
earthquakes and cancer because the universe is not perfect anymore. Not
the best answer perhaps, but we want to dwell on the ways to mitigate it,
not so much on why it is.
Indulging Ourselves
How do we mitigate the effects of sin in the world? The idea of
indulgences is a hard-sell, not because the theology behind them is
unsound but because their practice became unsound. The Truth of
indulgences cannot be ignored because at one time people misused them.
And in truth their efficiousness was not lost for those who sought them
with sincerity. What we see is the dismissal of the whole gift of the
Church because of the abuse by those who should have held them in
sacred trust. Suffice it to say, indulgences: good; selling indulgences: bad.
Martin Luther was not excommunicated because he said selling
indulgences was bad, but because he chose to separate himself from the
community, declaring his own understanding to be sufficient for his
salvation.
With that out of the way, what is an indulgence? An indulgence, as the
name implies is a free gift, a reward, an ‘indulging’ if you want, for good
behavior. At the risk of over-simplifying this (which tells you I am), we
can look at it as the mitigating effects of God’s love in the world. God’s
love cures the ails of the world which sin causes; we are a conduit of that
love. Just as the sin we commit leaves a mark behind, so does the love we
do.
Again, at the risk of over-simplification, just as we might indulge a
child with a cookie for good behavior, the Church, through its power to
loose and bind, can indulge us for good behavior. The sacrament of
T2 – Year 2 - 26 – The Sacraments of Healing
Reconciliation, while it wipes clean the sin, only partially removes the
temporal effects, or effects of that sin, from the world. We receive a
partial indulgence through the action of seeking forgiveness, doing
penance (which may alleviate some of the temporal effects but is more
aimed at future behavior), and through our resolve to do better, that is, to
love more and sin less. More love equals more positive effects of love in
the world.
Now this is not a math problem but a mystery of Faith. We often seem
to see a tit-for-tat view of Reconciliation, but it is not so. Viewing
indulgences at a shallow level makes it seem as if I can guarantee my
eternal salvation by my own hand. But remember, the grace that comes
to us in the form of an indulgence is not our own, but by definition as
‘grace’, that which comes from God alone, through the power and
authority He has given to His Church. The same is true for the forgiveness
which comes from the Sacrament.
Without the forgiveness of sins we cannot get to heaven. Without the
removal of the temporal effects of sin, we cannot get to heaven. With the
forgiveness of sin, we can at least begin our journey to heaven with a
small stopover in Purgatory to remove those final vestiges of the sin, its
temporal effects. Through indulgences we remove some or even all of
those temporal effects. These two gifts of the Church reflect the nature of
sin and forgiveness. Healing the effects of sin is part of the love we
practice. Anything which seeks to heal the world, the bringing of God’s
Grace into the world, is worthy of grace and the effects of that grace.
All that said, trust is the result of healing. A world which trusts, like
an individual who trusts, is a world that is not afraid. Those who are
unafraid, like the martyrs before their death, give grace and healing to the
world. Those who are unafraid can love fully and freely, bringing even
greater healing into the world, unto even the greatest sacrifice, modeled
on Christ’s. It is God who is the source of this love, this healing, this
grace, and we who are sacramental are the ‘light of the world’ and ‘the
salt of the earth’, we who both benefit and mete out these wonderful gifts
of God.
Materials Needed
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.Attention
Grabber
Laptop
Projector
PowerPoint
Catechisms
Bibles
Saint Handouts
Q & A: Why Not Go Directly to God? Handout
Newsprint sheets and colored markers/pens
The Blind See (5 min)
Close your eyes and sit quietly for a few moments. Imagine that you are
blind. Try to put yourself back into the time of Jesus and think what it
would have been like to have him cure you of your blindness. Keep
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your eyes closed while you listen to these scriptural accounts of Jesus
curing the blind man.
