How the trauma of advent brings God's healing

When God came into the world, it was traumatic, argues George Pitcher. But Advent reminds us that now, more than ever, the Church needs the healing balm of Jesus - even if it is painful at first touch

Over the past few weeks, we clergy with a professional foot in the media have been responding to the resignation of Justin Welby over the John Smyth safeguarding scandal. I was invited onto Times Radio, where I described the affair as “shocking, shameful and depressing.” Afterwards, an old friend from Church communications contacted me to say: “We have to be careful that in beating ourselves up in public we don’t make it so bad that we can’t heal.” My response was simple: I replied that I’m less interested in healing at present than in “cauterising the wound.” 

Anyone with a military or medical background will know that to cauterise is to burn the skin or flesh around a wound, often with a caustic substance, to seal it, stop bleeding and prevent infection. It is, in short, a deliberate infliction of further trauma in order that healing can begin.