Session 5, Talk 1: Next Steps in the Process of Healing

Dan Stokman, Novare Counseling

Talk Outline

I. Slow down and situate ourselves

A. Personal story
B. Importance of emotional honesty

1. Self
2. Others
3. God

C. God wants to meet us where we are at
D. Is there a deeper need for healing?
E. Discover, name and feel things more deeply
F. Deeper desire for healing; newness

1. “See I am doing something new! Now it springs forth; do you not perceive it? In the desert I make a way, in the wasteland, rivers.” – Isaiah 43:19
2. “The one who sat on the throne said, ‘Behold, I make all things new.’ Then he said, ‘Write these words down, for they are trustworthy and true.” Revelation 21:5

G. God acts; we respond

1. How do we respond to this healing?

II. How do we travel into the work of deeper healing?

A. Curiosity, noticing and then becoming interested

1. Story: noticing daughter’s new interest in Christmas Jazz music

B. Understanding the Origin of Why we do what we do?

1. Can lead to self-compassion
2. Exploring the answer may require the
accompaniment of a therapist
3. Not for the purpose of blaming
4. Can be resistant to exploring the origins

C. We are not our wounds; we are not our
defenses/tourniquets

III. Defenses

A. Means to survive, but then become problems
B. We all have them
C. They disconnect us from reality, selves and others
D. Block healthy growth that wants to happen, to heal and to become who God created us to b

1. Story of the parasitical vine in the pine tree at first house

E. We can resist giving up defenses and cling to what is familiar

1. Doing so is vulnerable
2. Do not want to feel what is underneath

F. Types of Defenses

1. Intrapersonal- how I relate to self
2. Interpersonal – how I relate to others
– block closeness with others even when there is not a current threat in a relationship
– Road to Emmaus story: did not recognize due to own ideas
– Defenses can keep us blinded

G. Allowing another to walk with us allows for clearer vision

IV. Connection with others as companions

A. An engine around hope and desire to overcome the resistance
B. We have to do the work, but we can’t do it alone
C. A therapist can help with:

1. Healing the hurts of the past
2. Letting go of the unhealthy coping patterns
3. Healing trauma/wounds
4. Experiencing forgiveness of betrayal
5. Moving into a place of freedom where you
experience your true self

D. Entering into therapy can bring mixed emotions

1. Bad or mixed past experiences
2. Lowering our defenses

V. What to look for in a therapist: is it the right fit?

A. It is a relational process; drawing near and entering into the other’s suffering

1. To be with and for the person in the possibility of newness
2. Connect well; feel warmth and caring
3. Competence is important
– Based on your experience, not their letters after their name
4. Have Voice in Therapy

B. Agreement on goals
C. Agreement on method
D. Faith tradition of Therapists

VI. Materials on the Synod website (www.archspm.org/synod)

A. Therapists
B. Books and online resources

Personal Reflection & Discussion Questions:

1. How do I sense God moving in my life towards greater hope and freedom?

2. How can I give these movements towards something added space and time to grow?

3. Do I tend to use defenses to block the experience of emotional pain or emotional closeness more? What do I fear would happen if I relied less on these defenses?

4. Who can I turn to walk with me on my journey of healing?

5. How does God want me to see and relate to myself?

6. What might God want to make new in or through me?

Session 5, Talk 2: Moving Forward with Truth,
Encouragement and Gratitude

Fr. Joseph Jerome Bambenek,
Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

Talk Outline

I. Spiritual Life is like a Football Game

A.. The ultimate goal is to make it to the end zone. When you are playing offense there is an opponent that is not
only trying to keep you from getting into that ultimate end zone but will also take cheap shots whenever they can, to hurt you.
B. God made us to have teammates, to help us get to the end zone.
C. Success in the spiritual life includes having both a good offense and a good defense.

II. Being Intentional Going Forward from the Retreat: Defending against the threats

A. The Devil will try to take back what he lost on this retreat.
B. We have new strength to fight against temptation. We have a new set of brakes, but we need to use them.
C. It can be very easy to fall back into the same patterns of life. We need to be proactive to fight against falling back into old patterns.
D. If we are looking to make lasting positive changes in our lives it is important to be careful of what
we are allowing into our lives.

