Guild Festival 2008

Our Festival this year was held at St James the Great, Haydock, St Helens, where there has been a flourishing branch of the Guild for many years.

There was one of the best turn outs ever for the Festival, with around 180 people present from all over the country.

At the Festival Eucharist the Very Revd John Petty, the Dean Emeritus of Coventry gave us a lively and thought provoking address.  'Every healing is different', he said, speaking out of his own experience, and 'you can never dictate when healing will take place'.  He also instanced a number of healings that had happened when people had had the laying on of hands for others, and encouraged us to do this - even when oceans divided us from the person we were praying for.  Towards the end of his address he spoke movingly of the work of reconciliation, which is so important a part of Coventry Cathedral's ministry.  What began with Germany was later taken up with Japan, with ex-POWs meeting up with their former captors, through arrangements brokered by the Cathedral.

The Annual General Meeting followed, at which the Sub-Warden, Canon Paul Nener, announced that the Bishop of Blackburn, the Rt Revd Nicholas Reade, had agreed to be the new Warden of the Guild.  Bishop Reade has had a long connection with the healing ministry, with experience as a hospital chaplain in addition to his ministry as a parish priest.  Currently he is the person to whom the House of Bishops looks to receive information about  the healing ministry in the Church.  He will be taking up his post as Warden in Advent this year.

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A New Editor for Chrism

A warm welcome to Professor Helen Leathard, who is to be the new Editor of Chrism and Guild News. Helen has a long involvement with the healing ministry and is currently Professor of Healing Science and Pharmacology at the University of Cumbria. She is also a licensed Reader in the Diocese of Blackburn.  She follows Bishop George Hacker, who has been editor for the past twelve years, and who says of her:  'She will bring a new dimension to the post of editor with her professional and academic connections'.

She writes:

‘I was introduced to the Guild of St Raphael by the Rt Revd Jack Nicholls while he was Bishop of Lancaster, joined as an individual member because there was no local branch, and was soon elected onto the Guild Council. For some years I have accompanied our Sub-Warden in representing the Guild on a group that links a number of Christian healing organisations that operate nationally, exploring how we can work together most harmoniously. That group is now called the National Christian Healing Initiative and I shall write more about it in future editions of Chrism and Guild News. I am a long-standing member of Deanery and Diocesan Synods and have been a member of the General Synod since 2000. I have recently taken a part-time MA in Theology to improve my ability to work on a dialogue between biomedical and Christian spiritual approaches to healing. It seems clear to me that it is only by paying full attention to spiritual as well as mental and physical well-being that we can hope to achieve the quality of holistic health that God wishes for us all.’

Sadly, we have had to say farewell to Bishop Jack Nicholls, our Warden. He retired as Bishop of Sheffield at the end of June and as is customary relinquished the post of Warden of the Guild at the same time.

No one who has been to a Guild Festival in his time is likely to forget his addresses at the Festival Eucharist—so simple yet so thought-provoking—homely yet deeply spiritual—and always with a twinkle of humour. And those of us who have benefited from his experience and guidance on the Guild Council owe him a particular debt. He will be a very hard person to replace.

When he was interviewed shortly after becoming Warden, Bishop Jack said: ‘What has always appealed to me about the Guild is that it sees healing as a main-stream part of what the Church is about. It’s not an odd thing on the side, it’s the basic sacramental ministry of the Church. The Guild has come from the Catholic side of the Church and therefore is steeped in a sacramental way of looking at life. That is a true way of looking at life—in fact it is the only way of looking at life that makes sense to the majority of human kind.’

Norma, who had suffered from ill-health for many years, had been on dialysis for four years, and the chances of her finding a donor were slim. She says: ‘Bill was mowing the grass one day and he tapped on the window and said, “I was thinking I’ve got two kidneys and I don’t need both. Why don’t you have one?”.’ After six months of tests the operation took place in the Churchill Hospital in Oxford in April, and was a success.

Norma, who in the past has been a contributor to Guild News, now writes to say that it is their Golden Wedding next year and they plan to fly to Singapore to visit their son and his wife and their three grandchildren—something which would have been quite unthinkable a few months ago. Meanwhile with two or three others they meet regularly to pray for others in the parish of St Michael’s Tilehurst, where they live.

