Home / News & Publications / Michigan Catholic News / 2009 / Famed Cleveland faith healer here Mar. 8
Famed Cleveland faith healer here Mar. 8
by Joe Kohn of The Michigan Catholic
Published February 27, 2009
Detroit — As is said about the site of the Blessed Mother's apparitions in Lourdes, "There's always a healing, and sometimes it's physical."
Healing service
What: A healing service where people will have an opportunity to pray with medical doctor and faith healer Dr. Issam Nemeh of the Diocese of Cleveland.
When: Sunday, March 8. Mass is at 10 a.m.; prayer with Dr. Nemeh will take place from 12 p.m. until 2 p.m., and from 2:30 p.m. until 4:30 p.m.
Where: St. Augustine and St. Monica Church, 4151 Seminole Street, Detroit, 48214 (Near Mack Ave. and E. Grand Boulevard).
Registration: Tickets to pray with Dr. Nemeh can be obtained by calling the parish office.
Cost: There is no cost for tickets, though free-will donations are welcomed.
Contact: Call the parish at (313) 921-4107. |
That might be a healthy way to look at a March 8 healing service to be held at St. Augustine and St. Monica Church in Detroit, says pastor Fr. Daniel Trapp.
Catholic medical doctor Dr. Issam Nemeh, who has gained fame in his home Diocese of Cleveland for his gift of physical healing through prayer, will be praying with people at the church on that day.
"There are gifts of healing that are given to certain people, apart from the sacraments, and the Church has always recognized that these gifts happen," says Fr. Trapp.
Various accounts in Cleveland-area media have detailed often inexplicable medical improvements experienced by those who have visited Dr. Nemeh's practice. Former Cleveland Bishop Anthony M. Pilla had even attended a healing service in which Dr. Nemeh was one of three faith healers to participate.
Dr. Nemeh has not received any official form of endorsement from the Archdiocese of Detroit, but he has visited St. Anthony Parish in Belleville and St. Stephen Parish in Port Huron by invitation of their pastors. St. Augustine and St. Monica is inviting people from the broader community to attend the parish's 10 a.m. Sunday Mass and stay for the healing service in the afternoon.
While healing services aren't foreign in many of the parishes in the Archdiocese of Detroit, Dr. Nemeh has been known to draw large crowds to pray with him. The parish is offering tickets at no charge to help organize what might be a large turnout.
To prepare for the upcoming healing service, Fr. Trapp says it's best to be aware that the Lord knows what kind of healing each person needs — and to be open to what may be a physical healing, and to what may be a spiritual one.
"You open yourself up in faith to God's love and His mercy, and you humbly present your need to the Lord," Fr. Trapp says. "We can express that we want the physical healing, but we also know that 'Thy will be done.'" It's important that a person who seeks healing knows, first, that faith is necessary and, second, that a person can't "push" God with his or her own desires, he adds.
Ann Arcieri, a member of St. Mary Parish in St. Clair, has met Dr. Nemeh on different occasions and has received both spiritual and physical healing. She first approached the doctor during a healing service at St. Stephen last summer.
"The fruit of that for me, personally, was a tremendous joy in the Eucharist," says Arciere, 63. "I had this awesome peace in my heart… I felt that there was a release of the gift of the power of the Holy Spirit in my life, my work and in my relationships."
As a result, she said, she accompanied friends to be prayed over in Dr. Nemeh's office in Cleveland. During one of the visits, Dr. Nemeh also prayed over her.
The result, she says, was the healing of her costochronditis — a condition in the ribs and lungs that can occasionally mimic heart attacks and inhibits a person from various physical activities. Aciere had lived with the illness for 12 years, until her healing last September.
She recalls him praying with her, and placing his hand near her ribs, which, because of the disease, were malformed.
"I felt the bones move," she says, adding that it felt for a moment like the time she broke her arm in the third grade. "I actually gasped, let out a sound in pain… That was it. Then he continued praying. That was Sept. 8, and I've been totally symptom- free ever since."
Arcieri had been a Christian counselor for decades, and had been trained in the healing ministry for many years, as well. She said it was "just such a privelige to hear the Lord minister through him on this deep, deep level."
She added that, no matter the type of healing one takes away from a healing service, the objective is to experience the Holy Spirit and grow closer to the Lord. Dr. Nemeh, she adds, doesn't ask the Lord distinctly for a particular type of healing, but rather modestly yields to God's will.
"We don't know what kind of healing we will have today," she says, "but we will experience God's touch."
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