Hi,
Can we pray to the saints and angels to ask them to heal us (has God given them the power to heal) or do we pray to them to ask God to heal us? Thanks!
Therese
The posts, to this point, all seem to agree that healing ultimately comes from God. As CB Catholic said,
The Saints that had healing powers while they were alive gave God the credit for the healings. They did not claim to be able to heal on their own.
A good example of this would be
St. André Bessette (Brother André) who said, [all excerpts in italics]
- "I am nothing… only a tool in the hands of Providence, a lowly instrument at the service of Saint Joseph’’. He went even further by affirming: ‘’People are silly to think that I can accomplish miracles! It is God and Saint Joseph who can heal you, not I. I will pray Saint Joseph for you.’’*
St. André’s unflinching confidence when praying for the sick was so striking that it sometimes had a head-on collision with barriers set up along the boundaries of an often more
restrictive faith of another. From page 76 of his biography, Brother
André The Wonder Man of Mount Royal,(written by Henri-Paul Bergeron, CSC , and translated into english by Rev, Real Boudreau, CSC) , :
Such an absolute confidence in Divine Providence, far from being temerity, indicates rather a constant submission to the inspirations of God.
“How dare you make decisions without hesitation ?” asked a priest. “If I were you, I should be afraid of tempting the Lord.”
“It is easy to see that St. Joseph is going to heal them”, replied the Brother.
Another quote of St. André’s which commonly appeared inside the Novena to St. Joseph booklet published by St. Joseph’s Oratory, was, “Pray to St. Joseph, he will heal you.”
We see both here: God and St. Joseph healing, and then St. Joseph healing. I’ve also seen prayers to St. Joseph asking him to “obtain” a healing for us. But if St. Joseph has the gift “above” to heal us , it is only from God, and credit and glory must always be given to God. Actually, everything we have comes from “above” :
[John 19:11]
Jesus answered (him), “You would have no power over me if it had not been given to you from above…”
Our Lord himself, said we might do great things, as long as we believed in Him :
[John 14:11-14]
Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else, believe because of the works themselves.
Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father.
And whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it.
So, as the prayer says in the
per ipsum, it is “Through Him, with Him and in Him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all Glory and honour is yours Almighty Father…”
Again referring to CB Catholic’s quote - on earth, any genuine saint who had a healing charism, always attributed it to God - not to him or her self.
In Heaven, union with God is flawless - beyond our comprehension actually, as long as we are on this earth. So it wouldn’t seem a wise thing to try and suggest that there is some limit to the way God shares with us in Heaven, because it would always be unfounded - based in our “lack” of knowledge of Heavenly things.
It is possible that a Saint in Heaven may have been given the power to heal us, but the power can only be realized in that Saint’s unimpaired perfect union with God ; in their complete immersion in God. So the healing ultimately still comes from God.
GloriousOrder, directly above, mentions St. Raphael- an all time favourite of mine.St. Raphael is the Archangel commissioned/ordained by God specifically for our healing. I think it is notable here too that when we examine St. Raphael’s name, we discover that it means **God Heals ** (… as opposed to, I heal).
