Members of the first graduating class of the Encounter School of Ministry are pictured after receiving their certificates in May. Pilot photo/courtesy Deacon Joseph Cooley
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BRAINTREE -- A few years ago, when Deacon Joseph Cooley and his wife were at Radio City Music Hall in New York City to see the Rockettes, the deacon took notice of a man and a woman a few rows in front of him.
Immediately, he vividly imagined the woman on her wedding day and her "over-the-top joy" marrying the man seated by her side. He approached the couple and told them what he had seen. The man told Deacon Cooley that they were engaged, and his greatest fear was that his fiance would be unhappy when they wed. Deacon Cooley's vision assuaged his fear. The deacon believes that his vision was a message from God.
"The Lord wanted to say 'Hey, that wouldn't be the case,'" Deacon Cooley told The Pilot in a July 25 interview. "That's an example of living a supernatural lifestyle. Hearing the Lord's voice and sharing what we get from people."
"Living a supernatural lifestyle" is the main goal of the Encounter School of Ministry, a two-year ministry program that has 38 satellite campuses in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Australia, Austria, and Sri Lanka. Deacon Cooley is the director of the school's Boston campus, which opened at St. Charles Borromeo Parish in Woburn in 2022. A second site at St. Joseph Parish in Quincy will open this fall. Deacon Cooley said that the new site is necessary due to the size of the Archdiocese of Boston and the number of people who are unable to make the long commute to Woburn.
"We'll definitely reach people that would not be coming north," he said, "and a part of it is also getting the word out. The biggest way that things spread is word of mouth, so having another location facilitates people encountering the Lord and spreading it in their communities."
The goal of the Encounter School of Ministry is to bring "supernatural experiences" to the day-to-day life of Catholics like they read about in the Bible and in the lives of the saints.
"We have the life of God in us, and the Holy Spirit is constantly speaking to us," Deacon Cooley said. "As we go about our daily lives, the Lord wants to touch people. Living a supernatural lifestyle means not only living in the fruits of the Holy Spirit, but living with the gifts."
Laypeople, clergy, and religious are welcome at the school, where they study a theologian-reviewed curriculum focused on three components -- worship, teaching, and activation -- which seek to bring students closer to Christ and his works.
Activations, Deacon Cooley explained, are activities that help students "step into the teachings" they received at the Encounter School. One of these activations is simply sitting quietly so that students can "hear the Lord's voice."
Once, Deacon Cooley recalled, a man in his 60s started to weep during one of these sessions. His father had never told him he loved him. Now, he had finally heard the words "I love you" from God.
"It really spoke to his heart in a deep way," Deacon Cooley said.
Another woman, dealing with the stress of raising her teenage children, heard the Lord tell her he was proud of her.
In 2024, 36 people graduated from Encounter's first class in Boston. One was Cynthia Mead of Stoneham, who discovered the school during a three-day retreat.
"It was very, very dynamic, very loving," she told The Pilot in a July 25 interview. "It was a powerful experience, and I was very much attracted to the fact that it reminded me that the Holy Spirit is alive and working. I wanted a faith that was a little more alive than what I was currently existing in."
At the retreat, she saw a love of God and a love of neighbor that inspired her.
"It opened my eyes to the fact that everything Jesus did when he was here was to express the love of the Father," she said. "Freeing people from the proverbial prisons they are in, to a greater freedom."
Now that she has graduated, she cares more about what God thinks about her than what other people think. Helping others has become her biggest concern.
"I think that I have a better perspective on the transient nature of this life that we have," she said. "I feel like I'm looking more toward God in Heaven than worrying about the things that I may have wanted materially before."
Her classmates have become her "larger family," she said.
Her one regret after graduating is that she will no longer be able to see the "wonderful individuals" at the school for classes each week.
"It's living in more joy," Deacon Cooley said about the school's teachings. "It's living in a posture of love, rather than striving for love... Living in a posture of knowing you're loved, knowing you're a son or daughter of God."
Along with the school, Encounter hosts spiritual retreats and healing services. One of these services in March was attended by Caitlyn Thompson of Winchester, who said that it healed her of two major ailments. Prior to attending the service, she was struggling with the effects of concussions she suffered in 2021 and 2022, both of which hit the same spot on her head.
"They were both pretty devastating," she told The Pilot in a July 26 interview. "My recovery was very slow."
She had headaches that were so severe that, when she first got them, she could not write, cut food, or be in well-lit rooms without wearing sunglasses. Thompson also had a very rare, incurable foot condition called erythromelalgia. Little is known about erythromelalgia, to the point that some doctors she visited had never even heard of it. There is no known medication to treat it. Erythromelalgia prevented her feet from sweating, keeping all of the heat trapped inside.
"That is agonizing," she said. "It's true torture."
It became too painful for her to walk long distances. In the middle of the Massachusetts winter, she had to wear ballet flats without socks so her feet could breathe.
At the healing service in March, she hoped to be cured, but she kept her expectations realistic. A bad outcome would not have affected her faith. She was disappointed when, after people at the service prayed over her, she felt no different.
"You have been healed," she was told, "but you're not going to feel it yet."
In the 36 hours after the service, she "tested" herself by pouring hot water on her feet, a process that would normally be excruciatingly painful. She felt nothing. When she went to bed that night, she felt her feet sweat for the first time in almost two years.
"That was something I could not make up," she said, "because it was insane to feel sweat again."
As for concussions, she decided to take off her sunglasses to go out driving and go grocery shopping. She felt nothing during these tasks, which were once impossible for her. She no longer has to wear sunglasses. She can dance and wear boots again.
"My eyes are even better than before the concussions," she said.
When Thompson visited her podiatrist, she could detect healing just from looking at her feet. When Thompson told her that she had recently attended a healing service, she replied: "The path of prayer."
Thompson's physical healing took place during a long period of spiritual and emotional healing. She also attended one of Encounter's Unbound sessions, hosted by Deacon Cooley. Unbound sessions, named after the book by Neal Lozano, are a process of forgiveness and renouncing of past sins.
"It's very vulnerable," Thompson said. "You have to be ready for it. Each time you're delving into what you need to be free from. There's a list of things that you're trying to unearth within you, so if you're struggling with certain sins, or even depression or anxiety... you're trying to untie yourself from those tethers. You can do some of that alone, but it's easier when you have someone leading you."
She said that the Unbound session's emotional healing made her more receptive to her physical healing. At the session, Deacon Cooley encouraged her to enroll in the Encounter School of Ministry. She had heard about the school a few years prior, but she "didn't feel that it was the right season" for her to enroll.
"I didn't feel that I had the necessary gifts to attend," she said, "but he contacted me again saying he felt I should. I prayed about it, and then I really agreed. I'm wholeheartedly sure that it's where I'm supposed to be."
She will begin attending classes this fall.
"I'm very excited to be in a good place where I'm spiritually safe, with a lot of good people," she said. "I'm excited to get to know my identity as a daughter of God, for that to be more cemented in my heart as opposed to fighting to believe that... I'm excited to see the next chapter unfold."