III. Whatever healing or freedom we might have experienced, this retreat should open up some space and energy in our mental and emotional lives. What to do with it?

A. Prayer

1. 1. We can use any extra mental space and energy to deepen our relationship with God.
   2. Just like anyone who loves us, God wants us to spend time with Him every day.
      1. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the
         Devout Life: Pray an hour a day.
      2. If we recognize that we should be praying more than we currently are… the decision will most likely be put into action if we have a plan, if we make an appointment with God like we would make an appointment with anyone else of importance.
      3. Praying with the Bible
         1. Synod virtual Praying with Scripture Series (www.archspm.org/synod)
         2. St. Paul instructs us how we should invest our mental energy: “Brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” (Philippians 4:8)

1. 3. We can engage in spontaneous prayers as we go around throughout the day.

B. Gratitude

1. 1. A second way that we can develop a new narrative in Jesus is by approaching life with a mindset of gratitude or deepened gratitude.  That can start with a spontaneous prayer of thanks but then go deeper.
   2. “Prayer joined to sacrifice constitutes the most powerful force in human history.” Pope Saint John Paul II (12 January 1994 General Audience)
   3. Gratitude plays an important role in our experience of love.  When we are grateful it helps to stimulate an   increase in the theological virtue of charity, of love.
   4. Charity is a gift that comes ultimately from the God who is love, the first seeds of which were placed in our hearts by the Holy Spirit at baptism.  Depending on how we respond to the love given us, it can expand or shrink.
   5. “Only through an encounter with love can we truly heal.” – Dr. Bob Schuchts
   6. One way to cultivate gratitude in our hearts is to make a list each day of the things which we were  grateful for that day.

C. Encouragement and Truth

1. 1. A third way to develop a new narrative in Jesus is to go forth with eyes of encouragement and truth.
   2. Christian encouragement is communicating the truth to someone in their circumstances, including their relationship with God, through intentional words or actions directed toward another, or through our life witness, which stimulates an increase in the virtues of hope and of courage or fortitude.
   3. A shorthand definition of hope is faith, lived out over time and through adversity. … Hope is what helps us persevere when we have to wait.

IV. If we live out of a mindset of Jesus, rather than a mindset  shaped by lies and wounds and constricted by tourniquets, then we can emerge from this retreat as instruments of God’s healing love in the world.

Personal Reflection & Discussion Questions:

1. What can I do to bring healing to my parish; to our Archdiocese?
2. What patterns do I want to avoid falling into after this retreat?
3. When in my day might I be able to reserve sometime for prayer? For what amount of time is God calling me to pray?
4. What are the patterns of thinking that I want to place into my life?
5. How can I become more aware of God’s gifts in my life? Name three specific things for which you are grateful. How can I practice gratitude each day?
6. Who do I know that needs encouragement? What can I do to provide encouragement to those around me?
7. In what areas do I need to have more hope? What practical steps can I take to be more hopeful in times of adversity?
8. What new thinking did I learn or new mindset do I have as a result of this retreat? What can I do to make this a lasting mindset?
9. What specific thing can I do to be an instrument of God’s healing love in the world around me?

Session 4, Talk 1: Turning Over Our Bindings to Mary

Viviana Sotro, Guardian Angels Church, Chaska

Talk Outline

I. Our Blessed Mother Mary is waiting for us to become aware of Her loving presence

II. The gentle care and love of our Blessed Mother are a great consolation for a wounded child

III. Our Blessed Mother knows how deep our wounds are, so deep that at times they become hard knots that prevent us to be completely free

IV. Our Blessed Mother knows the remedy for our wounds, knots and fears – Jesus, our Divine Physician

V. As she did at the Wedding of Cana, our Blessed Mother will personally intercede for us; she will take to Jesus, our wounds and knots and will ask her Son to heal them

VI. All Our Blessed Mother needs is our permission to allow her to be our loving Mother

VII. Our Blessed Mother invites us to be under the protection of her motherly mantle, to uncover our wounds and to give our knots to her

VIII. Our Blessed Mother invites us to let her kiss our wounds and rest in her loving arms

Note: If more help is needed to uncover our wounds and to give up our knots, the Novena to Mary, Undoer of Knots can provide spiritual guidance to complete these steps.

