The Healing Army

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Mark Mallett
00:00 – 01:27
Something is going on here in North America and abroad. God is activating tens of thousands of people to operate in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. It’s a movement that is spreading like a wave. I have a very special guest next to talk about this on Countdown to the Kingdom. Hello, I’m Mark Mallett. Welcome back to Countdown to the Kingdom and thenowword.com. And yes, there is a wave spreading, a wave of the Holy Spirit. And joining me next to speak about this is a best-selling author and international speaker, Dr. Mary Healy. She’s the professor of scripture at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit. She’s written two volumes on sacred scripture, a commentary, the Gospel of Mark and Hebrews. Her other books include the Spiritual Gifts Handbook and Healing. And she is one of the first three women ever to serve on the Pontifical Biblical Commission and is a member of the dicastery for divine worship and the discipline of the sacraments. And so very happy to welcome to Countdown to the Kingdom, Dr. Mary Healy.

Dr. Mary Healy
01:27 – 01:29
Thanks, Mark.

Mark Mallett
01:28 – 02:55
Welcome. Well, I should explain to you and to people what I’m talking about is, you know, I heard about this new ministry. called Encounter Ministries. And just two and a half hours roughly from my studio here in northern Alberta, Canada, there’s a parish there. And it’s actually the priest that married my wife and I many years ago. And he was hosting and is hosting once a month this event called Encounter Ministries. And it’s a healing service. And so I go after the mass, we go in and there’s people there and there’s these teams of people praying. and people were being physically healed. And I know we’re going to talk more about healing. It’s far more than physical healing and physical healing may not even be the most important part. But God is doing something and it’s through this new wave called Encounter Ministries. So I’ll just pause there and maybe let you explain to us what is Encounter Ministries for those who have never heard of it. What are they doing and what’s going on with it?

Dr. Mary Healy
02:59 – 03:57
and Patrick Rice, who’s a layman. They both live now in Brighton, Michigan. And so Encounter Ministries is founded there, but it has now spread throughout the world. And what Encounter Ministries does is it equips, it teaches and equips Catholics to be activated in the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit, including healing, prophecy, discernment of spirit, and other gifts with which the risen Lord Jesus has endowed his church so that we can be carrying out our mission to evangelize the world, to bring Christ into the world. And the profound hunger for this among Catholics and others is shown by the tens of thousands of people who have been participating in Encounter Ministries over the years.

Mark Mallett
03:58 – 04:02
So are you saying that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are still relevant?

Dr. Mary Healy
04:04 – 06:26
No, it can’t be. Absolutely. They have never not been relevant in the history of the church, although they have over various time periods, particularly in the modern era, been neglected and been sidelined to some degree, as Cardinal Raniero Contala Mesa talks about, former preacher to the papal household. It’s not that the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit ever ceased in the church. They have always been operating, particularly at times of intense evangelization. But they were neglected by theology for a long time, particularly in the modern era. And the Lord has been leading the whole church to rediscover them. As Pope John Paul II said, even Vatican Council II was a rediscovery. of the charismatic dimension of the church as one of her constitutive elements. So if some people tend to think that this is a Protestant import or this is something peripheral, marginal to the church, and in fact, if we look at what the church herself teaches, we see that it is not. That Jesus has called every disciple of his to this incredible mission. to bring him to others. But he has not asked us to do that on human power alone. We’ve been making that mistake. We’ve been thinking that it’s up to us, our strategy, our ideas, our resources, our power. And you can’t carry out a divine task with human resources. So I think it’s partly because of the tremendously Wounded Generation that we belong to right now because of the absence of God in our culture and the spiritual emptiness and bankruptcy of our culture and the tremendous godlessness and because of that the need for God the hunger the thirst for God that the Lord has been leading his church to this rediscovery and it’s so exciting to be a part of it.

Mark Mallett
05:37 – 09:15
Alright. It is. And I think, you know, your colleague, Dr. Ralph Martin, has often said that our generation appears very much like a candidate for the great apostasy because we are seeing a tremendous falling away from the faith right now. And the interesting thing is that as movements like Encounter Ministries, as we see a movement of the young toward vibrant Eucharistic adoration, There’s also another movement in the church, and you’ve hinted at it, that is beginning to attack this element of the charismatic, trying to frame it exactly, as you said, as being a Protestant invention, as being a fruit of modernism. And yet it’s hard to imagine, Dr. Healy, someone reading 1 Corinthians chapter 12 to 14, and just really ripping those pages from the church. from the scriptures where you have St. Paul saying, and let me quote, he says in 1 Corinthians 12, some people God has designated in the church to be first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then mighty deeds, then gifts of healing, assistance, administration, and varieties of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work mighty deeds? Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? And then he concludes, he says, strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts. I mean, I’m not aware, Dr. Healy, of any council, of any papal document, of anything of that sort that has said 1 Corinthians 12 is no longer relevant to the church and we now ax it from sacred tradition. And I think that, I mean, what we’re seeing now, especially since the 1960s, is that there’s been an explosion really throughout the church of the charismatic gifts. And even though the charismatic renewal is kind of white haired now, I mean, look at me, I was a child when I went to it and I started to turn white. They’re still relevant. And I think encounter ministries, you can tell us, why don’t we get, I mean, we’re talking a lot about theology, maybe in spirituality, but I mean, what kind of fruits are you seeing right now through encounter ministries, through these, These people who are going through encounter ministries, they’re being trained to pray with one another, to listen to the Holy Spirit, to speak words of knowledge, prophecy, and even to be instruments of God’s healing. What are the fruits that you’re seeing? Are you seeing any fruits? Are you seeing healing? What is happening, Dr. Healy?