Passages: Mt 9:27-30, Mk 8:22-25, Lk 18:35-43
[After the three passages are read:]
Keep your eyes closed. Hear Jesus saying now in your heart, “What do
you want me to do for you?” What do you need from him? Maybe you
have a blindness that needs healing, a blindness that keeps you from
believing and trusting in God, from seeing your own goodness, from
finding a way out of a problem you are caught in. (Pause)
In the reading from Mark, the blind man was brought to Jesus by his
friends. Maybe you, too, have friends or family members who need
Jesus to touch them. Maybe people you love are being blinded by
anger, jealousy, selfishness, alcohol, or some other problem. Bring
them to Jesus. Ask him to touch the blind spot in their lives and heal
them. (Pause)
[gently close meditation prayer with “Amen” and instruct students to
open their eyes].
Outline
Prayer: Psalm 51 or Isaiah 38:10-20.
Presentation: PowerPoint.
Activity: The Blind See.
Table Discussion:
Saints and Healing, at the tables.
Questions.
Post Discussion: None.
Closing Prayer: Group Prayer/Petitions.
Prayer Introductory Prayer: (1 min, after candle is lit…)
Read three passages: Mt 9:27-30, Mk 8:22-25, and Lk 18:35-43;
everyone is asked to reflect on the blindness(es) in their life that need healing
Psalm 51
Have mercy on me, God, in your goodness;
in your abundant compassion blot out my offense.
Wash away all my guilt; from my sin cleanse me.
For I know my offense; my sin is always before me.
Against you alone have I sinned; I have done such evil in your sight
That you are just in your sentence, blameless when you condemn.
True, I was born guilty, a sinner, even as my mother conceived me.
Still, you insist on sincerity of heart; in my inmost being teach me wisdom.
Cleanse me with hyssop, that I may be pure;
wash me, make me whiter than snow.
Let me hear sounds of joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
Turn away your face from my sins; blot out all my guilt.
A clean heart create for me, God; renew in me a steadfast spirit.
T2 – Year 2 - 26 – The Sacraments of Healing
Do not drive me from your presence, nor take from me your holy spirit.
Restore my joy in your salvation; sustain in me a willing spirit.
I will teach the wicked your ways, that sinners may return to you.
Rescue me from death, God, my saving God, that my tongue may praise your
healing power.
Lord, open my lips; my mouth will proclaim your praise.
For you do not desire sacrifice; a burnt offering you would not accept.
My sacrifice, God, is a broken spirit; God, do not spurn a broken, humbled
heart.
Make Zion prosper in your good pleasure; rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.
Then you will be pleased with proper sacrifice, burnt offerings and holocausts;
then bullocks will be offered on your altar.
(alt) Isaiah 38:10-20
Once I said, "In the noontime of life I must depart! To the gates of the nether
world I shall be consigned for the rest of my years." I said, "I shall see the
LORD no more in the land of the living. No longer shall I behold my fellow
men among those who dwell in the world." My dwelling, like a shepherd's tent,
is struck down and borne away from me; You have folded up my life, like a
weaver who severs the last thread. Day and night you give me over to torment;
I cry out until the dawn. Like a lion he breaks all my bones; (day and night you
give me over to torment). Like a swallow I utter shrill cries; I moan like a dove.
My eyes grow weak, gazing heavenward: O Lord, I am in straits; be my surety!
What am I to say or tell him? He has done it! I shall go on through all my years
despite the bitterness of my soul. Those live whom the LORD protects; yours. .
. the life of my spirit. You have given me health and life; thus is my bitterness
transformed into peace. You have preserved my life from the pit of destruction,
When you cast behind your back all my sins. For it is not the nether world that
gives you thanks, nor death that praises you; Neither do those who go down
into the pit await your kindness. The living, the living give you thanks, as I do
today. Fathers declare to their sons, O God, your faithfulness. The LORD is
our savior; we shall sing to stringed instruments In the house of the LORD all
the days of our life.
Pre-discussion Presentation (10 min)
Presentation
Sharing Healing
It is easy to imagine the pain and the loss of function that comes with
physical pain, and we know that mental illness can also be incapacitating
and painful. But Jesus and the Church consider spiritual illness – the
sickness of the soul that is the result of sin – to be the worst type of illness
we can have. Just as physical sin led us to pain, suffering, and death,
spiritual sickness can lead to spiritual death and the permanent separation
from God’s love that we call Hell.
