ETERNAL WISDOM:
“Somewhere deep inside each one of us is a burning desire to finally become the person God created us to be. Yearning to be fully alive, we long to give ourselves as a gift wholeheartedly back to God.”
-- Dr. Bob Schuchts, Be Healed: A Guide to Encountering the Powerful Love of Jesus in Your Life
Healing is an essential dimension of… Christianity… It expresses the entire content of our redemption.
--Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth1
“Love allows us to grow as God intended, in wholeness and health.”
-- Dr. Bob Schuchts, Be Healed: A Guide to Encountering the Powerful Love of Jesus in Your Life
“Bring all of your suffering to [Jesus]… only open your heart to be loved by Him as you are. He will do the rest.”
-- Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Letters to the Missionaries of Charity Family
THE ROSARY HOUR PODCAST NEWSLETTER [1st Edition] August 14, 2023
by: Dr. Tina Bailey2 [Sent automatically by e-mail, 7:15 PM Pacific Standard Time]
The Rosary Hour Podcast team was pleased to have retired Catholic therapist and author Dr. Bob Schuchts join us at the Digital Café to discuss his book Be Healed: A Guide to Encountering the Powerful Love of Jesus in Your Life.
[CLICK HERE TO WATCH the RHP BOOKSHELF SPOTLIGHT on “BE HEALED” and share]
Dr. Schuchts explored pivotal questions about the human condition, suffering and redemption and his talk introduces in this presentation the thematic thread of Season 2 and our essential question:
“What does it means to be a child of God?”
Earlier in the year, the founder of the John Paul II Healing Center was joined by Fr. Chris Alar from the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy, and both shared their experiences and insight in a very popular Roundtable discussion. [CLICK TO WATCH THEIR EARLIER ROUNDTABLE LIVE RECORD].
The original conversation took place on the Conversion of St. Paul, and it was our team’s interest in extending an understanding of human suffering in light of Jesus’ suffering — not just physical, but psychological.
“BE HEALED” this SUMMER: VIRTUAL CONFERENCE
Dr. Schucht’s leads a team that offers live and virtual programs addressing many dimensions of spiritual life and healing. He leads an upcoming conference “Healing the Whole Person Weeklong Virtual” from:
August 28-September 1, 2023
NOTE: Registration closes August 23 at 11:59 PM ET
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER
RHP BOOKSHELF BOOK REVIEW and NOTES on “BE HEALED”3
AUTHOR: DR. BOB SCHUCHTS
PUBLISHER: AVE MARIA PRESS
TYPE: PAPERBACK
DATE OF PUBLICATION: March 24, 2014
Read a Sample of the Introduction here:
Dr. Bob Schuchts provides much spiritual guidance to Rosary Hour Podcast listeners who will grasp Christ’s humble approach to responding to suffering — as a meek lamb — in light of this talk.
Schuchts draws our attention to the love and grace that might be offered so that trauma might have meaning — not as an end in itself, for suffering by itself is evil, but in light of one’s unity with Christ’s ability to be obedient, even to the point of death on the cross.
In his bestselling book Be Healed, Dr. Schuchts writes with clarity and personal insight about the ways that our ‘soul wounds’ can lead to ongoing emotional and physical suffering. He illuminates a path toward healing that comes from realizing our weak or broken places and taking refuge in God’s grace instead of the false protection of pride or shame; and reminds us of the transformative power of encountering Jesus in the sacraments.
Dr. Schuchts notes in his writing that the Church has always been involved in the care of the sick and a restoration to wholeness, spiritually as well as physically. Love is fundamental to our wellness. As he writes in Be Healed, ‘Love allows us to grow as God intended, in wholeness and health.’
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“Your sufferings, accepted and borne with unshakable faith, when joined to those of Christ take on extraordinary value for the life of the Church and the good of humanity.”
-- John Paul II
What is Redemptive Suffering?
Schuchts explores how the path to understanding suffering begins with the question of evil and how to respond to it like Jesus did.