Dr. Mary Healy
09:16 – 12:27
What I am seeing again and again and again is that when people are trained and shown, first of all, what the gifts are, what is the basis for them, both in scripture and in the teaching of the church and in the history of the church. And then they’re given practice in a safe environment to begin to use those gifts and to know how to have a good interaction with somebody, even a stranger on the street, how to have a loving, respectful conversation where you are presenting the gospel in whatever way the Holy Spirit leads you to. shows up and he makes his presence known. Very often it’s in terms of physical healing, perceptible healing that maybe lifts a condition that a person has been suffering under for years. Other times it’s words of knowledge or prophecy. In other words, the Lord speaks something that directly applies to a person’s present situation. Sometimes in a way that another person could not have known. And by hearing that word spoken by a Christian in the name of Christ, they suddenly realize, God knows me. God is alive. He’s speaking to my heart. And so the evangelistic fruit is tremendous. There are conversions. There are people being brought back to the Lord, brought back to the sacraments. who had wandered away. In some cases, people who had grown up in a completely secular environment, coming to the Lord, entering OCIA. So I think we’re just beginning to see what could become a tsunami of the Spirit. As I’m sure you’ve heard, this spring there were a record number of baptisms of adults in England, in France, in Australia, in certain parts of the US and Canada and obviously not all related to encounter ministries but it’s all part of a move of the Holy Spirit in our time where the spiritual orphans of our time those who have been hung out to dry by this godless culture the casualties of the culture of death are seeking the Lord they’re seeking life they’re seeking seeking what only Jesus can give them. And the Lord, I think he’s saying to his whole church, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Pray to the Lord of the harvest that he send out workers into his harvest. And Jesus immediately after saying that to his disciples, pray, he then said, I’m sending you. You’re the answer to your prayer. I’m sending you out into that harvest.

Mark Mallett
11:26 – 13:44
Mmhmm. You know, I think we can tend to get focused on the great apostasy, on this falling away of the faith, but I often think Dr. Healy, If you were to set a child loose in a candy store and say, you’ve got the entire week in here, you can have anything in this store. You know, the child runs around the store and starts eating all this candy. You know, by day two, I guarantee that child is ready for vegetables and fruit and water and milk. And I think this generation is, this is where we’re at. We’re, we’ve been cut loose. on the internet and the razzle and dazzle, what we say in our baptismal creed, the glamour of Satan. And I think the more that people have eaten in this candy store, the more we’ve had technology, cheap goods from China, we’ve been able to indulge ourselves. And I think we’re seeing a hunger, a spiritual hunger. This is reflected in part, Dr. Healy, as you probably know, with a great interest now in the occult and Wiccan.

Dr. Mary Healy
13:44 – 13:47
Yeah, right.

Mark Mallett
13:44 – 14:14
So Satan knows this. The endgame isn’t just, you know, get us on the internet distracted. It’s really the endgame is to draw us into a fake spirituality because Satan knows that we’re made for God. He knows that we crave the spiritual. So in some ways, would you not say that encounter ministries and the other things that God is doing right now is really God’s response. It’s like him saying, okay, I’m ready to welcome the prodigal son’s home.

Dr. Mary Healy
13:57 – 13:57
Yeah.

Mark Mallett
14:14 – 14:25
And here I am. I mean, this is a stunning time. And maybe I’ll let you answer the question. But why now? Why is God picking this moment in history to do this?

Dr. Mary Healy
14:27 – 16:27
I think that’s is right on because we are a generation that has been sated on spiritual junk food and spiritual toxic ultra processed terrible disease producing spiritual and moral food and so I think that in itself is is part of the why now answer that the Lord has such on his children. He sees his starving sheep, his wounded sheep, his lost and wandering little lambs all over the hillsides. And in his unimaginable compassion for them, he does not want them to go on any longer with the horrible spiritual poison that is being fed to them in a million different ways. in this culture. And so he is raising up an army in our time to go out into that field hospital, to use that metaphor of Pope Francis, the field hospital of the spiritual battle of our time, to tend to the wounded and to bring them to the one who can heal them, who is Christ. And of course, in many cases, we’re talking about people who are not yet able to come to the because they’re, in some cases, not even baptized. Or if they are, they haven’t darkened the door of a church for years or decades or their whole life. They need to be spiritually cleansed. They need to be taught. They need to be evangelized and catechized. They need to be healed interiorly and physically. So for that reason, the Lord needs more.

