Priest: Conference stressed spirituality of healing

Fifteen years ago, when Sister Susanne Breckel, RSM, was co-director of the diocesan Consultation Center along with Rev. John Malecki, she was diagnosed with cancer. The two were friends, and at first, Father Malecki despaired of how to help her deal with her illness.

"At that time, there was little or no help psychologically and spiritually for cancer patients," he told The Evangelist.

Then Harvard University held its first-ever workshop on psychologically coping with cancer. Today, Father Malecki remembers that as the beginning of a series of discoveries by the medical community that spirituality and healing are connected -- and a way to help his friend, through prayer and meditation.

Soul and body

Sister Susanne outlived her doctors' grim prognosis by nine years, proving what scores of scientific surveys have since shown: that spirituality has an effect on healing.

In fact, Father Malecki now holds spiritually based "wellness groups" at the Consultation Center for those with cancer and chronic illnesses, and he completed a clinical training program last year at Harvard Medical School's Mind/Body Medical Institute.

Recently, the priest attended Harvard Medical School's second international conference on "Spirituality and Healing in Medicine." The conference explored the physiological, neurological and psychological effects of spirituality on chronic and acute illnesses, depression, and stress.

Prayer works

The idea that medicine and spirituality are connected, said Father Malecki, became popular through the work of Dr. Herbert Benson, a physician and scientist at Harvard Medical School. While doing research on fighting hypertension, strokes, tension and stress, Dr. Benson was told by his students to try meditation or centering prayer.

The physician soon found that the techniques affected patients' heart rates, blood pressure, immune systems and stress levels. Over the next 15 years, Father Malecki said, it was found that centering prayer is even the most effective way to deal with insomnia.

Even intercessory prayer -- that is, prayer for another person's recovery -- changes medical outcomes. The priest recalled double-blind experiments in which patients going into surgery were prayed for. Those who were prayed for had shorter hospital stays, more rapid recovery and better rates of cure for their illnesses. Those results have led to changes in the way spiritual practices are viewed by healthcare professionls.

"We've always known [in the Church] that prayer makes a difference in the body," Father Malecki said. "But we've never had measurable results to verify it. We've had anecdotes."

Harvard connection

The priest found it ironic that a non-Catholic medical school has taken the lead in this particular form of research. He was surprised and pleased, he said, to hear Dr. Benson state that "doctors who do not take into consideration medicine and spirituality are practicing malpractice."

The fact that a second Harvard conference took place, the priest said, is proof that "this is a whole new day of partnership and cooperation between spirituality and medicine. It profoundly moved me to see how the doctors were changed in their view of spirituality. Before surgery, if a patient says, `Doctor, will you pray with me?' I am confident that that will happen."

As a matter of fact, the priest said that when he underwent surgery himself, he felt comfortable asking both his surgeon and personal physician to pray with him beforehand.

Lasting impact

The lessons he learned at the conference have had a profound effect on Father Malecki's present work as staff psychologist for the Consultation Center and on his ministry with the elderly at Teresian House Nursing Home in Albany. The conference included discussions of healing practices of different cultures, which Father Malecki has now incorporated into his techniques.

"I was pleased and inspired to learn of the healing practices of various faiths," he said, citing the Jewish belief that the body and soul are one, and that faith's use of chant. After the conference, Father Malecki said he began using chant in his prayers with the elderly.

African-American healing practices, he said, "profoundly changed the way I celebrate the Anointing of the Sick." He admired their traditional use of song and has even tried their model of cradling patients in his arms to comfort them.

Attending the Harvard conferences also changed Father Malecki's life in terms of offering prayers for others, he said. "I assist at St. Matthew's parish [in Voorheesville] on the weekends, and when someone comes up and says, `My brother is going through surgery,' I communicate such a sincerity of belief that people say, `You really believe in this!'"

Letter to Kevorkian

Father Malecki believes that larger issues like physician-assisted suicide have been given entirely new meaning by the work done at the conference.

"We're taking a new look at pain, giving meaning and purpose to that physical pain," he explained. "Once you do that, [a patient's] depression lifts, and there is no case where a person does not want to keep on living."

Two years ago, he even wrote to Dr. Jack Kevorkian to tell him so. "I spoke to him personally," Father Malecki said, shaking his head. "All he acknowledged was physical pain."

Father Malecki thanked Dr. Benson for his pioneering work in spirituality and medicine. What people need to remember from the doctor's discoveries, the priest said, is that "your prayer doesn't just bring you closer to God on a spiritual level. Your body is also an object of salvation."

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