Crazy Catholic Question #164 - Healing

Why are some people healed and others not?
This past week a majority of our daily gospel readings feature Jesus healing people, which begs this CCQ question, right? We all know people who suffer chronic pain, pray fervently, and yet no relief comes and others who are healed. This disparity reminds me of this excerpt from Fr. James Martin’s book Jesus: A Pilgrimage:

“I’m writing these lines in the middle of a painful bout with carpal-tunnel syndrome, something that I’ve had for the past 20 years…the onset came suddenly during my studies to become a Jesuit. Within the space of a few days, I developed stabbing pains in my hands and arms, and for the next two months could barely turn a doorknob or hold a pencil without feeling like someone was plunging a knife into my wrists.

At the beginning of this minor medical saga, many doctors found the condition a diagnostic challenge. After a year of visiting a variety of hospitals, clinics and physical therapists, it was determined that I had either ‘repetitive strain injury,’ ‘carpal tunnel syndrome’ or an ‘autonomic nerve disorder.’ ‘Or some combo,’ said one doctor with a shrug ‘surgery wouldn’t work and the symptoms probably wouldn’t subside.’

These days I deal with this persistent problem, as do many who live with far more serious chronic illnesses: by managing it…This decades-long struggle is an entrée to the world of sadness, discouragement and even the despair that attends illness…What can compare to a person’s desperate desire to be healed from a serious illness or the unquenchable thirst for the end of physical pain?’

A few years ago I might have said that God is equally present to each of us, but it seems that God somehow moves closer to those who need help. Perhaps we are more open to God’s presence in our lives when we are more vulnerable; with our defenses down God can more easily break into our lives. One friend, at the beginning of her cancer treatment, reported a palpable sense of God’s presence, which manifested as a sudden onset of calm. She said she found it helpful to return to that “place” in herself where God had given her calm, and try to “live from” there. Rather than move towards discouragement over her illness, she would return to the calm that she felt was a gift from God.

There is, however, another place for the sick person. There are times when the suffering person feels that nothing can change, that all is hopeless, that the pain will never end, that a “normal way of life” is no longer possible. Even though I have not suffered from a terminal illness or a life-threatening condition, I do know that dark place. I have spent time there.

Jesus asks the paralytic ‘Do you want to be made well?’ Jesus might be saying to him, ‘Are you ready to let go of your identity as ‘the paralyzed man’? ‘Have you given up hope or do you still have faith?’

God asks the same question to those who may have given up in other areas. A broken marriage, a miserable work environment, and overwhelming financial difficulties, can lead us to despair. We can experience a spiritual paralysis that needs to be healed. But buried deep down under the despair is hope.

Hope is like the Pool of Bethesda. For years it was covered by dirt, gravel and trash - thought to be lost – or a myth. But it was always there, waiting to be uncovered, waiting to be restored, waiting to be seen again. It took work, but it was found. This is how God comes to us—asking if we still want healing, if we still believe, if we still have faith. Even while we dwell in despair, God excavates our hope and asks us, ‘Do you want to be made whole?’”

Send your Crazy Catholic Question to Lisa Brown at dre@ctredeemer.org or read past columns at www.crazycatholicquestions.blogspot.com

Crazy Catholic Question #163 - Polarized

A lot of people are shouting at each other these days: the left versus the right, conservative Christians versus progressive Christians, fundamentalists versus scientists, gays versus anti-gays, Israelis versus Palestinians, Republicans versus Democrats. Why are things so polarized?

A dear friend of mine, Bruce Tallman, who also is an author and spiritual director attended a symposium  entitled "Becoming Agents of Evolutionary Change," at King’s University College in London and wrote about the enlightening explanation to this question he heard there. Bruce writes “Carter Phipps, one of the keynote speakers and the author of Evolutionaries: Unlocking the Spiritual and Cultural Potential of Science’s Greatest Idea, explained that there are currently three major world views clashing with each other: the traditional, the modern, and the postmodern. All three have their own strengths and pathologies.

The traditional world view was dominant in medieval times. The healthy side of it was that it promoted respect for legitimate authority and hierarchy and produced stable, cohesive societies where everyone agreed on shared moral values. The carriers of truth in this world view were the priests. Its pathology was that its leaders could become authoritarian rather than authoritative, it devolved into theocracy, and the stability became rigid and blocked free thought, inquiry, and progress. The traditional world view today is characterized by conservative religion and politics.

The modern world view began in the 1500s with the Protestant Reformation which then led to free inquiry, reason, science, and economic materialism in the form of capitalism. Modernism has been dominant for the past 150 years and has brought us the goods of medicine, democracy, and meritocracy, that is, your status is not based on inherited bloodlines, anyone can excel. The carriers of truth here were the scientists. The pathology is that healthy competition was replaced by greed resulting in major wars and the destruction of the planet’s resources, and science led to the development of atomic bombs. Modernism also was male-dominated and left out women and the poor.