In his book, Dr. Schuchts explains that in addition to the five physical wounds inflicted in crucifixion, Jesus also would have suffered a whole spectrum of psychological pain in his Passion and Death:
abandonment
rejection
humiliation
shame
powerlessness
disorientation
fear
hopelessness
In this RHP Live Record interview, Dr. Schuchts points out that our susceptibility to hurt is natural in a fallen world, regardless of ‘good’ families or relationships overall. In unravelling how our human brokenness can be healed, we come to understand that our suffering does not have to be solitary, or an invitation for evil to wear down our defences, though it is so often in that vulnerability that we can experience helplessness and abandonment like Christ did. Rather, with the lens of scripture, and the power of the sacraments, the presences of the Eucharist, prayer of the Rosary / Chaplet, we can strive join with God in sorrow as well as joy, and discover that even suffering can be redemptive and transformative.
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“The Devil may try to use the hurts of life and sometimes our own mistakes to make you feel it is impossible that Jesus really loves you.”
-- Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Letters to the Missionaries of Charity Family
“When we do not believe that we are the Father’s beloved, we remain bound in ‘a spirit of slavery’ borne out of fear.”
-- Dr. Bob Schuchts, Be Healed: A Guide to Encountering the Powerful Love of Jesus in Your Life
The Pitfalls – Fear, Shame, Pride
Often we are afraid to offer up our pain and suffering to the Divine Healer, our Divine Physician. We let fear, shame or pride get in the way of our spiritual healing and freedom. Dr. Schuchts’ reminds us that we have to invite in that healing, of our own free will. It’s an open invitation, yet ‘seeing and being seen’ can be terrifying – so much that we often choose the ‘false’ security of our familiar insecurities, which are often limiting beliefs about self, others, and God. We lose trust. We develop ‘fear bonds’ instead of ‘love bonds’, as Dr. Schuchts explains.
In Be Healed, Dr. Schuchts draws helpful parallels between what he calls the 7 Deadly Soul Wounds and our vulnerability to the 7 Deadly Sins. However, there are corresponding signs of healing we can seek as the balm for our soul wounds, including the 7 Lively Virtues. Our wholeness may ultimately be expressed through the many Fruits of the Spirit, the gifts and virtues that allow us to both heal and serve.
“Is there any area of your life that you believe disqualifies you from receiving God’s grace or healing? If so, your God is not big enough, and Jesus’ Cross is not real enough.”
-- Dr. Bob Schuchts, Be Healed: A Guide to Encountering the Powerful Love of Jesus in Your Life
Keeping our eye on the ball… to grow in Christ
In a social-media driven world, identity becomes a slippery concept. As we seek to navigate our own path, and perhaps guide others including a younger generation, how can we avoid the pitfalls of vainglory, self-reliance, and so on?
Using a coaching analogy, Dr. Schuchts helps us to direct the mind away from the things we want to avoid! If we can focus instead on growing in a better direction, in Humility and Love, and help our young charges do the same, then we are more likely to successfully navigate the negative ‘input’ from the world.
“When families love each other, children are secure in that love and they are much more likely to walk in that path…; they have an identity rooted in love, rooted in a life-giving faith.”
-- Dr. Bob Schuchts
Fully Embracing the Sacraments
Much the way we can walk through life without being fully engaged, we can limit our faith journey by not fully participating in the Sacraments which, as Dr. Schuchts explains, involve being called to embrace a new reality and continuing to cooperate with Spirit each day.
Dr. Schuchts likens this to our ‘spiritual pipes being clogged’; but we can ask the Holy Spirit to help us with root issues and with prayerful connection. In the book and in our chat, Dr. Schuchts shares his own experience with this, and the common instinct toward self-protection and trying to ‘handle it all ourselves’ instead of allowing ourselves to be vulnerable, in communion with God and one another.
What does it mean to have a ‘dying and rising’ in the sacraments?
Dr. Schuchts explains how the sacraments become transformative agents in our life when we cooperate and participate in the grace of sacraments: “…That’s when the Sacraments become alive in us, not just in the receiving but in the living.”
More Wisdom from Dr. Schuchts’ book Be Healed…
From Woundedness to finding our Way
Ultimately, we are seeking to find our way through difficulties, and the inescapable reality of human frailty, to thrive and to serve.
