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Any old priest will do!
Fr David Bird OSB, a missionary priest in Peru, reflects on how the Holy Spirit used him in an unexpected way, demonstrating the power of the Lord in the Eucharist
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In 1996, three days before the Mass was to be celebrated, the organizer came to me terribly worried. He had just been told that our Archbishop had forbidden Fr Manuel to celebrate in his diocese. People were coming from all over northern Peru, and it was too late to tell them. “Father, you will have to say the Mass!” he said, “there is no alternative.” “But I don’t have any gift of healing,” I protested. I’m not even sure that I believe in healing Masses.” However it was clear that I would have to say the Mass because I couldn’t let them down. It was another moment in my life when I could not rely on myself but only on God. I had never healed anybody in my life. None of my prayers for healing had ever been answered, as far as I knew. Yet people were coming huge distances to attend the mass, and for what? “I had never healed anybody in my life” “Alright, I will say the Mass” I agreed “but I won’t lay hand on anybody.After Mass I will bless each sick person with the Blessed Sacrament like they do in Lourdes. If Christ wants to heal anybody, it is up to him. I shall have nothing to do with it. The only thing I shall do is carry the monstrance.” Because of the large numbers involved, the Mass was celebrated in the local sports arena. Although it wasn’t the feast day, I celebrated the Mass of Pentecost. Round the perimeter of the basket-ball field there were sick people in chairs. After saying the post communion prayer, I put the consecrated host in the monstrance and explained to the people the significance of the host, how it is the real presence of Christ and that he was with us to call us to conversion and to heal us according to his will as he did two thousand years ago. I said some prayers addressed to Jesus and then began to go down the line, blessing each sick person with the monstrance. You could have heard a pin drop. Small children, who up to that moment had been playing around, stopped and stared. Even babies stopped crying and looked on and followed the monstrance with solemn eyes - I am not exaggerating. I had completed a half circle so that I had my back turned towards the place where I had started, when I heard a roar from the crowd, as though someone had scored a goal. A young man who had had a stroke and was on crutches let them drop and began to walk. After about ten paces he sank on the ground and remained there. He was made comfortable but no one was in any doubt that he had been cured. Later he said he had been resting and felt he could have stood up but just didn’t want to. He left the sports arena unsupported by the crutches. At the end of everything, everybody agreed that the event had been as successful as it would have been with Fr Manuel. Many people from Negritos itself had not gone to the Mass because they knew Fr Manuel was not coming and that I was not the most charismatic of priests! Now they wanted a repeat performance the next day. Of course, this was impossible because of the time-table, but I agreed to a straight benediction of the Blessed Sacrament - no frills - the next evening. They told me afterwards that there were two other healings! “Is Jesus who heals” This has never happened to me before or since. I put this down to the fact that I have no gift of healing and that it had been a one-off response by God to an extreme need that I had not sought. How stupid can you get!! The organiser voiced the real answer to my problem, but it simply did not sink in. He said to me, when all was over. “Well God has taught us something new. We believed we had to get a famous priest from Lima to celebrate the healing Mass, but we don’t. Any old priest will do, because it is Jesus who heals”. I had not been involved in healing because I did not believe that I had the gift. This was utterly irrelevant. As a priest, I did not need a special gift of healing for healings to happen. As the organiser of the week in Negritos had said, “Any old priest will do: it is Jesus that heals.” All that is necessary is the presence of Jesus in some way and the existence of a lively faith. That is where we come in. For much of the time, people who believe have a faith that is in a semi coma; we believe but in half-dead sort of way. For healings to happen, for anything to happen that is worthwhile, our faith needs to be reawakened: we must become mindful, aware of the implications of what we believe. I remember hearing Sr Briege McKenna one time. She told us how she had been involved in a healing service in Kenya in the presence of the bishop there. The Blessed Sacrament was exposed on the altar while she gave her talk. She told people, that Jesus was among them, that in the Eucharist he was really present. Every time she said this, a little boy of about nine in the front row held out his arms to the host. She half noticed him, and again later when he began to walk around during the service, but didn’t pay much attention. When it was all over and she was in the sacristy with the bishop, they heard great noise and singing and stamping outside. She saw the small boy standing on a table while people danced around him in joy. She asked what was happening and was told that the little boy had never walked as he had been born paralysed from the hips. The bishop was really touched and exclaimed how strange it was that she had to come all the way from Ireland to tell them what they already knew about the Blessed Sacrament. “Faith awakened in what they already believe” The secret was that Sr Briege’s presence and faith had made them mindful of their belief in the Blessed Sacrament. Fr Michael Casey OCSO has written about mindfulness: “Mindfulness of God…appears as a hidden factor which changes the quality of what is done. Actions performed in mindfulness somehow have the power to produce a disproportionate effect on the recipient. A cup of cold water given in mindfulness becomes a torrent of salvation which cleanses… both giver and receiver.” That is why some go to special places like Lourdes, or fetch a priest all the way from Lima, or Sr Briege all the way from Ireland or are gob-smacked by being blessed by the monstrance. Their faith is awakened; they become mindful of what they believe; and Christ’s presence does the rest. Our job is the relatively humble one of waking them up. There are people who have a charismatic gift of healing, but it is not necessary to have it to hold a healing service, with or without the gift; it is Jesus who heals.
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Every
year in Negritos, where I was a priest for some years, we had a week
of celebrations to mark the anniversary of the coming of the Charismatic
Renewal to the town. One of the centrepieces of the week was always
a “healing Mass”. Someone, usually from Lima, came to celebrate
it. There are priests in Peru with a national reputation for healing;
and the most popular among the people of our parish was Fr Manuel Rodriguez,
a Spanish Claretian Father who has a regular slot on national television
and radio. I came to know him very well, and we both have stayed in
each other’s houses.