Sin is as sure an illness as cancer. Jesus and the Church are concerned
about healing all kinds of illness: spiritual, mental, and physical. This is
why we have two Sacraments of Healing: Reconciliation (also called
confession and penance) and the Anointing of the Sick.
The sacraments of healing are not just about us though. They extend
healing to the whole world. We know the world is a broken place, we
know that only God’s love has given us a chance to make it any better.
The love of God given to us on the Cross, this love spills out like Christ’s
blood to wash the world clean. But it requires us to receive it first, and
then turn that love out to the world. I do not just go to confession to feel
better myself, but to make myself a better vessel to share the love of God
T2 – Year 2 - 26 – The Sacraments of Healing
in the world. My penance is not just to clear my conscience but to put me
out into the world doing the work of God. When I receive solace and
healing from anointing, I am strengthened to turn out from myself,
overcome the inward journey of pain, and turn it outward, combining it
with the love of God on the Cross and through that inspire and heal others.
The latter slides on Maximilian Kolbe are for use in the poster table
activity.
Activity / Table Table Activity (30 min)
Talk
Posters
1. Use symbols of healing
2. Summaries from the tables including what the healing message
was
Table Discussion (30 min)
Questions
1. Have you ever been severely ill, or known someone who was
ill?
2. Which type of illness is worse? Physical, Mental or Spiritual?
3. Can we email our confessions? Why not confess directly to
God?
4. Do you think healing of the soul can help heal the body?
5. How does death make us think about life?
6. What kind of healing do we bring to the world?
7. How does patient suffering help anyone?
8. Is it not better to stop suffering?
9. How is sinning like being sick?
10. Think about the worst sin you ever confessed. How did you
feel afterwards? What did you do/have you done since then not
only to avoid that sin but to actively stop that sin from further
harming the world?
T2 – Year 2 - 26 – The Sacraments of Healing
Post-Discussion None (0 min).
Activity
Closing
Prayer (5 min).
Group Prayer
Psalm 100 ("A Hymn of Praise") the conclusion of "The Blind See"
lesson
Psalm 100
Shout joyfully to the LORD, all you lands;
worship the LORD with cries of gladness; come before him with joyful song.
Know that the LORD is God, our maker to whom we belong, whose people
we are, God's well-tended flock.
Enter the temple gates with praise, its courts with thanksgiving. Give thanks
to God, bless his name;
good indeed is the LORD, Whose love endures forever, whose faithfulness
lasts through every age.
Psalm 99
The LORD is king, the peoples tremble; God is enthroned on the cherubim,
the earth quakes.
The LORD is great on Zion, exalted above all the peoples.
Let them praise your great and awesome name: Holy is God!
O mighty king, lover of justice, you alone have established fairness; you have
created just rule in Jacob.
Exalt the LORD, our God; bow down before his footstool; holy is God!
Moses and Aaron were among his priests, Samuel among those who called on
God's name; they called on the LORD, who answered them.
From the pillar of cloud God spoke to them; they kept the decrees, the law
they received.
O LORD, our God, you answered them; you were a forgiving God, though
you punished their offenses.
Exalt the LORD, our God; bow down before his holy mountain; holy is the
LORD, our God.
Intercessions
Reminder
(REMEMBER IMPORTANCE OF RECORDING
ATTENDANCE)
Attachments
Below:
 Summary of the Sessions of the Vatican II Council
 Vatican II Question and Answer
T2 – Year 2 - 26 – The Sacraments of Healing
Here is a list of saints that have elements of healing and forgiveness for table assignments.
St Maria Goretti (1890 - 1902)
Born in Corinaldo, Ancona, Italy, on October 16 1890; her farmworker father moved his family
to Ferrier di Conca, near Anzio. Her father died of malaria and her mother had to struggle to feed
her children.
In 1902 an eighteen-year-old neighbor, Alexander, grabbed her from her steps and tried to rape
her. When Maria said that she would rather die than submit, Alexander began stabbing her
repeatedly with a knife. As she lay in the hospital, she forgave Alexander before she died several
days later. Her death didn't end her forgiveness, however.
