Catholic Healing Service Illustrates Growth Of Charismatic Ministries

A recent healing service at St. Patrick Catholic parish in Brighton, Michigan, offered a glimpse into part of a growing charismatic Catholic movement of evangelization and spiritual growth. 

Pastor Fr. Mathias Thelen spoke to a near-capacity congregation on December 6, preceded by congregational singing accompanied by piano, guitars, and drums. There was also a video presentation of a healing service he conducted this year in Brazil.

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.” The service was live-streamed.

Thelen said that Jesus Christ came to the world not to condemn but to save it and give eternal life. The purpose of the service was to bring God’s love to bear on “our bodies, our lives.” Paraphrasing Jesus in the Gospel of 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.” 

Thelen is co-founder and president of Encounter Ministries, is a Licentiate in Sacred Theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, author of Biblical Foundations for the Role of Healing in Evangelization. He also wrote “The Explosive Growth of Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity in the Global South and Its Implications for Catholic Evangelization” in the Homiletic and Pastoral Review. Thelen has led several parishes and has taught at Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit.

Encounter Ministries seeks to equip disciples with the Holy Spirit, operating a two-year school of healing ministry, Christology, prophetic ministry, and prayer. Its main campus is in Brighton, with  33 campuses and 6,000 students worldwide. Weekend seminars are also offered on healing and other topics. 

At the healing 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.” By forgiving sinners and healing the sick, Thelen said, Jesus is inviting humanity into a “kingdom where we are fully alive.”

Thelen has witnessed several healings, including an infertile couple who now have several children. ”I could tell you stories for hours but I want to focus on God’s love.” He called on the congregation to pray and call on God to “be who he says He is.” He asked listeners to forgive,  repent, and beg forgiveness. As Thelen prayed out loud, people stood up as others placed hands on them and prayed for healing. Among those asking for healing was a nun of the Dominican order. Thelen asked to “pray resurrection life” into those with brain injuries and for those with terminal illness. 

Fr. Brian Gross of North Dakota told CNA that an encounter with Thelen encouraged him to offer healing services. He teaches pastoral formation at St. Paul Seminary in Minnesota, sharing his experience of Encounter Ministries with seminarians.

Encounter Ministries came as a result of Thelen’s friendship with co-founder Patrick Reis. He 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.” 

In an interview with CNA, Mary Healy, a professor of theology and counselor to Encounter Ministries, said that anointing of the sick, once popularly known as ‘Last Rites,’ is one of the 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. 

Healy said that other dimensions of healing by anointing were de-emphasized, so that it was seen as coming near death. “People seeing a priest with 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 after anointing.

“Prayer for the sick by 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.” 

Paraphrasing the Gospel of Mark, Healy noted that Jesus told believers to proclaim the Gospel to all creation, lay hands on the sick, and that signs will accompany them. She said faith is essential in the healing process. She is the author of several books on the Gospels and Healing: Bringing the Gift of God’s Mercy to the World.

“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.” 

In an email, Healy told CNA that neither Thelen nor she describe their ministry as a healing ministry. Instead it is “teaching and equipping Catholics to activate the gifts of the Holy Spirit, including healing, in order to evangelize as Jesus taught us to.” Healy has led healing services herself. The goal, she wrote, is not mere healing, but an “encounter with the living, risen Lord Jesus and come to know the dimensions of His love” to share with others. Healy provided the testimony of a woman who attested to her healing of a heart condition. The woman wrote that a physician said her healing came only because “someone was looking out for me.” Healy wrote that this ministry is growing “exponentially”, as shown by the number of Encounter campuses.

Healy continued, saying that Encounter is part of the “wider charismatic movement in that both are part of the extraordinary outpouring of the Holy Spirit occurring in our time, leading the Church to rediscover the full power and gifts of the Holy Spirit.” Encounter Ministries is, she wrote, “rooted in Catholic charismatic renewal.” She added that the movement has been, since its inception, a source of “grace for racial and ethnic unity as well as Christian unity.”

Healy also advises 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. 

At this year’s National Eucharistic Congress in Indiana, Healy spoke on the charism of healing, and assisted Thelen in a healing service. Another powerful realization came during Dr. Mary Healy’s talk on healing and prayer. Some who attended felt that it was an intense experience reminiscent of Jesus ministry to the sick. Matthew Chicoine, who blogs at Simple Catholic, attended the service. After feeling relief for a headache, his belief in Jesus’s power to heal was confirmed. “Jesus is the Divine Physician and He desires to heal all our wounds,” he wrote.

Another version of this article appeared at Catholic News Agency.