Fr. Jerry Harris and Fr. Lourdu Madanu administer Anointing of the Sick after Mass on March 2 at St. Anthony Church in Park Falls. The Mass was part of a Jesus Fest gathering that included prayer ministry for spiritual and physical healing. (Submitted photo)
In his book “Jesus of Nazareth,” Pope Benedict XVI addressed the reality of healing as a central aspect of the Christian faith. “Healing is an essential dimension of the apostolic mission and of Christianity. When understood at a sufficiently deep level, this expresses the entire content of redemption,” he wrote.
I encountered that quote while attending a “Healing the Whole Person” retreat last August put on by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee in conjunction with the John Paul II Healing Center. While that was not my first encounter with healing ministry in the church, the experience helped to reformulate my understanding and solidify my belief in God’s desire to heal us, spiritually, mentally and physically.
From a young age, my family attended various events at the Franciscan University of Steubenville and I was exposed to the active presence of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church and in my own life. We never considered ourselves “charismatic” – and raising my hands high in prayer does not come natural to me – but I can attest to the powerful experiences of feeling more fully alive, as if I had tapped into a spiritual energy source that kept the light of my own faith and personal relationship with God burning.
In my larger extended family, prayers for health and healing have always been the norm, and we have just expected that God answers them. Not always the way we’d like or hope, but I have a cousin who had a serious heart attack while he was in the seminary discerning the priesthood. His heart flatlined and a group of doctors on pilgrimage “just happened” to pass by. They revived him and, now a father of six young children, he works in a hospital and runs marathons. Another cousin was diagnosed with a terminal brain cancer. Even when treatments were working, doctors told her, newly married, that she would never be able to get pregnant as a side effect. She and her husband adopted a daughter and went on to have five biological children.
I would need three hands, at least, to recount other similar miraculous answers to prayer – some bigger than others – but I was raised in such a way that it wasn’t strange or out of the ordinary to pray for healing.
That said, somehow, I extracted the idea that healing was for others, but not for me. I don’t remember feeling unworthy or that God didn’t love me, it was more this idea that the cross was such a sign of Jesus’ love, that to have a cross and live with suffering was a sort of sign of privilege. I had taken very much to heart Jesus’ own words in the Gospel: take up your cross daily.
Jesus’ name means “God saves,” but it can be a challenge to reconcile that at times we are saved from suffering, and at others we are saved through it. We don’t have to look farther than our own personal and family histories to see that God’s call to carry our crosses is not contradictory to his invitation to pray for relief from them. Look at any of the Psalms and words of Jesus.
In my own life, there have been times I discovered I was holding onto suffering because it felt easier to identify with the crucified Christ than the joy and hope of his Resurrection. We live in a world where so much focus is given to the negative, to the ways we have been victimized and to feeling like we get more attention when others feel sorry for us more than sharing in our joys. That does not come from God.
Yes, Jesus died to save us, but it was because he rose again that proved he was God and had the power to break our bondage from sin. Without the resurrection, the cross loses all meaning. The book I’m reading for Lent (“Bread and Wine, Readings for Lent and Easter,” Plough Publishing House) offered a challenging reflection from Thomas Merton:
“True asceticism is not a mere cult of fortitude. We can deny ourselves rigorously for the wrong reason and end up by pleasing ourselves mightily with our self-denial. Suffering is consecrated to God by faith – not by faith in suffering, but faith in God.” He says that “suffering becomes good by accident” and that we worship Christ’s wounds not because they are wounds, “but because they are his wounds… [Jesus’] love for us is the infinite love of God, which is stronger than all evil and cannot be touched by death.”
The following story of the action of the Holy Spirit and God’s healing presence is shared as an invitation to open your heart this Lent to whatever gifts the Lord has in store. Surely in each of our lives there will plenty of both pain and joy. It’s not our responsibility to figure out what we need when, but to be actively receptive to God’s action every day. Developing a relationship with the Holy Spirit is the surest way to be docile and discern his will one step at a time. And it’s not as hard to understand if we put ourselves in the mindset of God the Father; any of us who are parents know the desire we have to see our children happy and healthy. We also know that difficulties serve a greater purpose, but that truth doesn’t make us needlessly or mercilessly ask them to suffer or do something difficult if there isn’t a greater good attached.
Jesus Fest
For a few years now, I have been invited to cover a summer event called Jesus Fest in the Park Falls area. It is put on by members of a prayer group in the area and hosted by Jim Lalonde and his wife at their lake house. What started out as a gathering for prayer and praise and worship music has become a seedbed for healing. It has expanded with members of the group being trained by Encounter Ministries as lay people to offer healing prayer ministry to others.
Beginning with the spontaneous inspiration for healing prayer by Fr. Bob Thorn at Jesus Fest in August 2023, two attendees experienced healing. At the August 2024 Jesus Fest, a dozen people experienced healing. A couple were healings related to mental health but the others were all physical. Lalonde shared how happy they were “helping Jesus help people… He could do it all by himself, but he wants to use us and we experience the joy that he experiences.”
