Encouraging a parish healing ministry

Encouraging a parish healing ministry

Kristina Cooper speaks to Pauline Edwards and Fr. Laurence Brassill O.S.A. who run healing weekends to help encourage churches to activate the healing ministry locally in their parishes.

You may remember a couple of months ago reading a Goodnews article by Frances Weaver from Southampton who wrote about a very successful weekend led by Pauline Edwards and Fr. Laurence Brassill O.S.A. in her parish. Following some amazing healings, the parish priest who had been initially sceptical, asked Frances and her friends to set up a permanent parish healing team. After a time of training with Fr. Ronnie Mitchell S.M.M. from Ashurst, Southampton, this new team was commissioned just before the summer holidays this year. I was very interested to learn that this weekend was not a one off event and that Pauline and Fr. Laurence have been regularly going into parisihes doing the same thing for some time now.

Pauline Fr Laurence

Pauline comments: “It has been a gradual growth. From the start, we simply felt called to empower other people and not to be the focus ourselves.   We see our role as that of catalysts who activate the healing gifts that are already there in the community.” They deliberately keep their ministry very low key. Pauline explains: “When we go into a parish we don’t bring in a special music ministry but we use the normal music that they would use in the parish. If it’s the organ, we use the organ. We try not to have high praise or anything that would identify us culturally as ‘charismatic’ which could put some people off. Although we are there up front, as much as possible we also try and get the people from the parish to do the actual prayer for healing, so that those who come realise that it is not we who are doing the healing but the Holy Spirit, and that He will continue to use the local team when we have gone.

GOAL: to create a parish based ministry

The weekends follow a similar pattern. A few people, usually those who have been involved in CCR or who have heard about this collaborative ministry in some context, will ask them to come to the parish. Because the goal is to create something that will be parish based and bear fruit afterwards too, Pauline and Fr. Laurence insist that the formal invitation for the visit come from the parish priest himself and have his permission. Sometimes this is immediate. At other times the group will have to pray and intercede over a long period before the time is right. They have found that it also often helps if they are invited to a meal in someone’s house together with the parish priest for an informal chat, so he can get a feel for their ministry beforehand and find out if it is something he can accept in the parish.

Frances Weaver’s priest, Fr. David Sillence, for example was initially rather sceptical about the proposal of having a weekend. His fears were the fears that other parish priests often have about the prospect of an itinerant ministry coming into the parish. These worries can be both theological and pastoral. Will the ministry upstage the sacraments? Will it be fundamentalist or elitist? Will there be histrionics or emotionalism? Will it raise unrealistic expectations? Fr. David found that none of his fears were grounded. In fact he was so happy with the experience and the result that he has written a glowing letter of recommendation for Fr. Laurence and Pauline to give to other priests who might have the same concerns that he did.

Will there be histrionics or motionalism?

Apart from getting clerical backing and approval, Pauline and Fr. Laurence prepare the local team beforehand. Some of these do the healing course which the two of them run annually at Clare Priory or they both come to the parish to prepare people there. General prayer and intercession for the visit is also of primary importance. The weekend itself begins on Thursday with a healing evening. Pauline comments: “We don’t call it a healing Mass or a Healing Service; otherwise the parishioners tend to sit in the benches and leave it to us to get on with it. But this way people do not have any preconceptions about what to expect and we are free to invite anyone who has experience in praying for healing to come and join us”.

Emphasis is placed on preparation and advertising. They have special fliers to distribute and little cards of invitation for people to hand out. Fr. Laurence comments: “On the cards it says Jesus said ‘lay your hands on the sick and they will be healed’ – Come and experience it! We encourage parishioners to invite as many other people as possible to come, particularly those who have not heard the Good News and do not attend any church. We see our ministry as more about evangelising than healing. The way one really gets people’s attention in our experience is by letting them witness at first hand healings happening in their presence. Rather than talking about what Jesus has said or done, the curious or the sceptical can see that Jesus is alive in the Church today, as He promised”. Some amazing healings have taken place over the last few years, from cancers being healed to stroke effects being mitigated and rare illnesses such as Bells palsy being cured and deafness etc.