Mark Mallett
15:36 – 15:38
Ja.

Dr. Mary Healy
16:27 – 16:56
than simply the professionals, so to speak, the clergy and religious who are called to full-time missionary work. He needs his whole church. This is the time for all hands on deck. This is the time for every member of the church to go out into that harvest. Just like in agrarian societies, when it’s harvest time, nobody’s idle. Everybody goes out into the fields because you have a window of time.

Mark Mallett
16:55 – 16:56
Ja.

Dr. Mary Healy
16:57 – 17:57
where the harvest is ready, it’s done, it’s dry, it’s not yet the rainy season, and that harvest has to be brought in. So men, women, children are all out there in the fields from dawn to dusk bringing in that harvest. And I believe we are in a season like that now. I believe we’re just at the beginning, and I believe it’s really going to increase. I don’t know when it’s going to end or what other things may be coming down the pike. But right now, I really believe we are in a season of harvest. And I hope and pray that Catholics will not miss it because there are some who are missing the signs of the times and not seeing what’s going on. And I think later, those who have missed a visitation of God will greatly regret that they were not part of the amazing things that the Lord was doing in their time.

Mark Mallett
17:43 – 20:33
Ja. You make me think of the words of Servant of God, Father Stefano Gobi, and Our Lady calling us through many apparitions to prayer centacles, to the upper room. And it’s in the upper room where the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the apostles and they burst forth from that room. And we know the end of the story. It’s been going now for 2,000 years. And so I think this time of preparation, this calling of Our Lady into that cynical of her immaculate heart has been precisely, in my opinion, Dr. Healy, to prepare us for this moment. And at the same time, we also can see that the church appears to be heading toward her passion. This is a teaching in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, that the church will follow her Lord through her own passion, death, and resurrection. So one might go, well, how does that work? Because Jesus had those three years. He did all the healing ministry. But in truth, if you look at the passion, one of the first things Jesus did in Gethsemane was he healed the ear of the soldier whose ear was cut off by the He then progressed to Pilate and witnessed to him about truth. Along the way, we know about the miracle of Veronica’s veil. We know about Christ’s witness was so profound that the centurion finally at the foot of the cross declared this truly was the Son of God. So there was a lot of healing happening from physical to spiritual to, I would say, even deliverance to a certain degree happening beneath that foot of the cross. I mean, ultimately, the entire world was delivered through the sacrifice of Jesus. We just have to embrace that deliverance and let the Lord bring it into our own lives. So I don’t see a problem or a contradiction with the idea that the church is now heading into what seems to be a great persecution and at the same time, God preparing us to witness in the midst of that. I mean, what’s going to be a greater witness to the world that we would follow our Lord and love our enemy? to the very end like Jesus did. Dr. Healy, I can tell that you want to say something. So let me let you say that. And then I think we will stop and we’ll look at a video here, just a short video of someone who’s been through encounter ministries and experienced a profound healing. Because we can talk about all the theory, but let’s, I want to hear what somebody has to say. But before we do that, did you have a comment? Yeah.

Dr. Mary Healy
20:33 – 21:57
Yes, I did. I think you are right on about the fact that the new springtime that Pope John Paul II prophesied, or the era of miracles, the era of conversions, of incredible, widespread, miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit being poured out, is not inconsistent with an era of persecution, an era of the We see it not only in the life of Jesus leading to his passion, but in the lives of the apostles, in the acts of the apostles. Incredible missionary power and fruitfulness combined with increasing persecution. We see it in the era of the fathers of the church and at various other seasons of the history of the church. And we will see it in its ultimate way in the final trial before Christ comes. But I also wanted to just tell a story in regard to what you mentioned about Our Lady calling people into the cynical, the upper room. As you may know, a saint named St. Elena Guerra was canonized by Pope Francis last October. And she has a fascinating story. She lived at the end of the 19th century. And she had this profound conviction.

Mark Mallett
21:34 – 21:35
Sure.

Dr. Mary Healy
21:57 – 22:25
from God that the Lord wanted to restore deep devotion to the Holy Spirit, love of the Holy Spirit, a renewal of knowledge and love of the Holy Spirit in the church. And she founded prayer groups that she called Pentecost Cynicals or Pentecost Upper Rooms. And she founded a religious order, taught her sisters to really love and be devoted to the Holy Spirit.

Mark Mallett
22:18 – 22:19
Hm.

Dr. Mary Healy
22:26 – 23:26
And then she felt led to write letters. She wrote a series of confidential letters to the Pope at the time, Pope Leo XIII, and very specifically told him, the Lord is asking me to tell you, dear Holy Father, that he wants a renewal of devotion to the Holy Spirit in the church, because the Holy Spirit has been forgotten and neglected. And amazingly enough, Pope Leo listened to her, paid attention to her, and in And his response wrote an encyclical on the Holy Spirit, Divinum Iludmunus, wrote a second encyclical on the Holy Spirit, called all the bishops of the world to pray a solemn novena to the Holy Spirit in the nine days leading up to Pentecost, which is the original novena, the upper room novena between Ascension and Pentecost. And Sister Elena wrote to him again and said she was very pleased with his response, but disappointed.

