Healing

My fingers nervously moved over the contours of the Tree of Life emblem emblazoned on my little green journal as I sat expectantly behind three other people in the wooden pews. I looked down at my journal. The pages contained deep reflections from a weekend of interior examinations, including preparation for the confession I would soon make. Person number three exited the confessional. I slid down the pew. Two more before me. I looked around the sanctuary at the serene and colorful icons stretching floor to ceiling behind the altar in St. Mark's Church. In nearby pews many others, like me, were waiting for a priest to hear their confessions. There was pensiveness, an odd sense of excitement knowing what was to come. Another confession finished. I scooted closer. One person in front of me. The first inklings of vigil Mass were showing -- a musician setting down sheets on the grand piano, a sacristan filling vessels with holy water, a family kneeling reverently with heads bowed as they prayed together. Finally, the last confessee before me entered. I was close to that releasing of tension and sweet absolution. No matter how many times I return, the words are still tonic for my weary soul:

God, the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son has reconciled the world to himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins; through the ministry of the Church may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

When I finally made it into the small room with a priest, my confession wasn't groundbreaking. I had brought many of the sins to this place before. Yet something felt different this day. The counsel from the priest was excellent, but that wasn't all. I had been on retreat all weekend with the staff of the John Paul II Healing Center from Tallahassee, Florida. As I exited and said my penance, I felt not only restored to good grace and given hope to become a better version of myself, but this confession felt like the start of a new and definitive direction for my life.

I never realized how much healing I needed until this retreat in Seattle at the end of August. My need for healing doesn't stem from the malicious intent of others. No one is chiefly responsible. I just live with disappointment, hurt, and sin in my heart and around me. So do you. We all do. We are a product of the beautiful but fallen world we occupy.

But it's going to be OK. Jesus is the divine physician, and he will heal us if we invite him to work within. In all the prayer, intellectual arguments, experiences, and lectures of my lifetime, I never had invited Jesus to begin His healing work in me. That changed at this retreat for the Healing of the Whole Person. My healing isn't complete, but it has begun.

I dug into my past, looking at relationships with family and friends, dug into my experiences from childhood and adolescence, dug into my worldview and notions of morality, dug into my mind and heart to find the barriers to abundant life. Jesus was calling me to more.

The integration of my psychological, spiritual, emotional, physical, sexual being is endless in this life, but a greater awareness of what has formed and continues to form me is vital to understanding where and why I struggle. I am imperfect. I sin and sin again, against myself, against others, and against the Lord. I turn inwardly, selfishly. It's not a matter of being bad or good. I am not evil. I am not good. But my actions have moral implications that need constant fine tuning. Confession helps, and a retreat focusing on healing helps further.

It's difficult to convey the power of this healing process because I can't very well talk about my personal wounds in such a public forum, but if you, like me, have ever longed for a deeper understanding and relationship with the Living Lord, the healing that occurred was a mode of making that relationship possible.

The JPII Healing Center offers retreats around the country for marriage, sexuality, seminarians, desire, and other ways of presenting the Great Physician. Can you attend one this year? See for yourself what brought me such deep joy: https://jpiihealingcenter.org/index.php/events.