Alexander was captured and sentenced to thirty years. He was unrepentant until he had a dream
that he was in a garden. Maria was there and gave him flowers. When he woke, he was a changed
man, repenting of his crime and living a reformed life. When he was released after 27 years he
went directly to Maria's mother to beg her forgiveness, which she gave. "If my daughter can forgive
him, who am I to withhold forgiveness," she said.
St Josephine Bakhita (1869 - 1947)
Josephine Bakhita was born near Jebel Agilere in the Sud Darfur (Sudan). Kidnapped when still
very young, she experienced the cruelty of slavery as she was sold several times in slave markets
of Africa. Bakhita, which means "fortunate", was the name given to her by her kidnappers. Finally
she was rescued by a loving Italian family and brought to Italy where she not only became a
Christian but also felt the call to consecrate her life to God as a sister. She was baptized Josephine.
From then on, she was often seen kissing the baptismal font and saying: "Here, I became a daughter
of God!" She joined the Canossian Daughters of Charity and lived the rest of her life at Schio, a
small village near Vicenza.
As she grew older she experienced long, painful years of sickness. Mother Bakhita continued
to witness to faith, goodness and Christian hope. To those who visited her and asked how she was,
she would respond with a smile: "As the Master desires". During her agony, she relived the terrible
days of her slavery and more than once begged the nurse who assisted her: "Please, loosen the
chains...they are heavy!" She died on 8 February, 1947.
St Dymphna (n - n)
Dympha was the daughter of a pagan Irish chief and his Christian wife in the 7th century. She
was fourteen when her mother died. Damon, her father, is said to have been afflicted with a mental
illness, brought on by his grief. He sent messengers throughout his town and other lands to find
some woman of noble birth, resembling his wife, who would be willing to marry him. When none
could be found, his evil advisers told him to marry his own daughter. Dymphna fled from her castle
together with St. Gerebran, her confessor and two other friends. Damon found them in Belgium.
He gave orders that the priest's head be cut off. Then Damon tried to persuade his daughter to
return to Ireland with him. When she refused, he drew his sword and struck off her head. She was
then only fifteen years of age. Dymphna received the crown of martyrdom in defense of her purity
about the year 620. She is the patron of those suffering from nervous and mental afflictions. She
was buried in Gheel, Belgium.
T2 – Year 2 - 26 – The Sacraments of Healing
St Francis of Assisi (1182 - 1226)
Francis was born into wealth and privilege, but after a series of misadventures and capture, he
set about reforming his life and the life of the Church. Francis’ father had from his birth was
constantly disappointed in his son. Thomas of Celano, his biographer who knew him well, said,
"In other respects an exquisite youth, he attracted to himself a whole retinue of young people
addicted to evil and accustomed to vice." Francis himself said, "I lived in sin" during that time.
Francis founded a mendicant order, meaning that while they worked hard they begged for their
needs and the needs of the poor. He went about preaching and caring for the poor. His privations
and sufferings he offered up for others and for the repair of the Church.
Francis traveled extensively spreading the message, even to a Sultan. When he returned to Italy,
he came back to a brotherhood that had grown to 5000 in ten years. Pressure came from outside to
control this great movement, to make them conform to the standards of others. His dream of radical
poverty was too harsh, people said. Francis responded, "Lord, didn't I tell you they wouldn't trust
you?" He finally gave up authority in his order -- but he probably wasn't too upset about it. Now
he was just another brother, like he'd always wanted.
Francis' final years were filled with suffering as well as humiliation. Praying to share in Christ's
passion he had a vision received the painful stigmata, the marks of the nails and the lance wound
that Christ suffered, in his own body.
Years of poverty and wandering had made Francis ill. When he began to go blind, the pope
ordered that his eyes be operated on. This meant cauterizing his face with a hot iron. Francis spoke
to "Brother Fire": "Brother Fire, the Most High has made you strong and beautiful and useful. Be
courteous to me now in this hour, for I have always loved you, and temper your heat so that I can
endure it." And Francis reported that Brother Fire had been so kind that he felt nothing at all.