Mark Mallett
22:40 – 23:01
Hm. Hm. Hm. Hm. Yeah. Right.

Dr. Mary Healy
23:26 – 25:51
with the response of the bishops around the world who had not in many cases done anything in response to Pope Leo’s request in the encyclical. And finally at her prompting he decided to dedicate the new century to the Holy Spirit. And so on the very opening day of the 20th century January 1st 1901 he prayed the ancient in the name of the whole church and dedicated the coming century to the Holy Spirit. And the remarkable thing is that it was on that very same day that at a little Protestant Bible school in Topeka, Kansas, that had been studying the Acts of the Apostles, the Holy Spirit was poured out in a new and overwhelming way. And the gifts of the Spirit began to be manifested as they had been in the early church. Tongues, healings, prophecy, miracles. And this revival spread by 1906 to Azusa Street, California, Los Angeles. And from there, throughout the whole world, it became known as the Pentecostal Revival. Then in 1967, it came sort of full circle, in a sense, into the Catholic Church through the Duquesne weekend. And that revival in the Spirit has touched the lives of some 700 million Christians around the world, radically transforming them, bringing them into intimate communion with the Holy Spirit, and activating them in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. So that sister, Elena Guerra, was canonized last fall. I think it’s no coincidence in the plan of God that the new Pope just has taken the name Leo XIV. Now, he himself explains that with regard to the social doctrine of the church of which Leo XIII is really the founder in his encyclical Rerum Navarum, but I think God has his own reasons behind the scenes, along with the reasons that Pope Leo is aware of. I think what began with Pope Leo XIII is an unfinished business.

Mark Mallett
25:11 – 25:52
Yeah. Wow. Hm.

Dr. Mary Healy
25:52 – 26:16
And the Lord is bringing about today in a new way and a greater way that revival, renewal in the Holy Spirit, knowledge of the Holy Spirit, in his sanctifying gifts, in his charisms, in his supernatural power that is meant to be part of the ordinary normal life of the church.

Mark Mallett
26:17 – 26:54
That is a fascinating connection, Dr. Healy. And it really resonates with me. In fact, you know, it’s been said, some people have said that God, because the bishops didn’t really listen to Pope Leo XIII, that God then he turned elsewhere. I mean, Jesus once said, if these people don’t cry out, Hosanna, then the rocks will cry out. And how often do we see Jesus, for instance, when he healed the servant of the centurion, he said to this Roman guard, you know, this Roman soldier, I haven’t seen faith like this in all of Israel.

Dr. Mary Healy
26:40 – 26:41
Yes.

Mark Mallett
26:55 – 27:24
And so Jesus is going to go. He’s going to go where the Holy Spirit is going to be welcomed. And so some people might use that as an excuse and say, well, you see, this was a Protestant Pentecostal thing all along. But, you know, that’s a really narrow way to look at the heart of God who loves everyone. He loves not just Catholics, but he loves Protestants. He loves Muslims. He loves Jews. He loves unbelievers. And he wants to pour out his Spirit upon them.

Dr. Mary Healy
27:01 – 27:55
That’s right. That’s right. And it’s historically coincided to see it that way. It’s not recognizing that the power of the Holy Spirit and his gifts is part of our apostolic heritage as Catholics that has been present for most of the history of the church. It’s really the modern era that has been aberrant. So it’s just a lack of historical, deep historical knowledge that I think leads people to say that. But thank God for what we’re doing now.

Mark Mallett
27:56 – 28:57
One can’t step away from reading the lives of the saints, St. John of the Cross, Avila, Augustine, and Faustina, and so on, without realizing there was a deep personal relationship with God is also a deep mystical relationship. And the gifts of the Holy Spirit would flow among them. Teresa of Avila, a doctor of the church, spoke about the gift of tongues, and so on. Yeah, I mean, you’re right. Rationalism has been, I have an article called Rationalism and the Death of Mystery, Dr. Healy, because it’s been rationalism that has really killed the faith of people. And I think even today, there’s a sense that even when people do see the miraculous, we’ve been so dazzled by the false signs and wonders of Satan through technology that, and even when we do hear about healings, we’re so, skeptical and so cynical.

Dr. Mary Healy
28:31 – 28:58
Oh, that sounds great. Yeah. Yes, we’re jaded.

Mark Mallett
28:59 – 30:21
Well, you know, with that, why don’t we take a moment then and listen to the testimony of this couple who went to an Encounter Ministries event and how God healed them. Okay, so I’m going to, in post-editing, I’m going to go to this one. It’s the one, the video about the woman whose cancer was burned away by the Holy Spirit. And I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but it’s a beautiful testimony. So what we’re going to do is come out of that now. And okay. So here we go.

