Jesus of Nazareth was a preacher, teacher and healer.  The Church continues his ministry through preaching, teaching and healing.  Most of you are familiar with the first two, but what about the healing ministry of the Church?  It is more than the anointing of the sick.  It also takes place in the Sacrament of Reconciliation and in pastoral counseling and spiritual direction.  Fr. Michael and myself were ordained to bring you the Healing Love of Christ. 
     Both of us have experienced that love and healing in our own lives.  Fr. Henri Nouwen wrote a book for ministry entitled,The Wounded Healer.  He came across the title while reading Carl Jung's autobiography, Memories, Dreams, Reflections.  Jung wrote, "only the wounded physician heals."  The origin of the phrase, "wounded physician" comes from the Hebrew Scriptures.  Nouwen used a legend from the Jewish Talmud to make his point that ministry means identifying with the suffering Messiah:
Rabbi Yousha ben Levi met Elijah the prophet.  He asked Elijah, "when will the Messiah come?"
Elijah replied, "Go and ask him yourself."
"Where is he?"
"Sitting at the gates of the city."
"How shall I know him?"
"He is sitting among the poor, covered with wounds.  The others unbind all their wounds at the same time  and then bind them up again.  But he unbinds them one at a time and binds it up again, saying to himself,  'Perhaps I shall be needed:  If so, I must always be ready so as not to delay for a moment.'"
    Nouwen writes that ministers have to walk the tightrope:  neither conceal their experiences from those they want to help, nor be tempted by any form of spiritual exhibitionism-- "open wounds stink and do not heal."  To help ministers achieve a right balance, Nouwen develops the Jewish / Christian concept of hospitality.  The virtue of hospitality allows us to break through our fears and open our homes (and houses of worship) to the stranger.  Hospitality, in the biblical sense, means to pay attention to the guests and to create a space where the guests can find their own soul (community).  For Nouwen this is real healing ministry because it takes away the illusion that wholeness can simply be given by one to another.  Hospitality doesn't take away the pain of the other but creates a place where it can be shared.
     A parish needs to be a place of hospitality:  where one can feel safe, share pain/loneliness and find a community (one's soul).  And yet, there are many who do not feel welcomed due to divorce and remarriage, sexual orientation, etc.  Is there room here?  Is everyone accepted?  I would hope so.  As followers of Christ Jesus we cannot turn away anyone who wants to follow the way of the Lord.
     Official Church documents, often written in "Vaticanese" always need to be translated in the most compassionate terms on a local, pastoral level.  That has always been our tradition.  The danger these days is a fundamentalist, literal interpretation without reviewing the "spirit" behind these documents.
     St. Augustine wrote that the purpose of Church law is to be a fence around a treasure.  What is the treasure the document or law is protecting?  Marriage?  Children?  Sexuality?  Dignity of the person?  Human life?  We should pray, study and always discern God's will; then we are following our conscience.
     Like you, I love the Church.  It has been an important part of my life all these years.  For almost thirty years I have served the Church as a priest/pastor.  I have encountered members who are wounded, in pain and have felt excluded.   We need to remember that God is not "up there" telling everybody what to do, but a God in anguish, yearning for our love; a God not always understood, a God on whom people put labels.  Our God is a Tremendous Lover, a Wounded Lover.
     Yes, religion is meant to be a great love affair with God.  As each of us struggle to grow in our love for God, let us be compassionate and hospitable, especially to those in pain because they have felt rejected or abandoned by the
Institutional Church.
    Let's remember that charity is the highest law that guides us to the kingdom.  We are a wild and crazy community of believers and greatly loved by the Crucified Christ.

Fr. Bill