Healing in the Sacraments - Healing 2024

Summary

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We should look at healing as the wholeness God can give us. He can redeem every circumstance and every difficulty. Though it can seem as though many things can stand in our way of receiving the healing we search for, Nell shares how to grow closer to God and find healing in relationship with Him.

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Reflective Study Guide Questions

“Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.”
Jn. 5:56.

1. Nell relates that preparing to make a general Confession allowed her to look at her life in segments and to see where she was not allowing God to love her. Have you ever looked at your life in this light? Where in your life are you not allowing God to love you?

2. The word “healing” can have many different meanings. But in our Faith, we should focus on the wholeness that healing can mean for us. How do you tend to think of healing? How can you put more focus on wholeness when you think about healing?

3. There can be many natural impediments that stand in our way of receiving the Sacraments as often as was should, such as time restraints, travel, distance, or other inconveniences. What is standing in your way of receiving the Sacraments more often? How can you work on treating these things as a challenge?

4. When we examine our lives in these matters, we can tend to be hard on ourselves and feel like we are a failure. But this is not how God sees us. Are you ever hard on yourself? How can you focus more on the way God sees you?

Text: Healing in the Sacraments

Hi, I am Nelle O’Leary. We’re going to talk today about healing in the sacraments for your Pray More Novenas healing retreat. Now, we have this beautiful scripture passage that talks about the importance of the sacraments and why it’s the sacraments that give us life.

John 6: 53-58

This is John Six, Fifty three to Fifty eight “And Jesus says to them, truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day for my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink. Indeed, he eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him as the living Father sent me. And the, and I live because of the Father. So he who eats me will live because of me. This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died. He who eats this bread will live forever.”

The Sacrament of Confession

He who eats this bread will live forever. Jesus Christ has come down to give us His very body and blood to be set free, to be made fully alive in Him. So of course, we have this incredible healing through the blessed sacrament, but we also have the extraordinary healing available through the sacrament of confession. Now, I did a general confession when I did this long Ignatian Thirty day retreat, and for anyone who has done a general confession, there are different points in people’s lives where maybe they would’ve done this.

It’s a really remarkable way to look at your whole life in segments and identify these areas where, in my case, the lens I was praying through with it for the sins, for this confession was where was I doubting God’s mercy? Where was I sitting? Where was I separating myself from His love? So when I first sat down to think, oh, I have to, I have to itemize these sins, like first of all, some were so embarrassing, I’m writing them down like, oh yeah, I did this how many times? And you know, kind and number is what we’re looking at in confession. So what was it? How many times did I do it? Lists of like, oh yeah, between this age and this age, I was constantly annoying my family on purpose. Oh yeah, this age to this age. I was constantly not taking care of myself staying up too late and not getting my work done this age.

But instead of just that itemization, I stepped back from that list and thought, where was I not allowing God to love me? Where was I protecting my heart? Thinking I was protecting my heart from what was really His healing mercy and love? Where was I hiding from His healing touch? The gift of the sacraments is that God wants to give Himself to us, to transform us and to change us, and to help us be more the people He made us to be. Not so that we all look the same, like all a bunch of robots, but so that I’m more now and you are more you. It helps for us to define our terms, right? I’m an attorney, so I always like to know what do things mean? And healing is one of those words that I think can cut many ways we think of in our culture today. Healing is a desired outcome such as, I would like to be healed from this disease. I would like to be free from this disease. I no longer have it. It’s gone. It’s done. I’m all better or healing looks like I want this wound to be closed, to be completely without infection, to be scarred over, to disappear. I want something that is hard to be gone from my life. It’s kind of an American culture thing, right? We want it to be erased. We want it to be healed. We want it to be disappeared. But healing in God’s timing and healing in a Catholic notion of the word is a little bit different than that. So even for us to say like, what does it look like to experience healing through the sacraments? Does it mean that things are, no longer part of our story? That those things that were hard and troublesome for us just poof, just totally disappear.