Despite the mistaken identity beliefs that emerge from trauma/hurt (7 Deadly Soul Wounds), we can move toward corresponding signs of healing:
Abandonment -> connected/understood
Fear -> safe/secure
Powerlessness -> empowered/liberated
Hopelessness -> hopeful/encouraged
Confusion -> clarity/enlightenment
Rejection-> accepted/valued
Shame -> pure/worthy
Putting our brokenness in the hands of God may mean also recognizing that our Soul Wounds make us more vulnerable to the 7 Deadly Sins. Instead we seek to embody the 7 Lively Virtues:
Patience overcomes Anger
Humility overcomes Pride
Chastity overcomes Lust
Diligence overcomes Sloth
Abstinence overcomes Gluttony
Kindness overcomes Envy
Liberality overcomes Greed
The Healing Tree of Life
These dimensions of our journey come together in an image of the Healing Tree of Life. Based on Dr. Schuchts’ diagram, it looks something like this: we are rooted and secure through the 7 Signs of Healing, and grow in maturity through the Roots of Grace (communion with God); we reach upward in our spiritual growth to embody the 7 Lively Virtues; and we express our growth as the Fruits of the Spirit, in what we put forth in the world.
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“Miracles happen. But they need prayer! A courageous prayer, that struggles for that miracle…”
-- Pope Francis, L’Osservatore Romano
A prayer that calls for an extraordinary action must be a prayer that involves all of us, as though our very life depends on it. In prayer, you have to put yourself to the test
-- Dr. Bob Schuchts, Be Healed: A Guide to Encountering the Powerful Love of Jesus in Your Life
Jesus’ Pain: Reflecting on the Sorrowful Mysteries
Persistence in Prayer
We chatted about prayer, and in particular the need to persist, tirelessly, in our prayers for self and others even if we do not immediately recognize a response. God wants us to be healed, and to offer us graces. Sometimes we are getting in our own way, with our ‘protective’ reflexes or a need to work on forgiveness, the foundation of healing which helps us release many related negative emotions.
Dr. Schuchts writes about several Catholic prayer traditions and liturgical movements within the Church. Within these, the Holy Rosary can be a meditative and healing practice as we give over our spiritual and physical pain to Jesus through Mary.
In particular, when we reflect on the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Holy Rosary, and seek to understand more deeply the pivotal events of our Faith, we enter into Jesus’ suffering by drawing parallels to our own human hardships, the crosses that we bear. What is the experience of being conflicted, afraid? Humiliated and in pain? Abandoned, discarded? Jesus can understand any pain that we bring to Him.
The Sorrowful Mysteries
The First Sorrowful Mystery: The Agony in the Garden.
The Second Sorrowful Mystery: The Scourging at the Pillar.
The Third Sorrowful Mystery: The Crowning with Thorns.
The Fourth Sorrowful Mystery: The Carrying of the Cross.
The Fifth Sorrowful Mystery: The Crucifixion.
The updated Rosary Toolkit developed by the RHP Team and their families is available via - https://rosaryleaderstoolkit.substack.com and https://theholyrosary.substack.com with Fr. Peter Turrone leading the Rosary with Children’s Rosary ® member, Amelia here.
PRAYERFUL CONTEMPLATION: As you meditate on the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Holy Rosary, become aware of the psychological suffering as well as the physical pain that Jesus endured. His rejection was public and he endured many humiliations. His sense of abandonment and powerlessness must have been acute, and he would have experienced the very human emotions of fear and hopelessness in the face of death. Yet in this darkest time, the light of His Love and Humility shone forth, and he extended forgiveness to those that didn’t understand what they were doing as they sinned so grievously against Him.
“Following Jesus’ example, John Paul showed the whole world how the evil of suffering can become a powerful source for good and a means of healing.”
“Initially our distorted beliefs protect us from feeling pain, but in the long-term they become part of the mechanism by which our pain gets locked into our body and soul.”
“To be fully conformed to the image of the beloved Son we must humble ourselves and follow in Jesus’ footsteps all the way through the Cross and into the Resurrection.”
