Dear Friends, especially those of you who are unwell,  In the Gospels, Jesus went through towns and villages curing diseases and sickness, teaching in the synagogues and proclaiming the Good News.  The miracles Jesus worked revealed Who He was as God the Son, the Messiah, our Saviour, and the salvation He won for us by His Death and Resurrection. The Heart of Jesus abounds in mercy and the Church today continues His saving work through the sacraments and prayer, through teaching the Truth, and through the pastoral care of the sick and afflicted. With this in mind, I want to discuss healing, and to announce some new Norms on Healing Ministry.  
 
Sickness, suffering and death are consequences of Original Sin, which is why those who are unwell turn instinctively to God for healing. They look to heaven for help and find it in Jesus and His preferential love for the sick.  The Letter of St. James states that if anyone is ill, they should “send for the priests of the Church. Let the priests pray over them, anointing them with oil, and the prayer of faith will save the sick persons and the Lord will raise them up, and if they have committed any sins, their sins will be forgiven them.”  In other words, those in need of spiritual, psychological, mental, emotional and physical healing can turn to Jesus. They can do this in Mass and Holy Communion, in the healing sacraments of Reconciliation and Anointing, in Adoration and Benediction, in the Rosary, in pilgrimages, devotions and the invocation of the saints, in prayers and blessings. Jesus told His disciples to heal the sick, which is why care of the sick, and the service of hospitals, hospices and care homes, is central to the ministry of every parish. In return, those unwell, strengthened by uniting their sufferings with the Lord, can share in His saving work, obtaining many graces and blessings for others. Thus the work of the Church compliments, sanctifies and enhances the work of doctors, nurses, psychologists and carers.  
 
Let me now differentiate three overlapping ministries of healing. First, there is healing ministry proper, as just described. Secondly, and more rarely, there is deliverance ministry, that is, special prayer to remove obstacles, bondages, memories, entanglements and addictions of a spiritual origin that hold a person back, impair their well-being and prevent their restoration to spiritual and bodily health. And thirdly, very rarely, exorcism, that is, ritual prayer, performed by a priest-exorcist expressly appointed by the Bishop, to cast out Satan and the powers of darkness, which in some manner have taken possession of a person’s soul and faculties.  
 
In recent years, a beautiful development in the life of the Church has been the growth of healing ministry in its many forms, such as prayer-groups that pray for healing or offer the laying on of hands.  Some parishes organise healing Masses and special liturgies, with confessions, the Sacrament of the Sick and Benediction. Again, days of renewal with healing and deliverance ministry are scheduled here and there. In a parish, the chief responsibility for pastoral care lies with the parish priest. But the Holy Spirit also bestows charismatic gifts of healing, deliverance and discernment of spirits upon individual members of the Church to prosper its life and mission. The Church takes care to discern these charisms, to order their use and to form those called and gifted to use them with prudence and circumspection.  No one may practice a ministry of healing, even less the ministry of deliverance, without appropriate  permission  and  without  appropriate  formation.  Such  ministries,  caring  for  the  vulnerable,  are  to  be  exercised  in accordance with the Church’s teaching and discipline.  
 
To explain this in greater detail, I have issued for the Diocese some Norms on Healing Ministry and established a Healing Advisory Group as a point of reference. You can read more about this in Enews and on our diocesan website. The Norms are practical; for example, they remind us that in individual prayer for healing, national safeguarding policy requires that, in addition to the minister and the individual, at least one other person should be present. Sometimes the need for healing, say, the healing of memories, becomes evident in those seeking to join the Church or again, in those growing in faith through spiritual direction. This places a unique responsibility on ministers of welcome, on catechists in the RCIA process and on spiritual directors.  
 
One of the best-loved sayings of the Lord is: “Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.” God wants to give in abundance the gift of His healing love and so we rightly turn to Him in our need. The Anointing of the Sick is a powerful sacrament and in my own ministry I have often witnessed its miraculous help. If you or a loved one is frail, seriously ill or due to go into hospital, make sure you let the priest know, so that he can minister this sacrament to them. Pray constantly for the sick and also for the generous medical staff, relatives and friends who care for them, confident that, as St. Thomas Aquinas says, there are some things God will give us only if we ask Him for them. Why not join us for the diocesan pilgrimage to Lourdes this summer? Make sure you have a Communion set in your home with cloth, crucifix and candles. And try to keep Sunday special as a day of humble service of the sick, the infirm and the elderly. Indeed, turn often to Mary Immaculate, Health of the Sick, to our Patron St. Edmund, and to Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, who spent many evenings and weekends visiting the sick, that they may inspire us. May they help us in joy to share our Christian faith with everyone around especially the neediest, Bringing People Closer to Jesus Christ through His Church. In Corde Iesu + Philip Bishop of Portsmouth.

