Ann Arbor, Michigan, Dec 17, 2024 / 06:00 am
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.
Before Thelen spoke, Encounter Ministries Director of Operations Rachel Grech put her hand on his shoulder and prayed audibly for him, as members of the congregation also held up their hands in blessing. Thelen started by saying: “This is all about God’s love, so turn to your neighbor and say, ‘You are loved.’ Why am I doing this? Because this makes no sense without that truth.”
Thelen said the purpose of the evening service was to bring God’s love to bear on “our bodies, our lives.” Paraphrasing Mark 16:15, he said: “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature… In my name they will drive out demons … They will lay hands on the sick and they will recover.”
Thelan holds a licentiate in sacred theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome. He authored “Biblical Foundations for the Role of Healing in Evangelization” and has appeared in the documentaries “Fearless” and “Revive.” He also wrote “The Explosive Growth of Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity in the Global South and Its Implications for Catholic Evangelization” in Homiletic and Pastoral Review.
At the service, Thelen said that evil came into the world when humanity rejected God. “One of these evils is sickness, and it was never part of God’s plan. It makes perfect sense that when God sends his son, Jesus, to reign and heal us of sin that he heals us of sickness.”
He called for prayers in the name of Jesus while naming various parts of the body. When congregation members stood up, their companions placed hands on them and prayed for healing. Thelen asked to “pray resurrection life” into those with brain injuries, for example, and for those with terminal illness.
Father Brian Gross of North Dakota told CNA: “I would have told you that you’re crazy if you had told me six years ago that I would be doing this.” An encounter with Thelen encouraged his priesthood and to offer healing services. Now teaching at St. Paul Seminary in Minnesota as director of pastoral formation, he shares his experience of Encounter Ministries with seminarians.
Informal healings not held on church grounds are also frequent in the Diocese of Lansing, Michigan, where St. Patrick Parish is located. At least one instance was at a dinner event organized by St. Thomas Parish in Ann Arbor last month.
In an interview with CNA, Mary Healy, a professor of theology at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit and counselor to Encounter Ministries, noted that anointing of the sick, once popularly known as “last rites,” is one of the two healing sacraments offered by the Church. “It is for healing, but over time the emphasis has been much much more on healing of the soul and the healing of sin and its effects.”
She said that other dimensions of healing by anointing were de-emphasized so that it was seen for centuries as “extreme unction” near death. “People saw a priest with his anointing oils would despair because it meant the hour of death was near,” Healy said, adding that there was a rectification of the practice by the Second Vatican Council. She said she knows priests who have witnessed miraculous healings following anointing.
“Prayer for the sick laity,” she said, “has always been present in the Church. It really initiated with the words of the Lord, who commanded the apostles first but then the wider group of disciples to go heal the sick and proclaim that the kingdom of God is at hand.”
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Paraphrasing the Gospel of Mark, Healy noted that Jesus told believers to proclaim the Gospel to all creation and that signs will accompany them. Jesus said in the Gospel: “In my name ‘they will lay their hands on the sick and the sick will recover.’”
“The primary place, not the only place, for the healing through the laying of hands by lay Christians is meant to be evangelization. Healing is particularly for the context of evangelization,” Healy affirmed. “Healing is a sign for those who do not yet believe, those who only partially believe, those who are mixed up in their belief system, and those who do not have a rich and profound relationship with Jesus Christ. Healing is a sign that truly the kingdom is here because the King is here.”
Encounter Ministries came as a result of Thelen’s friendship with co-founder Patrick Reis. Thelen told Faith magazine earlier this year: “We wanted to begin demonstrating what the Holy Spirit can do in the Church but also teaching people how to walk in that power, walk in that goodness that God has for the whole Church.”
Healy is also a theological adviser to Renewal Ministries, based in Ann Arbor and founded by fellow theologian Ralph Martin. It has spread to Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Martin founded the charismatic Word of God and Sword of the Spirit Christian communities. The latter has been recommended by Bishop George Bacouni of the Melkite Catholic rite.
Martin Barillas is a writer and translator, having once served as a U.S. diplomat in Europe and South America. A lifelong Catholic, he resides in Michigan with his wife Alice and their four children and grandchild. He has written on a variety of topics, including human rights, politics and religion. He is also a novelist.
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