-- Dr. Bob Schuchts, Be Healed: A Guide to Encountering the Powerful Love of Jesus in Your Life
Guest Biographies:
Dr. Bob Schuchts received his doctorate in family relations and brought his gifts to his roles as a Catholic therapist, graduate/undergraduate instructor and adjunct professor, and pastoral counsellor over 30 years. His best-selling books are both inspiring and practical, including: Be Healed, Be Transformed, Be Devoted, and Be Transformed. Dr. Schuchts is the founder of the John Paul II Healing Centre in Tallahassee, Florida. Their ministry/programs serve families and community leaders as well as clergy and religious learners. Dr. Schuchts has also taught courses at the Theology of the Body Institute and the Augustine Institute.
DR. SCHUCHTS runs a yearly workshop on HEALING THE WHOLE PERSON.
FOR DETAILS VISIT https://jpiihealingcenter.org/events/
Today’s Interview Team:
Tina is a wellness educator with a background in health research. She loves sharing her passion for books, creative projects and the natural world with her 3 children.4
FOOTNOTES
Article on “Redemptive Suffering” in https://www.goodcatholic.com/what-st-john-vianney-taught-about-the-value-of-suffering/
Edited by Izzy Nunziato; YouTube video: Directed by: Godric Kim w/ Dan K. Show Concept: Dan K., Christine, Rembrandt, Amelia, Izzy, Karen, Tina, Fr. Peter; Show Spiritual Directors: Content & Thematic Focus - Rev. Fr. Charles Nahm & Rev. Fr. Peter Turrone; Executive Producers: Karen Rocha w/ Izzy Nunziato; Digital Café Host for this Bookshelf Episode for Season 2: Dr. Tina Bailey; Digital Café Season 2 Guest & Spiritual Director for this Podcast: Dr. Bob Schuchts, Tallahassee, Florida & Founder of the JP2 Healing Center (USA); Narrators: Fr. Chris Alar, MIC, Provincial Superior of the Marian Fathers from the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy & Amelia, Member of Children's Rosary ®.
TABLE OF CONTENTS: AVE MARIA PRESS - https://assets.avemariapress.com/media/files/9a7c5147171b0186e95d680513be66a1/Be_Healed_TOC.pdf
Foreword by Rev. Mark Toups .......................................ix
Introduction .............................................................1
Part One: Encountering Jesus Chapter One: Do You Want to Be Healed?
.........................7
Chapter Two: The Good Teacher ................................... 25
Chapter Three: The Compassionate Healer ...................... 41
Chapter Four: The Beloved Son .................................... 55
Part Two: Facing Our Brokenness Chapter Five: The Whole Person Perspective .................... 73
Chapter Six: A Tree and Its Fruit ................................... 87
Chapter Seven: Anatomy of a Wound ........................... 107
Part Three: Healing Our Wounds Chapter Eight: Redemptive Suffering
........................... 127
Chapter Nine: Sacraments and Healing ......................... 147
Chapter Ten: Healing Prayer ...................................... 165
Conclusion: Living in Freedom .................................. 181
Acknowledgments ................................................. 197
Notes ................................................................. 201
Passionate about both the Arts and Sciences, Dr. Bailey holds a Combined Honours Bachelor Degree in Fine Art & English and obtained a Master of Arts in English Literature. Her scholarly and creative writing relates to autobiographical metafiction, physical and spiritual wellness, faith, and parenting. She went on to earn her PhD in Health Research Methodology with a focus on Family and Community Medicine. Published research areas include Health Promotion, Community Mobilization & Women's Health. She has enjoyed roles as an editor, educator, project coordinator, principal / co- investigator, peer reviewer, and methodology consultant. Tina has an enduring love of literature and the arts and sits on the Board of a local Art Gallery.
Dr. Bailey had time to prepare with our team the next posts for our Spiritual Direction Summer Reading segment: the RHP Bookshelf, which includes video presentations and write-ups on books by Dr. Josephine Lombardi, Dr. Jessica Hooten Wilson, Chris Stefanick and Teresa Tomeo which will be posted prior to re-opening of the Live Record studio to film for Season 2 of the podcast, as we focus on our theme: “What does it mean to be a child of God?”Write to us via Izzy Nunziato rosaryhour@proton.me.
Link to Dr. Bob Schuchts talk on the Rosary Hour Podcast here:
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