Ministry of evangelisation

Pauline recounts one experience they had in Cardiff. In the tea break a woman had brought a man to her to be prayed with. His face was gaunt and waxen and he looked seriously ill. He wasn’t sure if he wanted prayer or not, however, as he said he was an atheist. She remembers: “I said: I believe” and I put my hand on his shoulder and prayed in the name of Jesus. I asked him if he had a picture in his mind of what Jesus looked like and suggested that he concentrate on this. To check what was happening I asked him what he was feeling and he suddenly said: ‘Jesus Christ is healing me’ and all the colour came flooding into his cheeks again.”

The pair find that there are often significant healings the first evening through words of knowledge. And because it is in the parish and the event is over a weekend, the news has time to get around the rest of the congregation, which helps build up a sense of expectation. On the Friday, Pauline and Fr Laurence make themselves available to see people privately who want individual ministry. Then on the Saturday there is a day of prayer. This begins with the normal parish Mass and involves lots of testimonies - stories that Pauline and Fr. Laurence tell of experiences in past parishes and ones that will have happened on the Thursday evening before in that particular parish. And then people begin to give their own testimonies. On the Sunday, the two speak at all Masses. Sometimes Fr. Laurence is invited to preach the homily.   At other times they are simply given a slot of two minutes each at the end of Mass. During this time, they explain about the healing power of Christ and then invite people to come forward for prayer for healing. It is quite usual for this to go on for an hour and a half or so – and this is with parishioners who will often have had no experience of charismatic renewal or healing events. Their faith levels have risen so much due to the buzz in the parish, caused by the visit that they feel confident to come up.

Honora Power (centre, front row) with one of the
healing teams that has been set up

Fr. Laurence and Pauline are happy to travel anywhere and have been twice, to a young offenders institution, by invitation of the Parish Priest, where after they prayed for one group of young men for the baptism in the Holy Spirit, they all rested in the Spirit.   They will also visit nursing homes or parishioners in their homes, if the parish priests wishes. If you would like them to come to your parish, you can find out more details by contacting them: telephone Clare Priory on 01787277326, extension 1.

