Healing service in Michigan provides a window into the Catholic charismatic movement

[Michie]

A recent healing service at St. Patrick Catholic Church in Brighton, Michigan, offered a glimpse into part of a Catholic charismatic ministry that also takes place in many other parts of the world, according to a priest and a prominent theologian.

On the evening of Dec. 6, pastor Father Mathias Thelen, co-founder and president of Encounter Ministries, spoke to a near-capacity congregation. His talk was preceded by congregational singing and praise music played with a piano, guitars, and drums. There was also a video presentation of a healing service he conducted earlier this year in Brazil.

Continued below.

Healing service in Michigan provides window into charismatic movement

On the evening of Dec. 6, Father Mathias Thelen, co-founder and president of Encounter Ministries, spoke to a near-capacity congregation about healing.

www.catholicnewsagency.com

 

[RileyG]

I'm not sure how I feel about the charismatic movement within the Catholic Church, but as long as it helps people, it's good with me!

And no, I'm not fond of guitar Masses, but the Eucharist is the Eucharist.

 

[fide]

A recent healing service at St. Patrick Catholic Church in Brighton, Michigan, offered a glimpse into part of a Catholic charismatic ministry that also takes place in many other parts of the world, according to a priest and a prominent theologian.

On the evening of Dec. 6, pastor Father Mathias Thelen, co-founder and president of Encounter Ministries, spoke to a near-capacity congregation. His talk was preceded by congregational singing and praise music played with a piano, guitars, and drums. There was also a video presentation of a healing service he conducted earlier this year in Brazil.

Continued below.

Healing service in Michigan provides window into charismatic movement

On the evening of Dec. 6, Father Mathias Thelen, co-founder and president of Encounter Ministries, spoke to a near-capacity congregation about healing.

www.catholicnewsagency.com

Charismatic healing sessions lead me to wonder this: Which is best for us, to pray for the healing of some infirmity I have, to ask for and seek healing through others - either medically and/or by prayers for my healing, or to thank God for entrusting me with that infirmity and then offering my suffering in the infirmity - in union with the Holy Cross of Christ - for the salvation of poor lost sinners?

Words from our Mother Mary, Fatima, 1917:

(May 13) - “Will you offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings he sends you? In atonement for all the sins that offend him? And for the conversion of sinners? [The children said, “We will.”] Then you will have a great deal to suffer, but the grace of God will be with you and will strengthen you.”
(July 13) - “Make sacrifices for sinners, and say often, especially while making a sacrifice: ‘O Jesus, this is for love of thee, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for offenses committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.’”
(Aug 19) - “Pray; pray very much. Make sacrifices for sinners. Many souls go to hell because no one is willing to help them with sacrifice.”

Col 1:24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church,...

In my case, if there is a way (made possible by God) to be healed I might try it with the prayer that if God wills, may this heal me, but if God wills that I suffer this, so be it: "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Jesus prayed:

Mt 26:39 He advanced a little and fell prostrate in prayer, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet, not as I will, but as you will.”

 

[RileyG]

I actually knew an ex-postulant (she has since died) who spoke in tongues.

She had a liturgical wake and seemed to have a deep love for liturgy. She was a convert from Lutheranism to Catholicism.

She was confirmed by a Monsignor, who was the brother of a nun at the monastery, where she was was a postulant briefly, where she never officially joined.

Please pray that Monastery will have many more young women join. Their average age is around 80+ or so.

 

[mourningdove~]

Charismatic healing sessions lead me to wonder this: Which is best for us, to pray for the healing of some infirmity I have, to ask for and seek healing through others - either medically and/or by prayers for my healing, or to thank God for entrusting me with that infirmity and then offering my suffering in the infirmity - in union with the Holy Cross of Christ - for the salvation of poor lost sinners?

Words from our Mother Mary, Fatima, 1917:

In my case, if there is a way (made possible by God) to be healed I might try it with the prayer that if God wills, may this heal me, but if God wills that I suffer this, so be it: "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Jesus prayed:

I am slowly reading a very very good book: "The Crook in the Lot: God's Sovereignty in Afflictions" by Thomas Boston.
(Not Catholic authored, but still very good.)

The book opens with this verse:
"Consider the work of God; who can make straight what He has made crooked?"
~ Ecclesiastes 7:13

And the whole book is about the afflictions we find ourselves 'living with' in life ... those things we cannot change ... and God's purposes in and thru them.

So while we tend to think that being 'healed' is always best for us, God knows when it is better that we are not.

And understanding God's purposes in 'the crooks in our lot' helps greatly in bearing them, and gaining the most benefit from them. Least, for me, it does.