Watch testimony here:

Wow. Okay. So that’s a beautiful testimony of God’s healing. But you know, maybe Dr. Healy at this point, because of the rationalism, because of the skepticism in our society, many people are, they don’t believe that God heals. Many people will say, oh, I’ve asked God to heal. But he doesn’t. In fact, let me give you an example. I have a friend who’s incredibly faithful. He believes everything in the church. He believes in the Holy Spirit. He believes in the charisms. And he went to an Encounter Ministries event. And when they asked, you know, they prayed beforehand, does anybody here have this ailment? And he put up his hand. And he must have raised his hand, Dr. Healy, for about seven ailments. And so he’s like, you know, I’m first in line here to be healed by something. God bless you.

Dr. Mary Healy
30:21 – 30:22
Thank you.

Mark Mallett
30:22 – 30:48
And he said he stuck up his hand for all these things. And yet the guy beside him had two healings that night. And he said, and yet he said, I never experienced any physical healing whatsoever. And he was discouraged by this. Why, Dr. Healy, does God heal some people and others with faith, seemingly with faith, he doesn’t heal?

Dr. Mary Healy
30:49 – 32:14
That’s probably the most common question I get. And I have a very simple answer. I don’t know. And we can’t know. We can’t pretend to know. We cannot fathom the counsels of God. There are a few things that we can say, which is including, sometimes the Lord knows. needs to do an interior healing before he does the physical healing. We see that in the case of the man who was paralyzed in the Gospels, whose friends let him down through the roof. And so they made this incredible act of faith and bold courage to approach Jesus through the roof, brought their friend, and Jesus turned to the friend, the paralyzed guy, after seeing their faith and said something they were not. your sins are forgiven. And so that’s an example of a case where there was a need for an interior healing first. Now it doesn’t mean that the guy’s sins caused his paralysis, but that in some way there was a block. There was guilt on his conscience that would have kept him from receiving what the Lord had for him, what the Lord wanted to give him. And so that needed to be dealt with first.

Mark Mallett
32:01 – 32:02
Hi.

Dr. Mary Healy
32:15 – 34:44
In some cases there may be an issue of unforgiveness. As I have often seen, that’s a very common block to the healing power of the Lord. And then when a person chooses to forgive someone who has deeply hurt them, the healing power of the Lord is suddenly manifested in their life. Now, we can’t make any of these things a law or a scientific criterion because sometimes the Lord first does a physical. and then follows with the interior healing. The Lord has so many different ways, each unique and tailored to the individual. There are other cases where there’s a need for sustained prayer over a length of time. Sometimes physical conditions have developed slowly, gradually, becoming more rooted in a person’s system. And likewise, some healings take place gradually as there’s a gradual release from whatever factors may have caused the illness. And then in many other cases, there are reasons known to God alone. There’s a beautiful episode of The Chosen where Jesus has this dialogue with little James after sending out the apostles to go heal the sick and proclaim the kingdom. James is lame and he’s not healed. And so he’s wondering, Lord, how come you haven’t healed me, but you’ve sent me to heal the sick? And Jesus responds to him with a very theologically sound and beautiful, profound answer that is very satisfying to little James, even if he’d like to be healed of his own lameness. But he begins to glimpse the privilege of being united with Jesus in this suffering that he can offer together with the passion of Jesus, as he will, of course, later find out. And at the very… Hmm? Well, he said a number of things, but among the things he said were the fact that his remaining with this condition helps people become aware that there is more than this life.

Mark Mallett
33:11 – 34:26
. Do you remember what Jesus said to him, Dr. Healy? What was his response? Do you remember his exact words?

Dr. Mary Healy
34:45 – 35:28
That perfect fulfillment, perfect fullness, freedom from pain, freedom from disease is not in this life. It is not until the consummation of all things, the final coming of the kingdom. So the fact that some people, even those who are deeply united with the Lord and who serve the Lord fruitfully, also still suffer greatly with physical conditions. is a sign pointing to the kingdom and reminding us of the fact that we are not here for this life only. So it was an answer along those lines.

Mark Mallett
35:17 – 35:19
Ja.

Dr. Mary Healy
36:14 – 36:21
Possible. Mm-hmm.

Mark Mallett
36:28 – 36:32
Let’s you respond to that before I add any comments of my own to that.

Dr. Mary Healy
36:30 – 38:51
Sure. Sure. I have to say that objection somewhat astounds me because the laying on of hands by ordinary disciples for healing of the sick comes from the highest authority possible. The words of our Lord Jesus Christ himself in the gospel, specifically the gospel of Mark, chapter 16, verses 17 and 18, where Jesus says, go proclaim the gospel. to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved. Whoever refuses to believe will be condemned. These signs will accompany those who believe. So in context, he means these signs will accompany Christians. And then he gives the signs. In my name, they will cast out demons. They will speak in new tongues. They will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them, which means they will be protected from the attacks of the enemy. they will lay their hands on the sick and the sick will recover. So there is no basis either in scripture or in the teaching of the church to limiting the laying on of hands for healing of the sick to the clergy only. Now yes, there is the sacrament of the anointing of the sick, which is spoken about in the letter of James chapter 5. Even there, there’s also a reference to ordinary Christians praying for healing for the sick. But the teaching and tradition of the church has never limited the laying on of hands to clergy only. There’s a beautiful quote from St. Irenaeus in the 2nd century AD where he speaks about the ordinary life of the church and he’s saying that there are many of our Christians who have a gift of healing. They lay their hands on the sick and the sick are made well. Others even raise the dead. Others utter prophecies, others cast out demons. And he’s basically just describing ordinary life among the members of his local church in Lyon. And there are other testimonies like that from the fathers of the church. So… Sure, yes.

