Pope Francis’ healing message

We’re blessed with the current visit of Pope Francis in the Philippines. With his visit, a new surge of spiritualism has led to an interest in spiritual healing, which is also called in the literatures as energy healing. The timing of the visit, coming a week after the annual procession of the Black Nazarene from Luneta Park to Quiapo Church, has no doubt reinforced the interest on this faith-anchored, but not scientifically well-understood form of healing. Both the Nazarene statue and Pope Francis are believed to have healing effects.

When one of my patients went to Rome several months ago, she had a chance to see the Pope from afar; and she told me that she felt so energized and felt healed of her heart ailment. Coming back from Rome, she sent me an SMS asking if she could already stop taking her meds? I replied that I was sure that seeing a blessed and holy person has stimulated the release of favorable hormones in her body which made her feel good, but it was not a good idea to stop taking her maintenance medications. I explained that feeling good does not necessarily mean being cured of one’s illness.

Spiritual healing is based on the belief that a gifted individual, usually a religious or deeply spiritual person, can channel healing energy into a sick person. It usually involves hands-on healing, although hands-off or even distant healing—wherein the patient and healer are in different locations, or the healing is believed to be mediated by someone (a holy person or saint) who has died already—have also been reported.

Although described as spiritual, this type of healing is largely nondenominational; and strictly speaking, religious faith is not an essential factor for effecting a cure. A religious context is nonetheless frequently invoked.

Difficulty

Because of the difficulty of conventional science to explain the principles of spiritual healing, experts attempting to explain it have used highly technical physics concepts which skeptics dismiss as pseudoscience that impresses only the scientifically unsophisticated.

Admittedly, the evidence base of spiritual healing is not strong enough for the human mind to comprehend, and doctors including myself always tend to be a little skeptical about it; but I also quickly remind myself that it is precisely the reason why it is described as being anchored on faith, on one’s firm belief. With this self-reminder, I realize and accept that the process of healing is not all science; and that it also requires a good degree of faith or belief that one will get well with whatever intervention one believes can heal or cure him or her.

In fact, doctors are somewhat faith or spiritual healers, too. A patient has to have faith in his or her doctor and the treatment he prescribes. Without this faith, recovery can be hampered, even with proper treatment. For some patients, just seeing their doctor can make them feel well already even before they have taken the first dose of their prescribed medications.

Humble enough

But the doctor’s science has its limits. We have to be humble enough to accept that where man’s finite science ends, God’s limitless healing can take over for those who have complete faith in it. Many times, doctors—myself included—have been humbled by their pronouncements that a patient only has a few months to live, only to be shocked beyond words on seeing the patient several years later, completely healed of whatever terminal illness he or she was diagnosed to have previously.

Pope Francis never claimed that he was a spiritual healer. But I don’t doubt many when they say that his presence in our midst, even just for a short period, has a healing effect. For one, his humility, simplicity, caring and Godly devotion are like a healing balm to our frayed nerves. He has taught us that there are far more important things in this mundane world than the material rewards which we aim for; and that in most instances, pursuit of these material rewards gives us undue stress that can lead to various illnesses.

Unlike previous Catholic teachings emphasizing that the pope is God’s symbol here on earth and is infallible and almost God-like, Pope Francis has humbled himself and refused to be deified, drawing our attention instead to the almighty and holy One in heaven, who deserves all our lavish attention and love; and who has told us, too, that He is a jealous God and He would not want us to give the same lavish attention to anything in heaven or earth or anything manmade that represents Him.

May all our doctors do the same as Pope Francis does—not to claim credit and glory for healing patients with our finite medical science, but to draw the patients closer to God every time they recover from an illness, for He alone is the boundless wellspring of health, wellness, and everything that truly matters in life.