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healing

You may remember a couple of months ago reading a Goodnews article by Frances Weaver from Southampton who wrote about a very successful weekend led by Pauline Edwards and Fr. Laurence Brassill O.S.A. in her parish. Following some amazing healings, the parish priest who had been initially sceptical, asked Frances and her friends to set up a permanent parish healing team. After a time of training with Fr. Ronnie Mitchell S.M.M. from Ashurst, Southampton, this new team was commissioned just before the summer holidays this year. I was very interested to learn that this weekend was not a one off event and that Pauline and Fr. Laurence have been regularly going into parisihes doing the same thing for some time now. Pauline comments: “It has been a gradual growth. From the start, we simply felt called to empower other people and not to be the focus ourselves. We see our role as that of catalysts who activate the healing gifts that are already there in the community.” They deliberately keep their ministry very low key. Pauline explains: “When we go into a parish we don’t bring in a special music ministry but we use the normal music that they would use in the parish. If it’s the organ, we use the organ. We try not to have high praise or anything that would identify us culturally as ‘charismatic’ which could put some people off. Although we are there up front, as much as possible we also try and get the people from the parish to do the actual prayer for healing, so that those who come realise that it is not we who are doing the healing but the Holy Spirit, and that He will continue to use the local team when we have gone. GOAL: to create a parish based ministry The weekends follow a similar pattern. A few people, usually those who have been involved in CCR or who have heard about this collaborative ministry in some context, will ask them to come to the parish. Because the goal is to create something that will be parish based and bear fruit afterwards too, Pauline and Fr. Laurence insist that the formal invitation for the visit come from the parish priest himself and have his permission. Sometimes this is immediate. At other times the group will have to pray and intercede over a long period before the time is right. They have found that it also often helps if they are invited to a meal in someone’s house together with the parish priest for an informal chat, so he can get a feel for their ministry beforehand and find out if it is something he can accept in the parish. Frances Weaver’s priest, Fr. David Sillence, for example was initially rather sceptical about the proposal of having a weekend. His fears were the fears that other parish priests often have about the prospect of an itinerant ministry coming into the parish. These worries can be both theological and pastoral. Will the ministry upstage the sacraments? Will it be fundamentalist or elitist? Will there be histrionics or emotionalism? Will it raise unrealistic expectations? Fr. David found that none of his fears were grounded. In fact he was so happy with the experience and the result that he has written a glowing letter of recommendation for Fr. Laurence and Pauline to give to other priests who might have the same concerns that he did. Will there be histrionics or motionalism? Apart from getting clerical backing and approval, Pauline and Fr. Laurence prepare the local team beforehand. Some of these do the healing course which the two of them run annually at Clare Priory or they both come to the parish to prepare people there. General prayer and intercession for the visit is also of primary importance. The weekend itself begins on Thursday with a healing evening. Pauline comments: “We don’t call it a healing Mass or a Healing Service; otherwise the parishioners tend to sit in the benches and leave it to us to get on with it. But this way people do not have any preconceptions about what to expect and we are free to invite anyone who has experience in praying for healing to come and join us”. Emphasis is placed on preparation and advertising. They have special fliers to distribute and little cards of invitation for people to hand out. Fr. Laurence comments: “On the cards it says Jesus said ‘lay your hands on the sick and they will be healed’ – Come and experience it! We encourage parishioners to invite as many other people as possible to come, particularly those who have not heard the Good News and do not attend any church. We see our ministry as more about evangelising than healing. The way one really gets people’s attention in our experience is by letting them witness at first hand healings happening in their presence. Rather than talking about what Jesus has said or done, the curious or the sceptical can see that Jesus is alive in the Church today, as He promised”. Some amazing healings have taken place over the last few years, from cancers being healed to stroke effects being mitigated and rare illnesses such as Bells palsy being cured and deafness etc. Ministry of evangelisation Pauline recounts one experience they had in Cardiff. In the tea break a woman had brought a man to her to be prayed with. His face was gaunt and waxen and he looked seriously ill. He wasn’t sure if he wanted prayer or not, however, as he said he was an atheist. She remembers: “I said: I believe” and I put my hand on his shoulder and prayed in the name of Jesus. I asked him if he had a picture in his mind of what Jesus looked like and suggested that he concentrate on this. To check what was happening I asked him what he was feeling and he suddenly said: ‘Jesus Christ is healing me’ and all the colour came flooding into his cheeks again.” The pair find that there are often significant healings the first evening through words of knowledge. And because it is in the parish and the event is over a weekend, the news has time to get around the rest of the congregation, which helps build up a sense of expectation. On the Friday, Pauline and Fr Laurence make themselves available to see people privately who want individual ministry. Then on the Saturday there is a day of prayer. This begins with the normal parish Mass and involves lots of testimonies - stories that Pauline and Fr. Laurence tell of experiences in past parishes and ones that will have happened on the Thursday evening before in that particular parish. And then people begin to give their own testimonies. On the Sunday, the two speak at all Masses. Sometimes Fr. Laurence is invited to preach the homily. At other times they are simply given a slot of two minutes each at the end of Mass. During this time, they explain about the healing power of Christ and then invite people to come forward for prayer for healing. It is quite usual for this to go on for an hour and a half or so – and this is with parishioners who will often have had no experience of charismatic renewal or healing events. Their faith levels have risen so much due to the buzz in the parish, caused by the visit that they feel confident to come up. Honora Power (centre, front row) with one of the healing teams that has been set up Fr. Laurence and Pauline are happy to travel anywhere and have been twice, to a young offenders institution, by invitation of the Parish Priest, where after they prayed for one group of young men for the baptism in the Holy Spirit, they all rested in the Spirit. They will also visit nursing homes or parishioners in their homes, if the parish priests wishes. If you would like them to come to your parish, you can find out more details by contacting them: telephone Clare Priory on 01787277326, extension 1. << Top Home >>