Becoming a Community that heals...

Becoming a Community that heals...
by Bp. Gerardo A. Alminaza, D.D.

Recently I came across an article entitled, The Therapy of Family, Community and Church by Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI, currently serving as President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, Texas where he mentioned about an interesting observation which Philip Rieff wrote in a book thirty years ago with the title, The Triumph of the Therapeutic. According to Fr. Rolheiser, Rieff argues in this book “that the widespread need for private therapy today exists mainly because community has broken down. In societies where there are strong communities, there is much less need for private therapy, people can more easily live with or work out their problems through and within the community.”

I can readily see that if Rieff is right then, as Fr.Rolheiser writes, “the answer for at least some of the problems for which we seek professional therapy today is fuller participation within community life, including church life, rather than private therapy” (emphasis added). As another famous writer and educator, Parker Palmer suggests, “We need the therapy of a public life.”

This is a very good context to reflect on the application to our contemporary times of this Sunday’s gospel from Mark 1:32-34a: “When it was evening, after sunset, they brought to [Jesus] all who were ill or possessed by demons. The whole town was gathered at the door. He cured many who were sick with various diseases.”

Aside from teaching and feeding the multitude, Jesus went about healing the sick. And it is important to realize that Jesus continues to heal today through His Church, through the sacraments He instituted – especially where there are basic ecclesial communities and stronger, loving Christian families that flourish. As Fr. Rolheiser writes, “community (life beyond our private selves and private intimacies) is therapeutic because it draws us outside of ourselves, gives us a steadying rhythm, helps us feel ordinary, and connects us with resources beyond our private helplessness. Simply put, to participate healthily within community and family takes us beyond the pathology and fragility we so often sense within the recesses of our own souls. Community steadies us. It has a rhythm and regularity that helps calm and make ordinary the feelings of disorientation, depression, paranoia, and obsession which can wreak havoc in our private lives. Participation in community gives us clearly defined things to do, regular stopping places, and regular events to structure and steady us. This is a commodity that no therapeutic couch can provide. Beyond this, community links us to resources that can empower us beyond our own helplessness. What we dream alone remains a dream. What we dream with others can become a reality” (emphasis added).

Can we honestly and courageously ask ourselves and even acknowledge how we as a community have become either the occasion or cause of illness or well-being or healing of our members? Let us pray and strive for our basic ecclesial communities to become more and more a community that heals!