A Deeper and More Profound Union With God

Healing in our Catholic frame of mind really means deeper and more profound union with God. It does not mean a magic erasure of things as if they never happened. It means an infusion of the grace of God into the literal wound, the literal scar tissue, the literal hole in our heart, the literal habit that’s so toxic and weighing us down this infusion of His grace and his presence, and with that, a deeper union with Him. So healing does not necessarily look like I no longer have, this disease. Therefore, if I still have this disease and I’m going to die from it, I wasn’t healed. That’s like maybe more of a medical healing, but in particular, healing looks like I’ve invited God into this space this, this problem. If we’re talking about a physical medical disease, this disease, God is here with me. He’s walking this journey alongside me. He’s carrying me for most of it. I am not alone in it. I am united with Him.

So when we ask for healing, we ask for wholeness. It might not be on this side of heaven. It might not be that, that the relationship that we’re longing to have healing in is fixed. It might not be that the addiction that our loved one is struggling with is gone. But that layer of healing that we know and we trust and we completely believe in is that we are in union with God, with and throughout this problem, this area that we desire healing for in our life. So there’s such a beauty to say that the sacraments, they hold a particular healing for us. It’s not a generic sprinkling of some kind of antiseptic over something that’s hard. It’s very specific to what we need for our human nature, right?

Christ founded His church to give us His grace and healing through the sacraments. We have seven sacraments and healing is embedded in so many of them. We have in baptism, the washing away of original sin and our first confession, the washing away of those sins that are pressing on our little hearts. If we do it as a child or we do it as an adult, we always go as a child before the Father, even if we’re eighty and we’re going to confession, we still bring that childlike posture just the same as the eight year old who’s going for their first confession.

And in receiving our Lord in the blessed sacrament by going back to that passage from John, we need his life within us. And we receive it physically through eating his flesh and drinking his blood in the blessed sacrament, the blessed sacrament, the host, the consecrated host is Jesus, body, blood, soul, and divinity. The precious blood is Jesus, body, blood, soul, divinity in every drop, in every morsel. He wants to literally feed us and transform us in that incredible way. Of course, if anyone has had anointing of the sick, there is such healing that comes with the anointing of the sick. This incredible outpouring of God’s love and healing union with Him healing when we’re facing a particularly hard time with illness or if you’re receiving anointing of the sick right before death as well. And the graces that are present in healing for holy orders and for, matrimony are just incredible. They truly do sustain us.

Confirmation has a beautiful anointment of healing that it fortifies you, right? It fortifies all of those unleashing the gifts of the Holy Spirit, hoping to see the fruits, the Holy Spirit in your life. It’s that capstone of those first confession and first holy communion and confirmation. It’s a really incredible way of solidifying our identity as a child of God. So the Gospel has so many promises about healing tied to the sacraments. Not only that passage from John, but every time that Jesus says, do you want to be well, I forgive your sins. They’re interlaced so closely, so often that He shows us that healing isn’t just about the physical healing. That that physical healing that we might be longing for, that it’s about cleansing us of our sins and renewing our desire and our need, our recognition of our acute need for Him.

What if Healing Does Not Happen?

Now, what about when healing doesn’t happen happen? And I think it’s really important to address this as Catholics because healing and I think healing is a really big buzzword in the Catholic community right now. We have an outpouring of healing ministries and healing masses and people who are learning schools of prayer about healing, which are all so, so beautiful. But when the rubber meets the road and you feel like you’ve done all the things and the desired outcome wasn’t achieved, your child still is sick, you are struggling with your addiction still, your marriage is still on the brink of destruction, whatever the desire for healing is, and it hasn’t happened. It hasn’t happened.

How do we reconcile that? How do we reconcile that and how do we still try to maintain our trust and our faith that God wants to heal us? We talked about that a little bit before, but I think that the beauty of the incarnation sacraments is that Jesus doesn’t ask us to just receive Him one time in the blessed sacrament and then trust that that grace will help draw us closer to Him in this unit of healing for the rest of our lives. We can receive the blessed sacrament. You can receive the blessed sacrament two times a day, even more if you have a special dispensation.

