Participants and facilitators pose during a three-day workshop on healing and reconcilation that was held at the Diocesan Pastoral Center Feb. 7-9 by the Office of Ministry to Catholics of African Descent and an international ministry called Healing Hearts Transforming Nations.
A workshop designed to promote healing, reconciliation and forgiveness amid conflict and hurt, especially race or ethnicity-based divisions, was offered at the Diocesan Pastoral Center Feb. 7-9 by the Office of Ministry to Catholics of African Descent and an international ministry called Healing Hearts Transforming Nations.
Healing Hearts Transforming Nations originally started in response to deep divisions in the aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Since then, the program has been taken all around the world.
“There’s this focus on reconciliation, but then again, it’s like, what is reconciliation? And how does that even begin to happen?” said Alysa De Los Santos, a volunteer with the ministry.
The workshop takes three days to complete, and each day has a different focus. On day one, attendees learn about God’s unconditional love and plan for humanity, why God created diverse groups of people and why there is suffering in the world. On day two, they focus on groups, divisions and wounds and how Jesus can heal these divisions and wounds. For the final day, they discuss reconciliation, repentance and forgiveness. It all culminates on the final day with a unique and transformative practice called standing in the gap, also known as identificational confession.
Standing in the gap, De Los Santos explained, is all about the idea that reconciliation can still take place even if the specific person who did the hurting is not present.
“For example, I can use one from my own ethnic background, when white people enslaved Africans. I personally did not do that. But my people group did that. So with this idea of standing in the gap, I can apologize as a people group. I can say, on behalf of white people, I apologize for these very specific injustices that happened,” said De Los Santos.
“That’s sort of the idea, is when the people who have hurt you aren’t physically present, can someone from that people group take it on themselves and apologize? And how does that type of repentance bring the healing that people need without being able to face your particular oppressor?” she said.
Participants are often moved by the standing in the gap process. “People have never heard the words ‘I’m sorry. They hear the like, ‘Well, it wasn’t me that did it,’ or like, ‘I’m sorry what you went through, but,’ or whatever. People have found that that is very healing,” she said.
Presenters unpacked this concept more during the workshop, explaining the biblical basis of identificational confession (such as Old Testament prophets apologizing to God on behalf of their people), overcoming objections (such as that it lets the real offender off easy) and explaining situations where it is particularly useful (such as when the particular oppressor is unrepentant or has already died).
Recent large-scale examples of standing in the gap include when the United States House of Representatives formally apologized for slavery and the Jim Crow laws in 2008, or when Pope Francis apologized for the Catholic Church’s role perpetuating abuse at Indigenous residential schools in 2022.
Office of Ministry to Catholics of African Descent Director David Okonkwo said that he first heard of the program from a representative from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Ad Hoc committee on racism. Okonkwo was intrigued, and participated in the program himself last year, along with seven others from our Diocese.
“All seven shared of their transformative healing and life-renewing experiences and expressed how wonderful it will be to have it in our Diocese,” said Okonkwo. While this year was the first time that the workshop has been brought to our Diocese, the plan is to bring it back again in the future.
Given our Diocese’s involvement in the Building Intercultural Competence for Ministers (BICM) program, Okonkwo felt that our Diocese was ready for a program like this.
“Sharing a transformative healing experience, giving it to those who may want to experience healing through forgiveness and reconciliation, to me was a divine call. I believed that some people might be able to benefit from something like this,” said Okonkwo on why he was inspired to bring this program to the Diocese.
Father Michael Arịnze Ezeoke, who was ordained in May 2022, was among the roughly 20 who attended. “I attended because many are yearning for the healing presence of Jesus Christ. No one program can exhaust Christ’s varied ways of making his healing presence known, so I thought this workshop would offer a new perspective, and it did not disappoint,” said Fr. Ezeoke.
“This workshop was truly an eye-opener to the unvoiced pain and suffering many are undergoing. My primary takeaway is that in the face of crisis, there’s much fear, finger-pointing and noise, which tend to drown people’s needs and escalate the cycle of violence. For reconciliation (seeing eye-to-eye) to happen, we need to relearn how to sit together at the table and listen to one another, with Jesus Christ as the unseen guest in every conversation,” he added.
Fr. Ezeoke said that he would recommend this program to both clergy and laity. “The work of healing and reconciliation is much needed in families, communities, parishes and our nation as a whole. This workshop offers a tried and tested practical approach to healing that I hope will bring the much needed healing touch of Jesus Christ to (and through) all who experience it,” he said.