A spokesman for the organisation UK Transplant said at the time of the operation: ‘It is a wonderful thing to give an organ to save a life. We wish them many years of happily married life’. A sentiment which we echo. This truly is a shining example of what the healing ministry is all about.

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Centre for the Study of Theology & Health

The Guild and the Centre share a number of common aims. Those listed in the Centre’s literature include the following for example:

These are very much in line with the Guild’s aims and objectives. Moreover the Centre, with its residential facilities at Holy Rood House, is able to host seminars, conferences, research days and workshops, and so promote the healing ministry in a way which complements the Guild’s parish based work through its branches. The present Editor attended the Hildegard Lecture, which the Archbishop of Canterbury gave shortly before his enthronement in 2003—the first of a series of annual lectures given by different people and organised by the Centre. The lecture was later published in the Autumn number of Chrism for that year.

All this has led on to a further link, which is proposed for next year. As may be imagined, the Centre produces a good deal of very interesting material on the healing ministry, and for some time those involved have been searching for ways for it to reach a wider readership. After some discussion the Guild Council has agreed to make a number of pages available to them in a slightly enlarged Chrism, starting with the Spring number in 2009. This will be at no extra cost to the Guild, and should lead to some very interesting and stimulating articles. Another exciting step forward!

To learn more about the Centre log on to: www.holyroodhouse.org.uk

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God has mysterious ways of working through our lives and experience, sometimes bringing us to a stage which we would not have dared to imagine for ourselves. If someone had told me ten years ago, when I was suffering greatly through acute rheumatoid arthritis, that I would become the Archbishops’ Adviser for the healing ministry, I would have been amazed and pondered on how that could ever come to be. Through these years, has grown the mysterious synergy between profound suffering and a great passion for serving God. Out of this has emerged a clear sense of vocation within ordained priesthood, inextricably linked with great desire to proclaim the healing and reconciling dimensions of God’s mission in this world.

The opportunity to serve both the Archbishops of Canterbury and York as their Adviser is a wonderful way to live out this twin vocation. The only person with a comparable role was Bishop Morris Maddocks, who died recently. He was special adviser on health and healing to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York from 1983 to 1995. Fortunately, Bishop Morris and I were able to meet about a year ago to reflect on the development of the healing ministry over the last thirty years. We shared strong views on the importance of preaching, teaching and practical expressions of the healing ministry, the need to develop it in ways which relate to the needs of contemporary society, and to raise awareness of the ministry of reconciliation.

As Archbishops’ Adviser, I continue to put my heart and soul into the work I have been doing for the last ten years, to support and develop the healing ministry and the ways in which it relates to the wider ministry and mission of the Church nationally, within the dioceses, deaneries and parishes, ecumenically and beyond. Bishops, advisers and others have commented on the value of the presence of someone within the central structures of the Church as a point of reference and support, who holds a mainstream position on this ministry. They need to know that this ministry at the centre is in safe hands and that a common understanding of good practice is being supported and developed.

I will build upon the foundations and progress made through the report for the House of Bishops, A Time to Heal, and the work done between 2001 to 2007 through the House of Bishops’ Healing Ministry Steering Group. Strategic plans for medium to long term development of key areas within the healing ministry include more effective support structures, training, networking for interest groups, ecumenical cooperation, www presence, and specialist areas of research. One of the greatest challenges the Church faces is to help people become more aware of the healing and reconciling dimensions of God’s mission. So I look forward to exploring how the healing ministry can express in fresh ways the holy Gospel within this world and to discerning how I may most effectively serve as Archbishops’ Adviser for the healing ministry.

Sister Mary Cuthbert from the Community of the Holy Cross, Rempstone near Loughborough, reports a steady stream of requests for prayer over the internet from many sources—including the USA and India. This was what we hoped for when we added the Prayer Requests page to the Guild website. Now the sisters feel that the time has come to make this service available to Guild members and others who are not online.

So, if you have a prayer request, and do not have access to the internet, you can now send it by ordinary mail. The address is:

Prayer support will be given initially for one month, but people are invited to keep in touch and in particular to let the sisters know if the situation changes in any way.

And of course, as you obviously are on the internet, you can still use that service either direct or on

gsr.rempstone@webleicester.co.uk

To find out more about how you can ask for prayers for particular people or situations click on Prayer Requests