So that we get to take Him into our bodies repeatedly shows that this is a repeated motion that we need. We are these incarnational beings. And to have an incarnational God who lets us receive him body, blood, soul, and divinity into our very bodies is this constant physical reminder that He’s present to us. He’s present to us, He’s present among us, and His desire for our healing is not one and done either. His desire for our healing is offering Himself of this vulnerable state, this tiny host under the appearance of bread, under the appearance of wine that can so easily be mistreated and maligned and abused.

The Lord Desires Us

Our Lord comes to us so vulnerably to say, I desire you. I desire intimacy with you. I desire to give myself to you and for you to give yourself to me. And that that is where this deeper level of healing takes place. It’s really true that staying close to the sacraments can be tricky. Our schedules are so busy. We are overbooked, we are over scheduled, we are over every, we’re over everything. We’re over caffeinated. We’re, um, we’re certainly overstimulated. But my encouragement for you and my calle for you is to again, look at your schedule and see, am I making time to go to confession? Am I making time to go in the posture of a child to a father who wants to have me unburden myself to Him?

The priest is acting in persona Christie, there are no sins you can tell him that are too embarrassing. There’s nothing too horrific that could come outta your mouth that he wouldn’t receive and help you sort through in the presence of God. There is nothing that you can bring to our Lord and savior Jesus Christ that He doesn’t want to forgive and to heal so when you’re looking and thinking, gosh, I just haven’t been a confession in forever. It’s so hard. Maybe you live somewhere where you’d have to make an appointment. Maybe all of the times of confession are available. You’re working or you’re at school or it’s such a long drive and you have little kids.

Whatever these natural impediments are to the sacraments, take that out as a challenge. I need the healing that comes through the blessed sacrament. I need the healing that comes through confession. So I know that I know that I can’t heal myself. I know that Jesus has given me these actual ways of receiving His grace when I avail myself of it. Just have to look and figure out how to get there. It’s a challenge. It’s a puzzle availing ourself of those graces. He won’t regret it. And maybe there won’t be this huge groundswell feeling in your heart fluttering, oh, it was just amazing. Every time you come out of the confessional, maybe you won’t feel it. But our religion is not one of feelings. It’s one of trusting and faith and, and hoping and love, right? These virtues to theological virtues that have been given to us. And asking our Lord for an increase in them and placing our will before His and saying, I trust that you are doing these things. Even if I don’t feel them, I trust that this union that we’re going through together is going to deepen and increase my healing because I’m closer and closer to you, Lord.

A Feeling of Freedom

So looking at your schedule and finding time to get to confession, and if it’s been a really long time, finding a priest who would hear your general confession, who would help you sort through writing it out and and figuring out all the discernment of praying through what to share could be really incredibly healing as well. I have to say, my own general confession completely changed my view on confession, my experience of confession. Because instead of it being a laundry list of all my housewife sins, all my shortcomings, and a time when I just deepened in my sense of shame over my bad choices, it became this freeing moment of professing before God, my trust in how much He loves me, and how I had not trusted in that love and how I needed to I wanted to trust more deeply in His love and mercy for me. So instead of shameless, it became like a song of joy in my heart.

So scheduling that is so important, making time for that. I just, I can’t encourage you enough. So this intimacy with Jesus, if that’s the goal, instead of a specific request that I want healing in these areas, to say, Lord, you know where you want to heal me. You know my wounds better than I do, and I’m going to open my heart and be vulnerable and come before you to receive the healing that you desire to give me. So yeah, of course, make your list of things that you desire, But then there’s a beautiful invitation to submit our desires even to Him. So we can list them all off and say, Lord, you know, these are the things that I desire in my heart, the things that I want, the things that are so hard, these burdens that I’m carrying, they’re so onerous. But I want what you want, Lord. So if these crosses that you have given me are going to help me draw closer to you, then I will kiss my crosses and I will embrace them, and I will rejoice over the suffering that’s been offered to me. It’s an opportunity to draw closer to you.