Mark Mallett
38:41 – 39:49
Right. I’ll have to get that. I’m sorry. I was going to say, I’ll have to get that quote from you because that’s it’s great to have the church fathers. There’s another scripture, too. And you’re the scripture scholar here. But from my understanding, Ananias, if I’ve pronounced him correctly, he’s the one whom God called St. Paul to go to. So after St. Paul’s knocked off his high horse in the middle of his persecution of the Christians, St. Paul has these scales on his eyes. And so God sends him to Ananias. From my understanding, everything I’ve researched to Dr. Healy, he was considered just a layman, a prophet maybe. among the people. Not a bishop, not a presbyter, but a simple layman. And you have, in that instance, he lays hands on St. Paul, who’s going to become one of the greatest apostles in the history of the church, and the scales fall from his eyes. And so that’s what I’ve recovered from my study of that passage. I don’t know if you have another view on Ananias, but he’s a layman from what I see.

Dr. Mary Healy
39:48 – 40:58
Yes, no, there’s no reason to think Ananias is anything other than an ordinary disciple. He’s simply called a disciple. He’s not an apostle. At that point, there hadn’t even been any presbyters or elders appointed, what later became understood as the priesthood. So he is an ordinary disciple who is used for healing. So the big question that I would ask those who take this view that lay people must not lay hands on the sick for healing is, where are you getting that restriction? is not in the teaching of the church. So why are you creating a prohibition that the church herself has not created? There is something of an alternate magisterium out there that is claiming to restrict people in that regard and in various other ways based on no authority but their own views. So we ought not to be creating restrictions the church herself has not created.

Mark Mallett
40:34 – 41:52
Well said. Yeah. Has Not Done. That’s right. Would you like to comment on, I mean, one of the practices that came out of the Charismatic Duel, and I experienced it with my own parents, is they had a little bottle of oil that was blessed, and Dad would make the sign of the cross. Now, of course, as a father in a home, he’s the priest of the home, and our dads have a certain authority and a blessing that they can give us. But we’ve seen it in Christian communities where at prayer meetings and so forth, people have used holy oil to bless. My understanding is that Encounter Ministries, they discourage this so that there isn’t confusion between the sacrament of confirmation and the other sacraments of healing of the sick and so on. Is that correct, Dr. Healy? Right. Right.

Dr. Mary Healy
41:38 – 41:57
Yes, that’s correct. Yeah, there’s some ambiguity about that practice because the Book of Blessings provides a blessing of oil to be used by the laity. So that seems to imply that the church allows the laity to use blessed oil.

Mark Mallett
41:54 – 42:31
I know the church has been taken to Right.

Dr. Mary Healy
41:57 – 42:47
But there have been those instances of confusion where people either thought it was the anointing of the sick or I haven’t heard of people thinking it was confirmation, but I suppose that’s possible. And so I think encounter rightly discourages that practice because in various contexts around the world, it’s hard to predict who may misinterpret it or who may give a wrong impression by their use of blessed oil in a way that seems to be a good idea. to confuse the roles of the laity and the clergy. So I think, yeah, it makes sense to just to not do that practice simply because of the risk of confusion. But it’s a very different case from the laying on of hands.

Mark Mallett
42:44 – 44:21
Right. Right. And this is what Jesus commanded in the Gospel. He said, he didn’t say, you know, go anoint people with holy oil all the time to heal them. He said, lay hands on the sick. But that said, you’re right. There’s a bit of ambiguity there because of our wisdom and knowledge of sacramentals and how God uses them. But I guess my other point I want to make is that the training of Encounter Ministries, we’re not talking about, just like a two-day online course. This is intensive and this is what has impressed me the most. I’ve looked over the materials. In fact, Dr. Healy, on my own ministry team, we have a Eucharistic Adoration event we do once a month here with praise and worship, with confession. Our bishop is often there with many priests and we have some encounter ministry teams also praying during this event. And I’m impressed by the intensive formation. And maybe just if you could just speak a moment about this, especially for people who are interested in, and I know that you’ve got a conference coming up. This, I’m just to have the screen up here. Here it is, the Encounter Conference, July 16th to 18th. This is in 2025. But the, if you could comment just for a moment on the kind of training that is given, because this isn’t just an overnight thing. This is really intensive. And could you just give a brief description of what you’re training the students online and in person on your campuses?