How did Francis respond to blindness and suffering? That was when he wrote his beautiful
Canticle of the Sun that expresses his brotherhood with creation in praising God.
St. Juliana Falconieri (1270-1341)
Juliana Falconieri grew up among saints. Her uncle, St. Alexis Falconieri, was one of the seven
founders of the Servite order. The priest who taught her as a child and acted as her spiritual director
was St. Philip Benizi, one of the early superiors of the Servites. Inspired by the holiness around
her, Juliana decided to affiliate herself with the Servites as a nun. Juliana added works of charity
to the Servite way of life by going out into the streets of Florence to help the sick, the helpless,
and the abandoned.
Because of her own struggle with sickness, St. Juliana became the patron of people suffering
from any type of chronic illness. During the last years of her life, she was plagued by an
undiagnosed stomach ailment. Eventually the illness proved fatal. As she lay dying, she was seized
by such a severe bout of vomiting that the attendant priest deemed her unable to receive Holy
Communion. Instead, at Juliana's request, he covered her chest with a corporal (a linen cloth) and
laid the consecrated host over her heart. According to the story, the Eucharist vanished a few
moments later.
St Peregrine Laziosi (1260-1335)
Peregrine Laziosi's conversion came about in the middle of a street brawl. He was one of the
young hotheads of Forli, an Italian town that had sided with the holy Roman emperor in his power
struggle with the Pope. The priest St. Philip Benizi was dispatched to urge the Forlians to come
back to the Church. Peregrine Laziosi charged across the piazza, grabbed the front of St. Philip's
religious habit, and struck him hard across the face. In response Philip turned the other cheek,
T2 – Year 2 - 26 – The Sacraments of Healing
waiting for another blow. Faced with such perfect Christ-like meekness, Peregrine's rage turned to
shame. He joined St. Philip's religious order and became a Servite priest.
For many years Peregrine suffered from an acute pain in his right leg. It was eventually found
to be cancer. In a last-ditch effort to save the priest's life, the physician planned to amputate. The
night before surgery, the suffering Peregrine dragged himself to the life-size crucifix that hung in
the monastery. He sat at the foot of the cross and prayed until he fell asleep, dreaming of Christ
climbing down from the cross and touching his cancerous limb. When he awoke, the wound on his
knee had healed and not a trace of the cancer remained.
St. Aloysius Gonzaga (1568-1591)
As the eldest son and heir of a wealthy family in 16th century Spain, Aloysius was expected to
marry well, raise a family, expand the Gonzagas' wealth and influence, and, if the opportunity
arose, slaughter their enemies. Yet secretly he was planning to renounce his title and become a
Jesuit priest. At age fifteen, he revealed his intentions to his parents. He gave up his inheritance
and set off to become a Jesuit novitiate in Rome.
Aloysius was aggressive and unyielding, with a pronounced antagonistic streak. He brought the
same ferocious energy to religious life that his ancestors had carried onto the battlefield.
Suspecting that the young nobleman needed to learn the virtues of obedience and humility, the
Jesuit superior sent Aloysius to work in one of the city's hospitals. Aloysius did as he was told, but
he loathed every minute of it. It took all his Gonzaga willpower to get through each day.
Aloysius had a change of heart, however. In January 1591 a terrible epidemic struck Rome.
Soon the city's hospitals were overwhelmed with patients, so convents and monasteries threw open
their doors. Aloysius went out every day to collect the sick and dying. He found beds for them,
washed them, fed them, comforted them, and prayed with them. Sadly, his heroic service lasted
only a few weeks; he himself fell victim to the epidemic and died.
Blessed Margaret of Castello (1287-1320)
Blessed Margaret's life is one of the most heart-wrenching stories in the roster of saints. She
was born blind and with severe curvature of the spine; her right leg was an inch and a half shorter
than her left, and her left arm was malformed. She never grew taller than four feet.
Her parents kept little Margaret hidden away in their house in Metola, in the Italian province of
Umbria. When Margaret was six years old, the family traveled to a shrine at Castello, hoping for
a miracle. When none took place, her mother and father abandoned her.
