Healing School: 'Come and you will see'

By DAWN PROSSER
Director of Communications
 
The Carroll St. John Paul II Parish leadership “sees a spark of a revival” in the parish and the larger church. They hope to see it spread.
 
The parish is hosting a two-day School of Healing through Encounter Ministries Feb. 28 and March 1 at Holy Spirit Church in Carroll. Program marketing promises “teaching, activating (and) deploying Catholics to participate in the healing ministry of Jesus.”
 
Father Patrick Behm, pastor of St. John Paul II, explained the School of Healing program has two components – the school of healing sessions and a public healing service. Bryan O’Donnell and Gilbert Rodriguez from Encounter Ministries will be on site in Carroll to run the program.
 
“They’re going to come and walk those registered for this school through what it means and how to pray for someone, specifically for physical healing, whether it is from cancer, a cold, knee pain – you name it,” the priest said.
 
Father Behm and EmmaLee Miklosovic, parish director of evangelization, are familiar with the ministries organization as they are currently enrolled in the two-year Encounter School program. Also, the pastor attended seminary with the Encounter Ministries president, Father Matthias Thelen.
 
Father Thelen and Patrick Reis founded Encounter Ministries “not because they wanted people to be amazed” by healings, Father Behm pointed out. He said they believed that it was logical that Christ would continue this work today through the faithful as the church is the body of Christ and that spiritual healings should be common in Christian life.
 
“The second reason and perhaps more importantly why they started this school is that they see these signs and wonders, miraculous healings and words of prophetic knowledge … as tools of evangelization,” Father Behm said, noting the end goal of the ministry is for participants to know that Christ is real and share that realization with others.

Open but curious
Once the School of Healing event concept was presented to parishioners, it was positively received. However, many expressed they had questions about the event’s content and approach.
 “The reception among parishioners has been one of, ‘This is new. I have no idea what this is. Tell me more,’” the priest said. “You have to answer like Nathaniel, ‘Come and you will see.’”
 
Both acknowledged that parishioners feel more comfortable when they have a more concrete idea of what to expect from a parish program before registering. Father Behm said he uses Scripture to illustrate the school’s content to those wanting more information.
 
“When you read the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles, we see our Lord healing people … what Jesus said is, ‘You will do greater things than these.’ So, this is really a challenge to take Jesus at his word and put into practice,” he said.
 
The evangelization director said the charismatic approach of the healing ministry program may not be common with today’s diocesan Catholics but she sees that they are willing to learn more.
 
 “We’ve seen a lot of openness and curiosity about it on one side of things,” Miklosovic said. "On the other side, there’s a lot of people who have a lot of questions because it’s something we’re not used to, especially in the Catholic world.”
 
She explained she perceives “a polarization” between traditional and charismatic expressions of Catholic faith.
 
“What I would love to see is bringing those two things together because they are both essential to our faith and they don’t actually work against each other. They actually work for each other,” Miklosovic stressed.
 
Also referring to the Acts of the Apostles, the evangelization director said that the church was founded upon “this type of ministry,” which was common at the time.
 
“This was normal in the early church. This is what was expected of the baptized. So, for us to be here and now and say it’s not relevant is forgetting what the point of the Gospels and the point of the Scripture is, which is living the word and something we are called to live by,” she said. “I think that’s a big thing that scares people they feel like it’s anti-tradition, it’s not.”
 
Informational sessions
The two are offering informational sessions at each of the six parish locations to continue the conversation with the faithful about what the School of Healing will offer to participants. (See below.) All meetings will be held at 7 p.m. The first session is Dec. 16 at St. Lawrence Church in Carroll.

• Dec. 16 - St. Lawrence, Carroll
• Jan. 13 - St. Mary, Willey
• Jan. 20 - Holy Spirit, Carroll
• Jan. 27 - St. Joseph, Dedham
• Feb. 10 - Annunciation, Coon Rapids
• Feb. 17 - St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, Glidden

 
“We wanted to go out to all of them and personally invite them to come and be a part of this,” Miklosovic pointed out.
 
The hope is that participation in the School of Healing and/or the healing service will help evangelize the faithful and provide them with the tools to share the faith. Miklosovic said she sees a need for renewal in parish culture throughout the country and would like to see parishioners empowered to be evangelizers.
 
“Father Behm and I can’t do all the evangelization in the parish as much as we would love to. We really want to equip our parishioners to be empowered to do that and be that new force of this new evangelization that we see happening,” she said.
 The pastor said he wants baptized laity to recognize that they can pray for healing as well as a priest and “be the hands and feet and the face of Jesus Christ to the people they meet. … It’s embracing your baptismal call to be a spirit-filled evangelizer.”