by Fr. Brian Kane
Rector, St. Gregory the Great
Seminary; Director of Seminarians
“Do you want to be well?”
While this may not be the question you expect when you visit the doctor’s office, this is the first thing Jesus asked the man who lay beside the pool of Bethesda in the Gospel of John (5:1-9).
In my July column I spoke about a new emphasis in seminary formation to form men who are “healed, mystic, teachers.” I’d like to focus on “healed” this month. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishop’s new document, “The Program of Priestly Formation,” sixth edition, states: “The goal of priestly formation is to form missionary disciples so that they are ready for consecration as shepherds for God’s People, sharing in the authority of Christ the Redeemer, who sent the Apostles to preach and heal.” (PPF 14) Priests are called to preach the Gospel and to heal. In order to participate in Jesus’ mission of healing, the formation of seminarians must allow them to encounter Jesus’ healing in their own lives first.
In his book “Be Healed,” Dr. Bob Schuchts comments on the passage mentioned above from the Gospel of John where Jesus asks the paralyzed man, “Do you want to be well?” Schuchts notes that Jesus’ question “is directed to me and to you as well. After all these years of struggling with our various physical, psychological, and spiritual infirmities, have we somehow resigned ourselves to our broken condition, believing ‘this is as good as life gets’?” (Be Healed, p. 8)
Jesus desires us to experience freedom from our sin, the effect of the sin of others, as well as the spiritual and psychological prisons we can find ourselves in when we believe lies about ourselves that are at the root of our identity. When reflecting on how I desire to experience healing, and in what parts of my life, Dr. Schuchts connects seven deadly wounds with associated identity beliefs: abandonment (I am all alone; no one cares or understands), fear (I am afraid; if I trust I will be hurt), powerlessness (I can’t change it; I am too small/weak), hopelessness (things will never get better; I want to die), confusion (I don’t understand what’s happening), rejection (I am not loved, wanted, or desired) and shame (I am bad, dirty, shameful, stupid, and worthless; I am tainted, because of what happened to me I am unlovable; I will never recover). (Be Healed, p. 115) These affect us deeply, these are the places Jesus desires to enter and heal.
All of us experience these wounds and their associated beliefs in one way or another throughout our lives. Seminarians enter formation with a beautiful desire to be known, and in their vulnerability are able to talk about the ways in which they desire to be healed by Jesus. Reading the Gospel accounts of Jesus, all of the people he healed joyfully left the encounter with a deep desire to tell others about this Jesus who healed them of their blindness, paralysis, leprosy, and their sins.
The mission of a seminary is to form men to preach the Gospel and heal. That means it must first bring them into contact with Jesus and his healing. Their encounter inspires zeal to go out and tell others about Jesus whom they have met. It gives them freedom in their lives to deepen their intimacy with Jesus. It teaches them how to receive forgiveness and how to forgive. It transforms shame into vulnerable trust. It forms disciples who act with “interior freedom rather than simply demonstrating a ‘veneer of virtuous habits’” (PPF 182)
The Holy Spirit’s inspiration is guiding this process at St. Gregory the Great Seminary in Seward and in the lives of our Theology seminarians studying at St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Md., and St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia. They are grateful for your prayers and support of the Bishop’s Appeal for Vocations.
If you’d like a chance to visit the seminary, our next Visitor Sunday is Sunday, Nov. 12, with Mass at 10 a.m. with tours following, and Evening Prayer at 5:30 p.m.
You are also invited to join us at St. Gregory’s on Sunday, Dec. 3, for our annual Advent Vespers and Carols at 7 p.m., to pray with us and enter more deeply into our preparation for Christmas.