Personal Reflection & Discussion Questions:

1. How easy or difficult is it for me to be aware of the loving presence of our Blessed Mother?

2. What is helping me or preventing me from giving permission to allow our Blessed Mother to be my loving, spiritual Mother?

3. If Mary the Mother of Jesus is invited today into my personal life as she was invited to the Wedding of Cana, what will she notice? What wounds or knots will she encounter?

4. Using my imagination, how do I see Mary interceding for me to her son Jesus?

5. What comes to mind when you think of letting Mary kiss your wounds and of resting in her arms?

TALK OUTLINE & PERSONAL REFLECTION/DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

Session 3, Talk 1: The Wounds in the Body of Christ

Paula Kaempffer, Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

Talk Outline

I. We are all wounded.
A. We live in a wounded world. It affects all of us.
B. We act because of how we have been wounded.
1. Story of Homeless man who struggled to shower due to having been abused.
2. I cannot sit in judgment on another person for the way they look or the way they act. I cannot get inside of their heart. Only God can do that.

II. How have you been wounded?
A. We tend to hide our wounds
1. We can see wounding as total weakness, but hiding wounds does not work.
2. “The difficult thing is that vulnerability is the first thing I look for in you and the last thing I’m willing to show you. In you it’s courage and daring. In me, it’s weakness.”- Brené Brown
B. Hurt people hurt people.
C. Owning our wounds and loving ourselves through them is the bravest thing we will ever do.
D. The wound is the place where the light enters you. Shutting ourselves down closes us off to God and what He wants to do.
E. God wants to bring us into wholeness, exactly as he has created us to be.
F. It is painful to surface our wounds but naming them gives them less power over us.
G. Our very woundedness is why we need a God who loves as our God does.

III. Wounds from experience of Church
A. Examples of individual interactions
B. Sexual abuse by clergy scandal
1. Rocked our Church from the inside out.
2. Many parishioners appear tired of hearing of it; but victims are not going away. They are deeply fractured and wounded.
3. If victims could get over it, don’t you think they would?
4. Betrayed by the Hierarchy in the Cover-up.

IV. How to help Victim Survivors
A. Victims wanted to be believed and hear someone in the hierarchy say they were sorry.
B. Victims want to be listened to and believed.
C. Shared pain is no longer paralyzing but mobilizing, when understood as a way to freedom from that pain.

V. Secondary Victims
A. All of us, we are the Church, the Body of Christ, have been betrayed.
B. Many have left due to clergy who harmed.

VI. Virtual Support Groups
A. Started with COVID 19; on Mondays.
B. Victims are healing each other by sharing their stories and affirming one another.

VII. There are still victims coming forward
A. If they are wounded, we are wounded, because we are joined to one another… when one hurts, we all hurt.

VIII. What will it take for you to heal from being wounded by the Church?
A. We won’t heal from our wounds by doing nothing.
B. Pray for guidance and then act.
C. As you heal, so shall we all heal, because we are all part of the Body of Christ.

IX. Closing Quote
“Nobody escapes being wounded. We are all wounded people, Whether physically, emotionally, mentally or spiritually. The main question is not, “How can we hide our wounds?” so we don’t have to be embarrassed, but “How can we put our woundedness in the service of others?” When our wounds cease to be a source of shame, and become a sources of healing, we have become wounded healers.” – (The Wounded Healer, Henri Nouwen)

TALK OUTLINE & PERSONAL REFLECTION/DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

Session 3, Talk 2: Our Bindings/Tourniquets

Fr. Joseph Jerome Bambenek, Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

Talk Outline

I. Our response to wounds is crucial
A. One of the reasons we are impacted by wounds from certain events in our lives, but not other events (some which may have been even more painful) is that we did not tend to some of our wounds in a healthy way when they happened.
B. “Stitches” that can be applied when we get hurt emotionally or spiritually by a painful event in life:
(1) Have our wounds doctored with truth
(2) Apply Gods’ compassionate love and the love of our Blessed Mother as a salve
(3) Sew them up with our fundamental identity as God’s beautiful, cherished, and precious daughter or His beloved and respected son.
(4) Unite our suffering with the suffering of Jesus.
(5) Allow ourselves to be treated with compassion and empathy by wise people around us.