So the healing you see, the tapping there is that the cross has disappeared, poof, gone, magically, disappeared, erased. The healing is that instead of resenting them, I’m asking Him and He’s giving me the gift of seeing them for what they are. An invitation to allow Him to come in, carry them for me, carry them with me, and to see everything in life is for my sanctification and even in especially the things that I so desire to have healing over, gosh, I think about all the things we don’t have control over, especially when it’s other people in our lives that we love, that we’re watching suffer or other relationships that we’re watching deteriorate. That we desire so much for the restoration of God’s glory right here and now. We want the kingdom now, Lord, the world’s ship not by home. And instead we see that what he’s asking us to do is to trust in him and his providence that he’ll provide the grace.

That’s enough just for today, just for one day, and receiving the blessed sacrament as regularly as possible is that food that we need just for today, right? You think about the Israelites, they could collect manna, but it would go bad by the next day when they were in the desert. That manna was only for that day. Now, the blessed sacrament, it doesn’t, it doesn’t go bad like you know, day, day to day, but truly He gives us the graces we need just for this one day. And my last encouragement would be that we can be so hard on ourselves and so down on ourselves and our biggest critic.

Be Gentle With Yourself

So when you take into account going to confession and examining your life, looking at your schedule, all of this could add up to saying, no, I just feel really, really badly. This whole, this whole exercise has made me feel worse. I’m the worst. I can’t believe I haven’t made a confession. I can’t believe I haven’t made it to mass, not even on Sundays. I’m really slacking there. The schedule, it’s so hard, it’s so busy. I’m feeling apathetic, I’m feeling distant, and I’m just the worst. I’m the very worst. Well, that’s not how God sees you. Yes, you have shortcomings. Yes, you, you are ha habitual sin. You are a sinner. I’m a sinner. But he sees you as his beloved child whom He desires so much to allow Him to draw you back to His own heart. He sees you as His beautiful creation, as His beautiful creature who is so worthy of His love because He has loved us into existence and holds us in existence in love.

So set that scrupulosity and that harsh scrutiny aside and ask our Lord, please help me to see myself not with the hubris and the pride, like I’m so great, but genuinely how you see me, Lord, I am your creation worthy of taking care of myself, worthy of making these choices to do things spiritually that’ll be so good for me. Get into confession, get into the blessed sacrament, going to adoration, spending time before you Lord, to receive your healing that you have made me and design me to be intimately close to you. So when we can see ourselves the way that He sees us, we can ask Him to help us see ourselves the way that He sees us.

Something that We Already Know

The healing through the sacraments comes much more easily because it’s not something we’re grasping for. It’s not something we’re fighting for. It’s not something we’re striving for. It’s something that we, we know is our, our birthright, and that it’s what He desires for us, intimacy and healing through union with Him. And He’s given us these incarnation ways to experience that, to say the sins aloud and hear the priest give you the words of absolution to, to receive our Lord and the blessed sacrament into our bodies, and to know that the grace is there that accompanies His presence in our actual bodies. So training ourselves to be less self-reliant, to turn ourselves over to Him, to lay down our desires and our wills before Him, and desire only what He desires, which is for Him to be able to love us and for us to be able to receive His love. My friends, it’s so beautiful to talk about these things that I feel so passionate in my heart, and I hope that the Holy Spirit is able to work through what I’m saying, and there are little bits and pieces that you can hear and pick up on that really resonate for you. So let’s close in a prayer.

Closing Prayer

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Lord Jesus, thank you for our lives. Thank you for inviting us to a deeper love with you, for being your beloveds. We ask you to help us look without the harsh lens of scrupulosity or a strict scrutiny and examine our lives and how we can be more fully united to you and be open to the healing you desire for us. Praise you, Lord. We love you. We bless you. We say all this in your holy and precious name, Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

About Nell O’Leary

Nell O’Leary loves reminding people of their gifts and marvelousness. Her current work includes growing community for the Word on Fire Institute, contributing video content for Ascension Presents, assisting with Friends of the Bridegroom with Fr. John Burns, and writing content for the National Eucharistic Revival Newsletter. She served for 8.5 years as the Managing Editor for Blessed is She. She is an attorney-turned-writer, speaker, editor, and community maker. Her heart is for healing through encounter with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. She and her husband live with their five children in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Learn more about Nell at: www.nell-oleary.com and follow her on Instagram here.