Lord, lay your hands and eyes on us so your medicine may heal us for the glory of your Kingdom!
Recently, I was talking with a fellow spiritual director while attending a one-day training day at the enchanting Saint Peter Upon the Water spiritual center in Ingram, TX. We both commentated on the curative and spiritual properties of nature; wide spaces, trees, wild animals, the soft chanting streams of flowing water and silence all help in better resting in God. In nature we notice how God cares for us through the restorative practice of breathing in the outdoors, our natural habitat. In creation, we deepen our identity as creatures loved by the Creator.
In the Western hemisphere, we remain a health-conscious culture. At times we are obsessed with it. We alleviate pain, seek to maximize physical and mental abilities and new technologies continue to push the boundaries of medical treatments and procedures. We investigate overall physical health with intense energy and the allotment of massive financial and human resources. We believe that physical and psychological health is tantamount to thriving and being happy. No program of care genuinely concerned with wellbeing and overall health should exclude the spiritual component. We are all one: body, spirit, mind, and soul. For example, I once asked my doctor to prescribe low dosage sleeping pills since travelling was seriously disrupting my sleeping patterns. To my surprise he answered: “Father, what about prayer and meditation?”
People of all religious denominations report that their spiritual practices were instrumental in providing a sense of community, deeper connection to others and general wellbeing. For many, they are part and parcel of the healing process. In the last decade, neuroscientists, through evidence-based studies, have proven that long term practice how meditation, prayer and the recall of powerful spiritual experiences release chemicals that stimulate brain centers related to happiness, relaxation, and serenity.
The importance of spiritual practices for overall health was foundational to faith in the early Christian Church. The Church Fathers and Mothers of the first five Centuries developed a biblically based theology of illness. This theology of illness described in detail various spiritual maladies such as self-love (even including bulimia and anorexia), the misuse of the gastronomical organs, the cult of sexual pleasure without love, money-loving and covetousness, sadness, inertia (today called ‘depression’ or melancholy), fear/wrath, vainglory and arrogance. The remedies to these ills were fasting, praying and speaking openly and freely to an experienced spiritual Father (Abba) or Mother (Amma) who would help bring seekers and believers back to their original God-given health as beloved people created in the image and likeness of the Creator.
Early pagans commented on Christianity as a religion “for the sick.” The ultimate doctor or physician was Jesus Christ who said: those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick (Mt, 9:12; Mk 2:17; Lk 7:31). We find depictions of Jesus Christ as a powerful miracle worker in wooden panels, sarcophagus friezes, and catacomb paintings. He is portrayed as more potent than Asclepios, the Greek god of healing because he raises the dead; i.e., the resurrections of Lazarus and the daughter of Jairus. In those representations, Jesus is often depicted with a staff to highlight he is the New Moses and not, like some believed, a healer with a magic wand!
Church Fathers speak of Jesus as the great physician, the superior healer who existed at the beginning of time. For example, Saint Ambrose affirms: We have taken refuge with the physician. He has cured our former wounds, and if any pain remains, a remedy will not be want. Although we have done some injury, he will not be mindful of it who has once forgiven. Although we have committed grievous faults, we have found a great physician; we have received great medicine of His grace; for great medicine removes great sin. (see On Elijah in fasting, 20. 75.)
Early in the history of the Western world, spiritual development and health were inseparable realities. I meet people who will say they have a perfect bill of health but feel something is missing: they need more in life, a more profound and stronger connection to others and God. Others struggle with serious health issues while their faith allows them to radiate trust and peace.
We all need to appreciate the broad impact and significance our spiritual lives have in our overall experience of wellness. It is true whether we are meeting serious health challenges daily or wanting to be complete, more whole. Spiritual, physical and mental health are all closely related. If that is the case, let us not hesitate to expose our wounds and our sickness to our good doctor, Jesus Christ. Let us seek the comfort of His churches, our spiritual hospitals, and ask him: Lord, lay your hands and eyes on us so your medicine may heal us for the glory of your Kingdom!
Fr. Daniel Renaud, OMI is a priest, religious and itinerant preacher with the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate of the US province. Mentored by Fr. Ronald Rolheiser, OMI he ministers from the campus of the Oblate School of Theology (OST) in San Antonio, Texas. Fr. Renaud has degrees and training in drama education, theology, pastoral ministry, psychodrama and spiritual direction. He has preached retreats to priests, men and women religious, deacons and wives and lay people on desire and mysticism, 12 steps recovery, Ignatian spirituality and Jungian shadow work, ecological conversion, the Beatitudes and human development and grief and life transitions. Fr. Renaud is a member of Spiritual Director International (SDI). His areas of interest are resilience, finding one’s mission and purpose in life, spiritual healing of traumatic relationships and everyday mysticism.