Paul Burnham reflects on his time as chaplain at Melbourne Football Club
When I was in my first year as Chaplain to the MFC in the late 1980’s. A player went down with a knee injury at the MCG, I went down into the rooms with the player and the doctor. The doctor made the player comfortable and asked me to stay with him and comfort him as the doctor had suggested to the player, it might be an ACL.
The Player became upset as you would imagine, and I asked him would he like me to pray over his knee, to which he replied, “Yes Please!”
As it happened I had my Anointing Oil with me and so I anointed his injured knee and asked God and Jesus to heal that knee. Eventually the player was taken to hospital and I told him I would visit him early next week. As training for the next week started on a Monday, I arrived in the rooms at the Junction Oval, St Kilda, to see the team all gathered around this injured player from Saturday.
They turned around and slapped me on the back, then shook my hand and said “Well done!”
I went over to the injured player and asked him what was going on?
He said, “You healed me, you healed me!”
I said “No I didn’t -God did!”
To which he replied, “I don’t know who did, but the knee is healed!”
Fancy me doubting the power of God to heal one of His Sanctuary Souls! When the player was x-rayed at the Hospital, all they found was some torn tissue around the knee but not any
damage to the ligaments in the knee itself. The player was convinced it was my prayer that fixed his knee!
Another star player at the club, who was a devout Roman Catholic, would come to me for discussion on all sorts of issues and would ask for prayer so he could keep playing from week to week.
As most of you know sports teams are great for choosing a nickname for everyone, so after that, for the first few months at the club, I was called, “Mr Faith Healer”, “Mr Sin Stealer”, and “Charlie” (after Chaplin!)
In the end though, there was one that stuckandat the end of my 1st year in 1989, the players gathered around me and presented me with footy jumper – when they turned it around it had big letters stuck on the back – “REV”.