Dr. Mary Healy
44:16 – 45:15
Yes. Sure. I honestly I at first thought it was too much myself and then I began to realize the wisdom of it that the training is it’s one night a week essentially with the kind of homework in between for up to three years they now have a third year that they’ve added to the initial two years and what it is first and foremost is training in discipleship on a very practical level what does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus. What is our identity as sons and daughters of God? Now, I would imagine practically every new Encounter student could tell you, I’m a son or daughter of God, right? But it’s one thing to be able to say that, and it’s another to have it so deeply rooted in your heart that you live out of that truth.

Mark Mallett
45:13 – 46:08
I can’t Yeah, beautiful.

Dr. Mary Healy
45:16 – 47:46
And once you begin to live out of that truth of who you are in Christ and who God is, it changes everything. It changes the way you relate to all the people around you. It changes your expectancy for what the Lord is going to do. It changes your prayer, your intimacy with the Lord, the way you carry yourself, the way you handle interactions, including evangelistic interactions. with people. And it’s that fundamental change out of which the spiritual gifts flow. The supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit, they flow out of that fundamental living as a son or daughter of God, purchased by the blood of Christ, filled with the Holy Spirit. And so, so much of the training, you might think, you know, even a lot of priests go through the encounter school. A lot of priests say it changed my life. They may have had six to eight years of seminary, but it didn’t focus in this profoundly spiritual and practical way on helping them be rooted and grounded in their identity as a son or daughter of God. And then from there, there’s training in the gifts such as healing and of spirits, etc. Lots of practice, lots of pairing up with people you don’t know and praying with them in a safe kind of enclosed environment where it’s okay to make mistakes. And then you grow from those mistakes. And then you put it into practice by actually praying with people you know or with strangers as the Holy Spirit leads. So you’re learning to hear the voice of of God. You know, the gift of prophecy, for example, it doesn’t just drop down from heaven. It begins with learning to hear God’s voice in your own prayer. What does it mean to hear God’s voice? How do we steward the words that the Lord gives to us? And so the students are growing in all of these areas, which profoundly impact their whole lives. And the gifts of the Spirit flow from that.

Mark Mallett
47:47 – 51:47
Dr. Healy, I have a question for you. Because maybe some people might be wondering, well, how do you, because as I described in at the beginning, 1 Corinthians 12, some people God has designated with mighty deeds, some with gift of healing, some prophets. He says, do all do mighty deeds? Do all have gifts of healing? So my question is, can you, we don’t want to manipulate. in a sense the process but how can someone have the gift of healing if God hasn’t given that to them or am I am I not understanding this correctly so there’s a differentiation between someone getting a gift and then but then St. Paul does say strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts but I think I think you get my question here Yeah.

Dr. Mary Healy
48:36 – 53:54
Yeah, absolutely. And I have to say my thinking for many years was kind of incorrect or incomplete on this. But I would say, What I realize now is that when we pray for the gifts of healing and prophecy and other gifts in an evangelistic context, we’re not doing it based on the teaching of Paul on charisms. We’re doing it based on the command of the Lord. Go proclaim the kingdom, heal the sick. And in Matthew’s version, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. We are obeying the command of Jesus. And he would not give a command without giving us the capacity to carry it out. How do we carry it out? By asking the Lord for those gifts, stepping out in faith to use them, and practicing them. Now then, what happens as people are beginning to activate and use those gifts in obedience to the Lord, charisms then become manifest. And a charism is simply a heightened to do something that all Christians in principle can do. So some have a charism of teaching, but all Christians in principle can teach. Otherwise, nobody could raise children in the faith, for example. And all can evangelize and are called to evangelize, but some have a charism of it. So it’s a little bit like an ordinary human talent, like playing basketball. Some people have a charism for basketball, so to speak, a gift for basketball. They could be on the NBA, or at least they could be on the varsity team at their high school. But how do you even get such a gift in the first place? Well, it won’t happen unless you actually play the game. You have to start by playing the game. And you need good coaching. And you need to practice. And you need to practice some more. And you watch good players. And you do what they did. And then it becomes more natural to you. And you grow into it. And as people grow into it, some of them evidently manifest an amazing gift for basketball. Likewise, we all begin to practice what Jesus told us to do, which is to evangelize in the power of the Holy Spirit. and it becomes evident. Some people have a particular gift for healing and it can be more specific. Some people have this particular gift for healing of infertility and others for healing of cancer and others for broken bones, things like that, or growing legs. So the charism is, it’s a real phenomenon, but it’s secondary to the fact that we all have a Wow.

