Marian Solidarity

An article taken from Sr. McKenna’s book, Miracles Do Happen

Spiritual Healing

For the first six months after that, I was the skeptic. People were healed, but I still couldn’t believe Jesus would work through me. I thought that I would have to be completely changed and perfect before he would use me. But the Lord still had more to teach me. I had to learn about what he considered the most serious sickness of all.

This lady stood up at a prayer meeting and said she wanted prayer for a woman who was both blind and paralyzed. My immediate reaction was, “Blind and paralyzed? That’s too big a job for me, Lord.” I was only starting out. I still didn’t realize I was only the instrument. I felt the Lord saying I should go over to pray with the sick lady. I did.

When I went to see this woman I realized that sickness can do two things. It can make you a saint or you can become very bitter, depending on your attitude and disposition to prayer.

When I went in, this woman was very angry and had given up on God. When I put my hand on her, I said a little prayer with her and I felt the sensation of pins and needles, exactly as I had in the chapel when I had been given the gift of healing.

As I was praying, I was saying to myself, “Now Briege, don’t go telling this woman she’ll be healed. You know this is all psychological and she’ll get disappointed. These tinglings in your hands are just your imagination.”

I said the prayer with her, which at the time I thought was a harmless prayer and couldn’t do much.

A few days later she sent for me. She said that she had been very skeptical of me. No nun had ever prayed like this and when I put my hands on her paralyzed arm, she thought I had stuck pins in her to make a good impression. She had felt something go through her arms. In the middle of the night, she got the power back into her arms. A few days later, she got her sight.

The woman’s spiritual attitude totally changed. The Lord taught me that the inner healing, spiritual healing, was more important. If the spirit isn’t healed, if a person is not brought closer to Jesus, what’s the point? It’s like the man who was lowered through the roof so Jesus could heal him ( Mk 2: 1-12 ). Jesus first said, “Your sins are forgiven.” Then he healed him physically. It is more important to be healed of sin. That is the greatest sickness of all.

Jesus Is the Teacher

Mother Angelica from Birmingham, Alabama, the Franciscan nun who founded the first Catholic satellite television network, is widely known for her wit and wisdom. I had given a retreat to priests in Birmingham with Fr. Harold Cohen from New Orleans. Mother had heard about me and invited me to her monastery to make a retreat.

I thought that this would be a good time to learn more about healing, so I arrived with all kinds of books on healing written by recognized experts. I thought I’d learn from them why people aren’t healed, and then when they ask me, I’d be able to give them an answer off the tip of my tongue.

On the first day, I read the first chapter of a book, and the next morning I couldn’t remember anything. For several days, I couldn’t remember anything I’d read.

Finally, one day, Mother Angelica took me by the hand and brought me into the chapel. She pointed up at the monstrance where the Eucharist was exposed and she said to me, “If Jesus wanted you to be somebody else, he would have made you somebody else. He made you to be Briege McKenna-and,” she said, still pointing to the Lord, “there’s the teacher. Don’t be trying to copy other people’s styles. Come to Jesus and let him teach you.”

That day I made a commitment to spend two or three hours a day in personal prayer. Then the Lord started to teach me that I didn’t have to answer all the questions. Not everybody was going to be healed physically, but that wasn’t my business. My business was not to defend him, but to proclaim him.

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