Those set free are "jubilated," that is, are filled with the joyful praises of the God who has liberated them. Healing as a means of setting people free from bondage will lead to praise, a key manifestation of a time of Jubilee and a gift God has poured out upon the Church through the Charismatic Renewal.

While healing ministries are a phenomenon closely tied to the Catholic Charismatic Renewal today, the reality of being healed and set free is not only a modern phenomenon.

In the Catholic spiritual tradition, a fundamental means of healing and deep interior transformation is contemplative prayer. In contemplation, especially what in the Carmelite tradition is termed "passive contemplation", God brings about His secret work of removing blockages to grace. As the contemplative gazes upon Christ crucified, by grace s/he is gradually united with the Father through a "passing over" from death to life with Christ.

One difference between the two ways of experiencing healing (i.e., the "charismatic" and the contemplative) is that in contemplation the healing work of God often remains hidden (not in its effects, but in terms of knowing what is being healed). The one experiencing the healing and transforming power of contemplation simply comes away from prayer with the experience of new levels of freedom, enlightenment and/or union without necessarily knowing what has been removed or reformed. The rise of charismatic healing ministries does not replace this form of healing. Rather, these two ways of experiencing healing can and should work together.

Allowing contemplation to find a home in the Charismatic Renewal is one challenge facing the Renewal. By inviting Catholics to the Jubilee grace of being freed from the blockages to grace, leaders in the Charismatic Renewal might help charismatic Catholics to consider contemplative prayer as a path of healing and transformation, as well as help contemplative Catholics to consider more charismatic forms of healing ministry as another way God uses to bring His Children into deeper union with Himself.

One way God blesses us is through the heritage of grace that passes from generation to generation. However, the mystery of sin establishes blockages along our bloodlines that restrict the flow of grace and blessings God intended to pass from parent to child. Each of us is, in one way, the convergence of the bloodlines of our fathers and our mothers. Each of these bloodlines brings its own heritage of grace and heritage of sinfulness. A time of Jubilee can be a moment of restoration of the full inheritance of blessing willed by God for us through our bloodlines.

Generational healing has as one of its purposes the restoration of the inheritance of these blessings through a cleansing of the bloodlines. The Charismatic Renewal can be a powerful conduit through which God can cleanse bloodlines and bring about a true recovery and restoration of the blessings God has willed to pass to us from our ancestors through the generations.

This insight about blessings being handed on from generation to generation has another important application for the Renewal. Leaders in the Renewal have been lamenting the fact that it is not attracting young people, that the Renewal is "graying." God has blessed the first generation of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal in astonishing ways. One of the foremost challenges facing the Renewal as an ecclesial movement is that of handing on the heritage of blessings and insights that have come to the Renewal in its first 30 years. This challenge is related to generational healing. Generational healing has its theological roots in the Catholic idea or tradition.

The Church in every age has the challenge of handing on all that she is and all that she believes; not to do so is not to be the Church - and not to be an authentically ecclesial movement. Leaders in the Renewal should reflect carefully and prayerfully on how attentive they are to that aspect of leadership. Essential to leadership is handing over leadership, not just as a function or a position, but in "spirit", as Elijah to Elisha. The mature fruits of the Renewal need to harvested and handed on to the next generation of Renewal leaders, otherwise the inheritance of blessings God intends to release into history through the Renewal will be diminished, having been "dammed up" by the first generation. That would mean terrible losses and setbacks. An emphasis on generational healing will place Renewal leaders in the stream of tradition, and be an added impetus for them to focus more energies on handing on the blessings they have received as leaders.

Generational healing often involves a healing of the "father relationship." For many people to be able to regain the inheritance of blessing God intended for them through their family histories, a healing of this relationship is necessary. Sadly, a significant number of these people will no longer have the opportunity to experience a healing in their relationships with their own fathers (for instance, because the father has died or is not prepared to recognize any fault in how he was a father). Another group, men who were not faithful as fathers of their own children (for whatever reasons), might discover that getting their lives right with God doesn't guarantee that their children will be ready to forgive them for the pain they caused.

This means we have "children" (of every age!) who have a deep need to experience a healthy father relationship but who are in effect "fatherless", and we have fathers (and mothers) ready to "father" (and "mother”) in healthy ways but who are in effect “childless.” Charismatic prayer groups can be a tremendous help in these situations. As the Renewal helps Catholics to experience the deep transformation brought about by generational healing, it can further nurture that healing by providing a place for healthy fathering (and mothering) to occur.

In some ways, this experience has parallels with the challenge Pope John Paul II has been laying before the Charismatic Renewal and other ecclesial movements, namely, that they be more fully ecclesial. When speaking to leaders in the Charismatic Renewal recently, the pope has been emphasizing the necessity of engaging in truly ecclesial formation, which he sometimes refers to as the work of "making disciples." In our Catholic tradition, one way of describing relationships in which discipleship occurs is that of being a spiritual father or mother.

The Renewal will recover and deepen its own vitality as a movement as it attempts to raise up spiritual fathers and mothers who have the confidence and capability to help others in their prayer communities to be Catholic disciples of Jesus Christ. By bringing to the forefront what it means to be a child and a father or mother, generational healing can aid the Renewal in that process.

The Jubilee is a time when spiritual debts are cancelled - sins are forgiven. Pope John Paul II has built into his plans for the Third Millennium an "Ante-preparatory stage" lasting more than two years (from late 1994-1996 in which all Catholics were called upon to an examination of conscience and heartfelt repentance for the failures of the past, not only of one's own life, but even in the history of the Church. The way during the Great Jubilee involves from the very beginning an honest and searching look to the past. This fits very well with the theology underlying generational healing. Those who seek such healing are invited to examine their own family histories in order to discover any un-repented sins of their ancestors, and then to seek God's forgiveness on their behalf. Doing this is a way of freeing the family line from the lingering consequences of such sins.

By helping others to engage in these practices, the Renewal as a whole will become ever more aware that it exists in history, and that the mistakes and failures of that history need to be acknowledged if reconciliation and new life are to be experienced. If there are any sins of this type holding the Renewal back as a whole, hopefully engaging in generational healing will help uncover them and deal with them effectively.

An additional benefit of relating repentance to healing concerns the sacrament of reconciliation—the healing and strengthening dimensions of this sacrament will be more deeply appreciated when repentance is discussed in the context of healing. Doing so will help us to see this sacrament as an attractive encounter to be sought out rather than a fearful one to be avoided.

Pope John Paul II states that this Great Jubilee Year is to be an intensely eucharistic time. One way to foster in Catholics a new awareness of the Mass as a place of "jubilated" worship and Jubilee grace is through generational healing. Catholic healing ministries engaging in generational healing regularly point to the Mass as the most powerful context in which generational healing occurs. The Mass is worship that heals. Through the Paschal mystery healing spans generations. It is very fitting that generational healing occurs in the context of the Mass.

One of the central concerns of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal is to bring the Renewal into the heart of the Church. One way to express this is through Masses offered for generational healing. Generational healing in the context of Mass is a supernatural manifestation of how a reality closely associated with the Charismatic Renewal (healing) is authentically found at the heart of the Church's life (i.e., the Mass), rather than on its margins. The Mass already incorporates Charismatic dimensions; generational healing is simply a clear expression of this for those who might not yet recognize it.

So beg God for Jubilee graces to be poured out upon you, your prayer communities, your Parish and the Renewal as a whole. Pray fervently that the Renewal and your Parish does everything possible to ensure that the great challenge and graces of the Jubilee Year 2000 not be missed.