Some women of Castello found the terrified child and took care of her. A husband and wife,
Venfarino and Grigia, adopted Margaret and treated her with love and kindness as their own
daughter. She appears to have spent the rest of her life with them.
Margaret's disabilities did not make her bitter; rather, she became one of the most generous,
sympathetic people in Castello. She nursed the sick, consoled the dying, and visited prisoners. She
regarded her own disabilities as a means to unite her pain with the suffering Christ endured on the
cross. Her courage, patience, and deep religious devotion won her the affection of everyone in
town.
At Margaret's funeral, the crowd was immense. The parish priest planned to bury Margaret in
the churchyard, but the mourners insisted that she have a tomb inside the church, alongside the
other distinguished dead of Castello. The priest was still arguing the point when a girl whose legs
were crippled dragged herself to Margaret's coffin. She touched the casket and then stood up and
began to walk. The priest gave Margaret a tomb inside the church.
Blessed Pope John Paul II (1920 - 2005)
Karol Józef Wojtyła, who became John Paul II, rose to the .
T2 – Year 2 - 26 – The Sacraments of Healing
St Therese of Lisieux (1873 - 1897)
Therese, the "Little Flower", was a cloistered Carmelite for less than ten years. She never went
on missions, never founded a religious order, never performed great works. She wrote a spiritual
journal, published after her death, called "Story of a Soul". Her mother died of breast cancer when
she was four and a half years old. At 11 Therese became so ill with a fever that people thought she
would die, but after prayer to the Virgin, she was cured. She was a bit of a spoiled princess and
every time Therese even imagined that someone was criticizing her or didn't appreciate her, she
burst into tears. She wouldn't do housework, thinking if she made the beds she was doing a great
favor!
Therese wanted to enter the Carmelite convent to join her sisters but how could she convince
others that she could handle the rigors of Carmelite life, if she couldn't handle her own emotional
outbursts? She had prayed that Jesus would help her but there was no sign of an answer; as with
many things that we pray for she was given many opportunities to practice the virtue she so sought.
Her dedication and determination finally gave her the life that she so desired. Soon afterwards her
father suffered a series of strokes that left him affected not only physically but mentally. When he
began hallucinating and grabbed for a gun as if going into battle, he was taken to an asylum for
the insane. Horrified, Therese learned of the humiliation of the father she adored and admired and
of the gossip and pity of their so-called friends. As a cloistered nun she couldn't even visit her
father. This began a horrible time of suffering when she experienced such dryness in prayer that
she stated "Jesus isn't doing much to keep the conversation going." She was so grief-stricken that
she often fell asleep in prayer. She consoled herself by saying that mothers loved children when
they lie asleep in their arms so that God must love her when she slept during prayer.
She knew as a Carmelite nun she would never be able to perform great deeds. "Love proves
itself by deeds, so how am I to show my love? Great deeds are forbidden me. The only way I can
prove my love is by scattering flowers and these flowers are every little sacrifice, every glance and
word, and the doing of the least actions for love." Hence her nickname. She took every chance to
sacrifice, no matter how small it would seem. She smiled at the sisters she didn't like. She ate
everything she was given without complaining -- so that she was often given the worst leftovers.
One time she was accused of breaking a vase when she was not at fault. Instead of arguing she
sank to her knees and begged forgiveness. These little sacrifices cost her more than bigger ones,
for these went unrecognized by others. No one told her how wonderful she was for these little
secret humiliations and good deeds.
Then she began to cough up blood. She kept working without telling anyone until she became
so sick a year later everyone knew it. Worst of all she had lost her joy and confidence and felt she
would die young without leaving anything behind. Pauline had already had her writing down her
memories for journal and now she wanted her to continue -- so they would have something to
circulate on her life after her death, which became her book. Her pain was so great that she said
that if she had not had faith she would have taken her own life without hesitation. But she tried to
remain smiling and cheerful -- and succeeded so well that some thought she was only pretending
to be ill. She died at 24. She had always felt that she had a vocation to be a priest and felt God let
her die at the age she would have been ordained if she had been a man so that she wouldn't have
to suffer.
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