Doctors vary ... they are human after all. Some are Christian, some are not. Some doctors acknlowledge that there is a spiritual dimension to healing, some do not. They are nearly all overworked, and one has to allow for this. Many of them have experiences of patients getting involved in weird types of “healing” and so they are naturally cautious about non-medical forms of healing. On the other hand, many of them know that often what is needed is more than a prescription but, with umpteen cases to see during “surgery”, they cannot spend the time they would like with individuals.
“What shall I say to my doctor if I am seeking healing through prayer and the sacraments?” Since doctors vary so much it is not easy to give an answer to cover all cases, but one line is: “I am grateful for all that you are doing for me, but I do feel that I need extra support from praying people. It will not interfere with your treatment but, on the contrary, I hope that it will help me to respond better to it.”
Doctors are often rightly suspicious of religion which whips up false hopes, interferes with treatment and uses unhealthy “suggestion”. It often leads to bitter disappointment.
On the other hand a number of experiments in the USA have indicated that medical treatment plus prayerful and sacramental treatment produces a higher success rate than either medical or spiritual procedures alone (see Francis McNutt’s “Healing” and “The Power to Heal”). So now let us look at the overall pattern of healing and try to see where the various elements fit in.
Here is the symbol of wholeness, the circle, with the sign of the love of God at the heart,
radiating
health throughout the being. But
we are not like that. The typical person is more like this, with no clear centre,
full of internal stress lines, vulnerable to the outside world.
Now we come to attempt to put the broken person back into shape, to restore the
circle to wholeness. There are five main ways of tackling this:
Medical
By medicines, by surgery, and by rest, the doctor tries to cooperate
with the natural healing proceses of our bodies.
These,
then, are the five main approaches, though obviously there are no clear-cut divisions
between them. Many a family doctor has included them all in his or her work. Not
every patient needs healing from every angle, and yet often trouble in one sphere
points to trouble elsewhere which is hidden. The specialists in each approach
tend to work separately, but many of us today attend meetings where the various
specialists can meet together and share. “Wholistic” approaches and
“Complementary Medicine” are now a familiar part of the scene, even
in some medical practices.
Now let us see how this works out.
Let us imagine that “Jane” has had a “coronary” and is
in the intensive care unit
.• The medical profession keeps her physical
body working when, left to itself, it would have died.
• Education
will be needed when she comes round, to teach her to eat more wisely, avoiding
high consumption of rich food and alcohol. She may also be taught to have daily
periods of relaxation.
• Social adjustment may also be needed. The
structure of her family life and her working life may need to be re-assessed.
“RELATE”, the personnel manager at work, and others like this may all
have a part to play in re-establishing her.
• The psychotherapist
may uncover the fact that she was rather overlooked as a middle child and has
an unhealthy need to prove that she is “somebody”. Therefore she is
too anxious to please and bottles up her aggression and cannot say “No!”.
• The Gospel will set the love and the power of God at the centre of her
life, giving her the power to change. She is able to look afresh at what her life
is about, and to look at the people around her through new eyes. She will now
have the ability to assimilate what others have told her, and to use the life
which the medics have rescued.
• If she is sufficiently open and
the love of God reaches her heart truly, there may well be a “miracle”.
• If, on the other hand, she forgets God as soon as she begins to get well,
then the old patterns will creep back in and she will be worse off next time.
The life of the children of God, “eternal life”, or call it what
you will, seeks simplicity and love, just as the old life seeks more and more
of everything and is competitive. As the child of God grows she develops an inner
stillness, for her body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and at the heart of
it is the Holy of Holies where the soul meets with God in silence. This silence
is too deep for words, even for the words of hymns and prayers. It is out of this
that true health proceeds. Then the work of the doctor, the psychiatrist, and
all the other experts can bear fruit
Therefore thank God for
your doctor and for all the medical people concerned with you. Pray for them,
they need it, for they are probably under great pressure. Ask God's blessing on
all treatment. Don't be one of the people who sees God getting at them through
their misfortunes but does not see Him in all that is helping them. Endeavour
to make sense of what has happened. See the medical as one of God's approaches
to you, even if they themselves do not see it that way. Don't forget to thank
them afterwards!
If you are in hospital then remember that it is
up to you to ask for spiritual help if you want it. There is probably a chaplain,
but it is up to you to say to him that you want prayer. If you have a minister
of your own, it is up to you to let them know that you are in hospital and that
you want something more than a chatty visit. Don't rely on the gossip-line to
inform your minister any more than you would rely on it to inform your doctor!
Do a check in terms of what we said about the various approaches. Perhaps
you need a different diet, or perhaps you need to learn to think more positively.
Perhaps a talk in depth with somebody about your family relationships or about
your work situation would clear something up. Above all, it would certainly be
good to seek a deeper harmony with God and to open your life to Him in a new way.
But remember that your doctor does not have all the answers. You have your
part to play in seeking wholeness. It is, perhaps, not enough that you just want
your body patched up so that you can go on as before. Perhaps more is called for,
and that is where you must do something for yourself.
But the mystery
of suffering remains. The greatest Christians may have their “thorn in
the flesh” (2 Cor. 12:7-10), and we all have to die sometime. Some
wonderfully radiant people are badly handicapped physically, and some who are
very physically fit are nevertheless “sick at heart”. There are no easy
answers.
A prayer.
“Heavenly Father, I thank You
for the healing work of the medical profession, for generations of dedicated workers,
and for those I know myself (name them). May Your blessing be upon my doctor as
he/she visits me. May Your blessing be upon all the medicine and treatment I receive.
May Your love comfort my friends and family. May we all emerge from this experience
with a deeper wholeness, though Jesus Christ our Lord.”
See also
our Leaflets "WE
ARE HEALING ALL THE TIME" and "WHO
SAID IT WAS INCURABLE?"