The Beloved Son of God has spent the night in prayer.  As the sun rises, He chooses 'Apostles' from the community of His disciples.  He chooses them in the midst of a people who are suffering and it is crystal clear that He is choosing them to change the situation of the people who have come to Him. They are the reason He has chosen the Twelve.  They are the reason He has working disciple and He has a powerful teaching to share with His Apostles and disciples before they speak or act in His name. 
 
He details a series of Blessings and Woes in a style very close to the prophetic tradition.  Jesus is much more than a prophet, but he has an unyielding prophetic sensitivity to the chasm that exists between the life that God wants for the poor and the actual life they are living.  It is this chasm which evokes the Blessings and Woes. 
 
As St. Paul wrote in his first letter to Timothy (6:17-19), 'As for those who in this present age are rich, command them not to be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.  They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life'. 
 
As disciples we may be poor, broken and hated but on the plus side we are living in the Kingdom of God.  In other words, we have taken 'hold of the life that really is life'.  Since this real life is amazing, it can coexist with hunger, brokenness, mourning and persecution.  Why?  Because this 'real life' will outlast the suffering and negativity which injustice brings. The unjust will self-destruct sometime very soon.  Notice, too, the special emphasis on the disciples' blessedness when they endure rejection because  they  are  followers  of  Jesus  and  are  trying  to  embody  the  new  humanity  and  the  new community of the Son of Man.  The rich and powerful not only resist the invitation to join them, they go on the offensive to persecute and discredit them.  But instead of despair, Jesus wants His disciples to rejoice when this happens!  The same joy the prophets discovered when they held out for Gods' world while they were attacked by people who only wanted to defend their own status and power. 
 
The Woes are driven by the same energy.  The rich have chosen a life that  is  not  real  life!  Their  consolation  is  now  but  it  won't  last  very long.  And then, a special warning to disciples who compromise on the cutting edge of Jesus' message.  If they rationalise present injustices, if they tell the  world it does not need to repent, they  will have adapted God's Word to justify unjust situations.  As always with Jesus, a choice must be made, a path chosen.  Will it be Blessing or Woe? 
 
I heard once of a woman disciple who said Yes to this paradoxical life of Blessings and Woes.  She knew the life that was real life and unmasked every counterfeit she met along the way.  She was wide awake  while all around her others slept. She suffered because she  was  a true prophet. She lived without anaesthetic.  She took in the suffering of her sisters and brothers because it was there when it should not have been.  "We have to help them", she would say.  When she died, there was uncertainty about what age she was until someone who knew her well announced that she was ageless.  And this is what she, the ageless one, said: 
 
"Whenever there is unjust suffering, you stop it.  Sure, you might not know what is next.  So what. You know what should not be and what won't last in the long run.  If it is oppressive, it is wrong.  There is a better life.  Reach for it.  And don't  count the cost".

St. Luke notices how eager the crowds are to hear the word of God.  So eager, in fact, that they are pressing Jesus into the sea.  Jesus reaches for higher ground and finds it on a boat.  But will those who are so eager for the word allow themselves to be captivated by it? Will it illuminate their lives and change the way they think and act?  Will they allow the Light of the World to move them from darkness to light? 
 
The Word must be heard and then integrated.  The fishermen wash their nets and put out a little from the shore.  This is step one.  In the second, deeper encounter, the nets will be let down into the depths of the sea.  Simon will be invited to move away from the shore and put out into deep water.  I guess, in the end, it's a choice we all have to make; to meet Jesus on our own terms or on His. 
 
When Jesus has finished His teaching, He invites Simon and the others to experience it for themselves.  How will they make it their own? Jesus gives, what looks on the surface like a simple instruction.   But,  in  reality,  the  journey  which  draws  us  to  go deep  inside  ourselves  (put  out  into  deep  water)  and  wait  to receive  (let  down  your  net  for  a  catch)  isn't  as  easy  as  it sounds!   These  disciples  have  never  had  any  success  with these directions.  They have tried them and only experienced the  absence  of  light  (darkness)  and  emptiness  (caught nothing).   Yet  Simon  calls  Jesus  'Master'  and  he  will  have  to trust that Jesus knows what He is doing.  Simon is classically obedient and dubious - just like us. 
 
And what does he come to understand?  Only that trusting and following Jesus leads to abundance and fullness.  If we risk opening our hearts to God, God will move in us.  The disciples are replete with God's presence - their nets filled to breaking point -.  They are overcome, and Simon, so deeply aware of his own smallness and fragility and now the huge generosity of God, feels dwarfed by the experience.  He cannot celebrate the gift and joins a very long line of quaking humans. 
 
