Healing as Sacrament

It was there from the beginning; we have heard it; we have seen it with our own eyes; we looked upon it, and felt it with our own hands; and it is of this we tell. Our theme is the word of life. The life was made visible; we have seen it and bear our testimony; we here declare to you the eternal life which dwelt with the Father and was made visible to us.
(1 John: l-2).

Meanwhile our eyes are fixed, not on the things that are seen, but on the things that are unseen: for what is seen passes away; what is unseen is eternal.
(2 Corinthians 4:18).

The ministry of healing is often disturbingly fragmented due to sectarian loyalties, each practitioner concentrating almost exclusively on his own small terrain in the vast field of wholeness. In fact, of course, the personality includes not only the physical body and the rational mind but also an insistent will to purpose that drives us on to our finest endeavour, that makes our lives ultimately meaningful in the face of the menacing approach of ageing, disease and death that conclude all mortal existence.

When our vision is extended to understand the ministry of healing as a sacrament of God's grace leading mankind to its proper place in the world, we can begin to grasp the meaning of complete human restoration in the divine image in which it is eternally created. This vision of restoration embraces not only humanity but also the whole of creation. It is with these themes that this book grapples, starting from what is known about man and his environment and proceeding to a vision of a restored cosmos in the divine image.