II. How do we respond when wounded?
A. We want to be able to protect ourselves from being hurt again and have a desire, if not even a need, to understand why we were hurt as we were hurt.
B. One of the problems is that despite our desire for an explanation, sometimes there are not satisfactory answers to why some things happen in life. In those cases, with hope, we are invited to trust that God is guiding the details, to accept it, to offer it up by uniting our sufferings with the sufferings of Jesus, and not allow the painful event to define us.
C. When we try to respond to hurt on our own we often tourniquet ourselves… for since we can’t do our own stitches then a more then a more dramatic tourniquet might be the only option we have. Sadly, often when we do this, when we try to come up with the answers on our own to what happened and how to prevent such hurt in the future, the result is not wise nor loving to ourselves.

III. Spiritual Tourniquets – What are they and why are they there?
A. The Devil and his minions want to help us make
sense of what happened… for the purpose of destroying us.
(1) They don’t want us to have freedom… they want to enslave us.
(2) Rather than God’s gentle invitation, to turn to Him and find the answers by uniting our suffering with His, the Devil and his minions will pester us… they will tempt us…. they will propose ideas on how to make sense of things and how to protect ourselves in the future from similar hurt.
(3) In contrast, Jesus says, “Come to me all you who labor and are weary, and I will refresh you.” (Matthew 11:28). God invites us to turn to Him in our pain…
B. Identity lies are one of the most common tourniquets we apply when we are hurt.
(1) If we don’t turn directly to God and rest in our fundamental identity that we are a beautiful, precious and cherished daughter or a respected and beloved son of our loving Heavenly Father, the Devil and his minions appear to help us, but of course they don’t let us see the whole picture. They deceive us into thinking that nobody cares or will listen to us.
C. Another strategy of the evil one: trying to get us to think that whatever the specific situation we are facing is more absolute than it really is.
D. The Evil team tries, as well, to equate our identity
with our failings.
E. Addiction can be another tourniquet. Whatever untreated wound we have is too painful to endure, so we try to numb it with pleasures, success or over-accumulation of things.
F. We can also do things to tourniquet ourselves through our emotions.
(1) Anger can be a tourniquet we use to protect ourselves by lashing out at others in self-protection. But anger is also a tourniquet that is especially prone to harboring spiritual infections such as hatred, bitterness, resentment and unforgiveness. All of these infections keep us from being able to move forward and heal. They rob us from being able to truly love and be loved.
(2) Another tourniquet is one in which we wall off ourselves and shut down our hearts to anyone so that we will not be hurt again.
(3) We might put on a tourniquet of negativity. We might intentionally become negative to push people away from us so that they can’t get close to us and hurt us, or so that they will fulfill the lie we believe about being rejected or being unlovable.
(4) A very common tourniquet, especially for people who grew up in chaotic or addiction-filled homes is a tourniquet of control: of attempting to control everything in our lives, including everyone around us, thinking that if we can control them they won’t hurt us and that we know what is best for them.
(5) We might also tourniquet ourselves with self-pity or with having a victim mindset.
(6) Another unhealthy way that we tourniquet ourselves is through ungodly vows. … Sometimes the vows we make are in theory a good thing, but they become bad because we speak them out of fear, anger or pride, rather than love.

IV. Now what?
A. Just because they are an understandable response to adversity, that does not mean it is
healthy to keep on the tourniquets past momentary survival.
B. A bit of a caution on moving forward. Some of us have been going around with a lot of tourniquets on for a long time. Taking them all off at once, especially if we are not in the care of a trained person to help us, may not be the most prudent idea.