More teaching is required. Simon is wrong to be afraid.  If his experience of God makes him tremble and crushes  him  down;  if  he  wraps  his  arms  around  the  knees  of  Jesus,  he  must  have  fallen  in  his  own knees.  Simon cannot kiss the fullness he has received so he wants it to go away.  This is not what Jesus wants.  So, helping Simon to stand on his feet, Jesus instructs him not to be afraid.  Instead, he must use what he has experienced to bring others to God.  As Jesus has caught him, he is to catch others.  Fear must give way to adventure and creativity.  So they bring their fullness back to the shore.  They leave behind everything  they  used  to  do  (be  afraid)  and  dedicate  themselves  to  a  spectacular  catch  of  women  and men.  The Word has been heard, understood, integrated and acted upon.  Or ..... 
 
Once upon a time, a boat arrived at the shore creaking with fish.  The crowds were waiting.  They gathered around Peter and slapped him on the back. "Peter, you sly dog! You knew where the fish were all the time and didn't let on.  You are, without a doubt, the greatest fisherman in all of Galilee". 
 
But Peter was strangely silent.  He only said, "Share the catch with everyone".  After that he said nothing.  But later that evening in the local pub, with bread and wine between them, Peter looked across the table at the Lord Jesus and said, "Go away from me.  I wanted the fish to be over them, not with them.  I wanted the fish to rule them, not feed them.  You go away from me.  I am a sinful man".  Jesus only smiled back at Peter.  It was not the smile of the sly fox but the smile that moves the sun and the stars.  He had no intention of going away.  There were other fish to catch.

The Beloved Son of God reads the foretelling of Isaiah.  This text is a prophecy that there is One who is coming, who, filled with the Spirit of God, is destined to bring about a better world.  Jesus' astonishing commentary on the text is that this is no longer a prophecy but a reality.  Jesus is the One who is to come.  The mission of the Beloved Son of God is clear.  Well it's looks pretty clear to Him.  The question is, is it clear to us?
 
The prophecy is fulfilled but they have to HEAR it.  If they do not hear it, it will not be fulfilled.  At first things are looking hopeful as they seem to welcome the challenging words they hear.  In Marks' Gospel, the people reject Jesus because they know Him too well and cannot take Him seriously.  But in Luke's Gospel, the 'son of Joseph' has the opposite effect.  As Josephs' son, the blessings of which Jesus speaks will be bestowed on the village of Joseph.  The people  are  rubbing  their  hands  with  delight  and  salivating  at  the thought of the heights to which the 'Jesus-Ride' will take them.  But Jesus does not quite see it this way.  He reminds His hearers of a little unpopular strand of Jewish Tradition - that a prophet is NEVER accepted in their own country.  Worst still, Jesus suggests that they were not chosen by God to form an inward looking, exclusive, members only club.  In reality, the opposite  is  true.   They  were  chosen  to  bear  the  blessings  of  the  One  God  to  the  whole  of Creation.  If they are listening, it is clear that they have to shift their focus from 'what's in it for me?' to 'how can I live in such a way that my life is a blessing for others?'  This is a shift in awareness which has transformed Jesus.  To be loved means to be sent to uphold the primacy of love and to bring love to bear in every violation of love - whether that's popular or not.
 
Ah these fickle disciples! Their warmth turns to rage, their approval to condemnation when they realise they are being asked to be a blessing for the world.  But, like those who came before and after them, their killing field will not have the last word.  The Risen Saviour will walk through the midst of them, singing His song, that force cannot destroy the reality of which He speaks.
 
The brick walls of exclusion and privilege are built with bricks made of ‘ism’.  This list is not exhaustive  and  I  am  sure  you  can  add  a  few  more.   Racism,  Sexism,  Tribalism,  Socialism, Capitalism,  Conservativism,  Liberalism,  Protestantism,  Catholicism,  Nationalism,  etc,  etc, etc.  The only way to dismantle the edifice, brick by brick, is to join in the good no matter where it is unfolding.  Goodness dances through creation looking for partners.  Sometimes it knocks on our door, sometimes elsewhere.  But it always needs a lending hand and a warm heart to
increase its effectiveness.  It calls on us to do something good even when there is nothing in it for  us.   The  reward  is  always  the  same  -  a  breakthrough  into  joy.   The  joy  that  enfolds  us wherever we see good things happening.  I guess it's only when we feel no resentment towards the widow of Sidon, or the leper of Syria, only when we celebrate an end to her hunger and his sickness that we know we have heard and understood Jesus.  The prophecy of global liberation - not just our own comfort - will be fulfilled in our hearing and because of our actions.