Prompted by the experiences and encouraged by the diocesan Ministry for the Holy Spirit conference with Encounter Ministries in Rhinelander last September, members of the Park Falls prayer group have sought out further training with the organization.
Knowing that winter can be a difficult time of year for people physically, mentally and spiritually, the first winter Jesus Fest was held at St. Anthony Church in Park Falls on Sunday, March 2. Almost 100 people attended. Confessions were offered, praise and worship music prepared the attendees for Mass after which the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick was available followed by a time of prayer for further healing.
The Mass was concelebrated by Fr. Lourdu Madanu, serving the Phillips cluster, and Fr. Jerry Harris who serves Amery and Balsam Lake as well as being the chaplain for the Diocese of Superior’s Ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Sharing some of his experience, Fr. Lourdu said he was happy to have 15 people from his parishes in attendance. He acknowledged seeing “that the Spirit was pouring out on all the members.”
Fr. Harris was appointed to serve the diocesan Charismatic Renewal committee – now called the Ministry of the Holy Spirit – in June 2022 as Fr. Dean Buttrick physically could not continue. He experienced his own physical healing as a newly ordained priest: “That disease left me partially paralyzed for about a year-and-a-half when I was first ordained a priest. I prayed for healing and God did heal me, but it took about two years before I was healed.”
He has seen some people healed immediately and completely from their ailments, but added that sometimes it is God’s will it happen over time. “When we pray for healing, all the prayers are heard by God,” he affirmed. “No prayer is left unanswered by Jesus, though not all prayers are answered in the way that they are petitioned.” He added that sometimes, no physical healing takes place, but the person suffering is given the grace to accept it. “That type of healing gives the person hope to live life to the fullest.”
“In Acts 3:16, ‘And on the basis of faith in his name, it is the name of Jesus which was strengthened this man whom you see and know; and the faith which comes through him has given him this perfect health in the presence of you all.’” Fr. Harris reflected that healings were “signs of the Kingdom of God” among the people Jesus and his followers preached to; this is what healing continues to be today through the same power of the grace and name of Jesus.
Recounting his experiences at these Jesus Fest events, Lalonde commented how “heavily present” he felt the Holy Spirit’s presence while at the same time saying it felt like a cloud-life lightness. One participant felt the healing in his body as heat that intensified and spread. Physical healings included shoulder pain, lingering pain from an ankle surgery, depression and PTSD, Lyme disease and long COVID. Many who didn’t have a physical healing felt spiritually renewed and a strengthened sense of reverence for God’s power.
Lalonde was first introduced to the charismatic renewal during college when it was first starting in the Catholic Church. He has been invited to a prayer service by a friend. Hearing someone pray in tongues was surprising but he “just knew it was so real.” During that service, he was invited to begin praying out loud in English; after someone tapped his neck and said “Speak as the Lord guides you,” he felt something released internally and revealed his heart to God spontaneously speaking in tongues himself. The experience was completely authentic for him and been a practice he continued as it helped him get closer to God. When charismatic prayer groups were being more openly promoted some years back, Lalonde was pleased to find others interested in his area.
He clarified that moving to the name “Ministry of the Holy Spirit” expresses the unity among Catholics rather than identifying “Charismatics” are something separate. He knows that there are people skeptical of this spirituality and form of prayer, but his experiences over decades have shown him over and over that the work Jesus started when he was on this earth has continued forward.
Regarding some of the healings he has witnessed, he recognizes some might say it’s “just the power of positive thinking,” but why now say it’s at least “the power of positive thinking in Jesus!
“Looking from the outside might seem insignificant, but the for the person suffering, it’s a big thing,” he added. He also said that a lot of what he learned through the Encounter Ministry trainings is the need to increase people’s faith “to believe they can be healed and that Jesus wants to heal them.”
“God loves us so much and he does want to heal us,” Lalonde said. “Jesus only did what the Father’s will was (during his life).” When he chose his disciples and sent them to preach and heal, Lalonde added, “That’s coming from God the Father. Jesus set the example and shows how much God loves us.”
Reflecting on the resurrected Jesus’ command before for the Ascension, to preach and heal and affirming that others who would come to believe and carry on the mission through them, Lalonde said, “That’s like us … just ordinary believers … Jesus said that we would heal in his name.” He mentioned that the action of miracles do renew and strengthen belief and that healing was a normal part of the church’s life in the earliest years.
“God seems to be working a new movement to bring healing ministries back,” He concluded.
Lent is a prime opportunity to dive deeper into the healing ministry of the church and in our own lives, remembering that Jesus came, in his own words, “to seek and save the lost.” We are all “lost” through sin and recovered through reconciliation with God. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in numbers 1503-04 reminds, “Christ’s compassion for the sick and his many healing of every kind of infirmity as a resplendent sign that ‘God has visited his people’ and that the Kingdom of God is close at hand.
“Jesus has the power not only to heal, but also to forgive sins; he has come to heal the whole man, soul and body; he is the physician the sick have need of… And so in the sacrament Christ continues to ‘touch’ us in order to heal us.”
To learn more, visit catholicdos.org/charismatic-renewal or encounterministries.us.
