Massage an expanding healing ministry

National Catholic Reporter, Jan 19, 1996 by Pamala Schaeffer

Sr. Nancy Vandeveer learned about the healing power of touch when a friend was hospitalized for surgical removal of a breast. Vandeveer visited on each of the four days after the surgery, rubbing her friend's arm with a bit of lotion. To Vandeveer's amazement, "that little bit of nurturing touch' allowed her friend to go without sleeping pills or pain medication. Vandeveer was hooked.

The Ursuline nun has joined a growing number of religious professionals, mostly nuns but also priests and Protestant ministers, making a full- or part-time ministry of therapeutic massage. She oversees a program at St. Mary's Health Center in St. Louis, a large hospital complex that employs six massage therapists in its community programs division.

In recent years, massage therapy - described by Time magazine in 1987 as America's favorite antidote to stress - has become a standard offering at many Catholic retreat centers. Advocates say it helps retreatants relax and get in touch with their bodies and facilitates prayer and transformation.

The Rev. Zach Thomas, a Presbyterian minister from Charlotte, N.C., founded an organization in 1989, aiming, he said, to "bless" the trend and help churches "reclaim a more visible healing ministry." Some 200 people, most of the experts in therapeutic massage, have joined the group, the National Association of Bodyworkers in Religious Service. vice. Members come from a variety of denominations - he estimates 30 percent cent to 50 percent ale Catholic nuns and former priests - and include both ordained and lay ministers.

A "bodyworker" is anyone who uses his or her hands with the intent of affecting a musculoskeletal problem, he said. Most bodyworkers are people outside the traditional health-care professions, such as nursing or physical therapy. Vandeveer estimates that more than 200 Catholic sisters are doing massage therapy as a primary ministry.

Thomas, a former hospital chaplain, is author of Healing Touch: The Church's Forgotten Language (Westminster Press, 1994). The organization collects stories that explain why people take up massage as a ministry. A common story is one like his own: A person gets a massage "and finds by surprise that old wounds or a mind-body split are healed.' People often "have a religious experience with that kind of compassionate, nonsexual touch," said Thomas, who believes the body has as much to communicate to the spirit as the spirit to the body. "They find it life-changing," he said, "and they want to pass it on in ministry."

Gradually the connection between therapeutic massage and Jesus' healing ministry is gaining acceptance. Thomas attributes resistance to a "mind-body split" that is deeply entrenched in Western industrialized culture. Some of the pioneers in the religious arena say overcoming that resistance was the biggest obstacle to their ministries.

When Vandeveer first asked her provincial about making a ministry of massage, she got a simple answer: no.

"She told me it really didn't fit into the charism of our order," which is primarily teaching, Vandeveer said. She also questioned whether massage therapy would produce income; and then there was the stigma problem - the negative image generated by sleazy "massage parlors."

But Vandeveer felt the call. She had been working for six years caring for aging and dying nuns in her order's infirmary. She was emotionally exhausted and ready for a change. She took some courses and did a lot of work on her own, learning not only technique but also anatomy and physiology, preparing for the American Massage Therapy Association's exam. Passing it meant admittance to the prestigious organization, which guarantees credibility.

Next, she offered free massage to Ursuline nuns making eight-day retreats at the order's retreat center in Frontenac, Minn., and asked for written reports of the beneficial effects. The result was "glowing reports," she said - some 55 testimonials in all.

"That's what finally convinced them to let me study formally," she said. Vandeveer took a 500-hour course at the Chicago School of Massage Therapy, which further enhanced her credibility and expertise. Next her provincial asked her to do some research on nuns doing therapeutic massage. How many were doing it? Where did they go to school? Where were they working? And the all-too-pressing economic question for religious communities m the late 20th century: How much income were their ministries bringing in? Finally, in 1990, with the research results on hand, Vandeveer's order changed their no to yes. She created her own job at St. Mary's, first at the Women's Well, a program center for women, and now as part of community programs.

If Vandeveer is a pioneer within her own order, St. Joseph Sr. Rosalind Gefre of St. Paul, Minn., is a pioneer of pioneers. "When I started, the regulations were really crazy," she said. Her fingerprints and mug shot were required to be kept on file with local authorities, who told her when to open, when to close. Needless to say, she resented this 'special treatment." At one point in 1983, she was closed down, making international news and prompting negotiations with the city.