The postmodern world view began to emerge in the 1960s. It emphasizes environmentalism, pluralism, and inclusivism and so engages in struggles for the rights of women, blacks, homosexuals, and aboriginals. It is concerned with the psychological healing and development of the self. There is also a growing awareness of a need to turn from materialism to spirituality, but not religion, thus many people are "spiritual but not religious." The carrier of truth here is the individual - everyone creates their own truth. The pathology is that postmodernism is anti-hierarchical to a fault - everyone has an equal voice so nothing gets done, as with Occupy Wall Street. It can also be anti-intellectual and narcissistic, due to an overemphasis on the subjective self.

One world view develops as a corrective to a previous world view and so the traditionalists, modernists, and postmodernists focus on the pathology of the other. When the alternate world views challenge each other’s values, each feels their very identity is being attacked and thus we have great polarization and shouting.

The solution is to focus on the legitimate values in each of the world views and let the pathology go. In other words, we need to learn to not see those with opposing viewpoints as utterly wrong and evil, to recognize that we are all trying to do what we think is right, to seek out and keep the good in the other’s view of the world, and learn how to dialogue and listen respectfully to each other.”

Send your Crazy Catholic Question to Lisa Brown at dre@ctredeemer.org or read past columns at www.crazycatholicquestions.blogspot.com

Crazy Catholic Question #162 - Pope's Delay

Why did the Vatican delay our U.S. Bishops on voting in new measures to hold our leaders accountable for the church cover-up of sex abuse?

Based on what I’ve gathered from different sources, primarily a televised interview with Dr. Richard Gaillardetz of Boston College, I think there is no doubt that the Vatican’s “final-hour” heavy-handed halt of the U.S. Bishops vote was, as Gaillardetz puts it, “a public relations gaffe of the highest order.” Nothing terribly new in this ineptness I’m afraid; God has been in need of a new PR manager for quite some time now…

Gaillardetz suggests there may be more going on in the Vatican’s request to table the issue for a few months than meets the eye, because in February something rather remarkable and unprecedented is going to happen: Pope Francis has called all of the presidents of all the bishops’ conferences throughout the world to come to Rome for a meeting to discuss this sexual abuse issue…and this issue alone.

This delay of our U.S. Bishops vote may indicate that Pope Francis doesn’t want a few ad hoc decisions made by individual conferences because “he sees this is as a global problem that requires a global solution.” This would explain why Pope Francis recommended that the U.S. Bishops “go on retreat” in November instead of holding a formal meeting in the first place. He wants to make sure that before any one group comes up with particular solutions for their own country, ALL our bishops throughout the world are on the same page.

If this is the case, then we can ask - If we wanted to gather all our family members to discuss an incredibly serious and persistent problem and wanted to make it feasible for everyone to attend without undue hardship, how far out would we have to set this meeting? One month? Two? After the holidays? Even some of our little parish teams of just 10 people can’t find a meeting date between now and February that agrees with everyone’s calendars– let alone Bishops from all over the globe!

So, rather than viewing this delay as “Vatican-foot dragging,” perhaps Pope Francis is simply being respectful of the bishops’ time and providing ample notice so that all are able to attend. Maybe Archbishop Vigneron, who said in his Advent letter that he "was surprised and concerned” by the Holy See’s delay, would be comforted by this perspective.

Gaillardetz suspects that we are going to see some significant action in the wake of this meeting in February, and I pray he is right. Rather than just dealing with the fallout of the crisis (which was what the U.S. Bishops agenda addressed) I hope that the bishops will dialogue about its root causes – namely, clericalism, which Gaillardetz defines as “anything that treats the clergy as a privileged group that should be treated with deference or grants them particular power and suggests that they are immune from accountability.” In order to effectively address this evil of clericalism, Gaillardetz believes we have to take a comprehensive look at our at seminary education and the way in which titles and honorifics are bestowed, among many other practices that encourage our all-male leadership to think they are special and set apart in some way. The Pope may indeed be staking his entire legacy on his strong conviction that the real problem in our church is not homosexuality as some have suggested (and which every rational mental health professional has dismissed as attacking a straw man), but rather clerical privilege.

So, let’s all pray for (as my 9-year-old calls them) “the boys in the funny hats” in Rome, shall we? That the Spirit of God show itself mightily at this February gathering and grace our leaders with some clarity on what steps to take to keep our most treasured gift from God safe: our children.

Send your Crazy Catholic Question to Lisa Brown at dre@ctredeemer.org or read past columns at www.crazycatholicquestions.blogspot.com