Health and Holiness

By Msgr. Richard Mahowald, Senior Pastor
Christ the King Church, Sioux Falls

This article is reprinted from the December, 1998, issue of "Life Connections," a quarterly newsletter of the Avera Parish Nurse Center.

The idea that holiness is wholeness has today become an integral part of conventional wisdom. Our health and salvation lie in God. His presence and nearness to us brings healing for our body person. The greater response we give to God's unconditional love for us the more we grow in the image and likeness of the One who loves us. Holiness, in a word, implies health. And what is true for the individual is also true and valid for a community.

Only in death and dying can we, as individuals and as a community, be transformed totally into the likeness of the God who loves us. Such is the paradox that confronts us. Following Christ in the way of the Cross-entering fully into the mystery of Christ's death and resurrection by baptism, faith and pursuit of virtue-is both live-giving and spiritually nurturing. It is the fear of the Cross that keeps us from being fully alive, whole and holy.

Neglect of the blessing of the body, its systems and functions, reverberates loudly and clearly in a person's mind and spirit-and vice versa. The task of parish nursing in a contemporary context is the work of molding the whole of human life. By so doing, we clarify the very meaning of the Incarnation, in which the Eternal Word becomes like us in all things but sin. Our contemplation of the mystery of the Incarnation helps us considerably to understand our life here on earth in a unique light. Diseases of the body, mind or spirit keep us from being fully alive, healthy and whole individuals and communities. Our parish nursing program is very important in helping us achieve that balance which leads to greater wholeness, and that human wholeness which is a genuine reflection of holiness.