Mark Mallett
51:56 – 54:12
Right. Beautiful. I think many people are going to be encouraged to hear that. Because we all share, as the Catechism says, in the royal, the prophetic, priestly, and kingly office of Jesus Christ. And so we are all called to bring that prophetic word. We all are called to share in some degree of Christ’s authority. And we are called to administer in a priestly way, not sacramentally if we’re lay people, but in that priestly way, which is also the administration of gifts of healing and words of knowledge, encouragement. And so, excuse me, yeah, you’ve said it beautifully, how it’s not, It’s not up to us to determine how and when God’s going to heal. I mean, there was one time, Dr. Healy, I walked out of a bathroom. I was at a conference and I walked past a woman and she had a scarf over her head. And the Lord just said to me, go back and pray with her. And so I went up to her and I said, you know, she knew who I was because I was there speaking. And I said, do you mind if I pray with you? And she explained to me she had stage four cancer. Dr. Healy was six months later. She wrote back and said, The Cancer Is Gone. And after you pray, you pray with me. And yet there’s other times, Dr. Healy, I remember at one parish mission I gave, I felt the Lord asking me to pray over people. And I tell you, it was as dry as a desert in there. People came up and nothing that I could see was happening except for one person who she’d been sexually abused, I believe, as a baby. And I just led her through a prayer to and she wept and I wept and we held one another as everybody else in that dry desert just stood on and looked and it was profound. It was beautiful. And then when she walked away, it just dried up again. I say these things. Yeah, it’s all worth it. Yeah, true. And we can’t, we should never judge the book by its cover. But I say this and share this with people.

Dr. Mary Healy
53:57 – 54:10
Makes it all worth it though. Undoubtedly the Lord did amazing things in some of the other people even if you didn’t see it. Wow. Yeah.

Mark Mallett
54:12 – 56:13
with you now because I think all of us need to be faithful to what Jesus is saying and let him be the one who guides us today might be just a simple word of encouragement that will heal somebody tomorrow he might actually ask me to pray over somebody it might be the only time in my life where he will use me in a way to be an instrument of physical healing in all these different ways that the bottom line here is that we’re called to be faithful and to go out into the harvest as you said so beautifully That’s why St. Peter says we should always be ready to give testimony to the hope that we carry within us. And, you know, you also, we were talking before the show about Dr. Ralph Martin, your colleague, a man who I have followed for decades now, and I have a deep love for Dr. Martin because of his faithfulness. And you mentioned one instance where he just walked into an elevator, and the man standing in the elevator with him was moved to repentance. And that’s just the Spirit of Jesus living and moving through Dr. Ralph.

Dr. Mary Healy
54:42 – 55:41
Amen. Your story just now reminded me of something that happened not long ago. I walked into a ladies room and a friend of mine who’s very gifted and experienced also walked in at the same time. And we just had a 30 second chat with this woman in the ladies room. And she began weeping and really manifesting. She had oppression of some sort. And we prayed with her. And it was maybe 10 minutes of prayer. There were all kinds of very painful, difficult things in her past. And it was like the Lord just in that moment wanted to bring them to the surface. And by the time she left the ladies room, she was just full of peace and just radiating the presence of the Lord. So you never know when he might ask you to step up and just be alert to the prompting of the Holy Spirit.

Mark Mallett
56:13 – 56:41
And so my brothers and sisters who are watching this right now, let’s just be faithful to our Lord and to what our Lady has been saying all over the world, which is to come into a place of relationship again with Jesus, to a place of deep prayer, of fasting, of conversion ourselves. And I think we will see signs of wonders once we get out of the way and start to let Jesus work through us. And I think that’s what Encounter Ministries is doing.

Dr. Mary Healy
56:56 – 57:40
Yes. One of my favorite passages in the Bible is right at the end of Mark, after Jesus has given this great commission, go bring the gospel to the whole creation. And then he ascends into heaven. And it says, they went forth and preached everywhere while the Lord worked with them. And the word there in Greek is synergeo. It’s where we get synergy. And so it’s speaking about this beautiful collaboration. The Lord actually loves to collaborate with us. And you might ask, couldn’t he do a better job without us all by himself? I mean, you know, anytime you involve sinful, fallen, weak human beings, it’s going to be messy.

Mark Mallett
57:14 – 57:41
Yes. Mm. Yeah.

Dr. Mary Healy
57:41 – 58:00
And yet somehow the Lord doesn’t mind that. He delights in that. He loves to collaborate with us. And what a tragedy that so many Catholics don’t, or other Christians, don’t know the joy of collaborating with the Lord and allowing Him to move through us in His supernatural gifts.

Mark Mallett
57:45 – 58:36
Yeah. Yeah. Well, it seems to me, Dr. Healy, that God is pushing his way through and he’s going to get his way. If there’s tens of thousands of people, a healing army that he is preparing right now in our midst, he’s got some beautiful things planned for us. Dr. Mary Healy, you are a gift to the church. Thank you for your faithfulness, your love for Christ, your love for Scripture, and what you bring to all of us. Thank you for joining me today. I really appreciate it. Thank you, and hopefully we’ll do this again sometime. God bless you, and let’s pray for one another.

Dr. Mary Healy
58:26 – 58:30
You’re so welcome. It’s an honor to be on with you. God bless you for all that you’re doing.

Mark Mallett
58:36 – 58:42
and for the church that we will see God’s healing hand, his signs and wonders again in our times. God bless you all.

So grateful for your prayers and support.
Thank you!

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