Praying for healing

  • Thread starter Thread starter JoyToTheWhirled
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
J

JoyToTheWhirled

Guest
I am in rather a bad way with one ailment or another. I’m not saying this to Moan , it just is. I have a friend who asks me how I am, and when I respond honestly, stops me and say “No, you are not to receive that!” She tells me about what the doctor has told her about her illness and announces that she is “not receiving his diagnosis”.
I find it mildly baffling, but it got me to thinking, what is the appropriate response to the suffering of illness? I bless the day I learned about ‘offering up’ as it has helped me get through some really tough things, illness included. But obviously, it can’t be wrong to also pray for healing. But we don’t have to pretend illness doesn’t exist, or fret about accidentally ‘receiving’ illness, do we?
 
No, be at peace. The sick are some of most beloved of Christ. He continually, while on this earth, sought to heal and comfort those who were sick and their families.
We participate in His suffering when we bear illness with patience, but Jesus understands when we cry out. There’s nothing wrong with saying, hey, I don’t feel so hot today. Others should try to relieve your suffering, or offer prayer for healing. Period. Trying to apply some sort of defiance of the fact that your ill is pointless.
 
No, I haven’t been to that site before, but I thank you for linking it. 🙂
 
No, you are not wrong to pray for healing or ask for prayers for healing, even as you offer up your suffering. Even Jesus first prayed, in the garden at the start of His Passion, that this cup of suffering be taken from Him before He accepted whatever His Father willed for Him.

You’re in my prayers.
Be at peace.
 
What does she mean, not receiving his diagnosis
 
Last edited:
Thank you for all your encouraging replies.

Roseeurekacross, I’m not really sure but I think she believes if you don’t ‘receive’ or ‘accept’ bad news, it has no power. Or something.
 
Is she a friend from before you become catholic? Is she a practicing catholic?
JoyToTheWhirled said:
I find it mildly baffling, but it got me to thinking, what is the appropriate response to the suffering of illness?
Click to expand...
Our Lord Jesus Christ is closet to us when we are suffering.

Our Lord did say that each one of us will have crosses to bear in this life (Matt 10:38).

However, he also gave us hope in trusting in Him to help see us through our difficulties. He said, as we read in Matthew’s Gospel:
Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest….For my yoke is easy, and my burden light” (Matt 11:28-30).
Click to expand...
Handing over your worries, crosses you are bearing to Our Lord Jesus Christ is what Our Lord Jesus Christ aked us to do.

THT
 
Last edited:
As a realist I can’t accept your friend’s conviction to refuse to accept the illness. I have Hashimotos, I certainly receive it, because the consequences of not taking a tiny white thyroid pill each day would ultimately have systemic results. I’m celiac, but if I refuse to accept the diagnosis and continue to consume wheat, barley oats, , then I’m immediately sick, and ultimately, prone to a range of illnesses.
As realists we know there are consequence to ignoring diagnoses.

And yes, it’s okay to pray for healing.
One of the greatest saints of last century, Saint (Padre) Pio wrote “If you knew the value of suffering, you would never give it up.” Nevertheless, he prayed for healing for others, and advised anyone in their difficulties to seek divine assistance. “It is not a loss of patience if one asks Jesus to take away pain, when this becomes insupportable to us and beyond our strength, nor does one lose the merit of the suffering which is offered, by asking this of God.”

“Pray that God will console you when you feel the burden of the Cross, for in doing so you are not acting against the will of God, but you are placing yourself beside the Son of God who asked His Father during the Agony in the Garden to send Him some relief. But if He is not willing to give it, be ready to pronounce the same ‘fiat’ that Jesus did.” “When least you are expecting to be liberated, Jesus, who cannot bear to keep you long in affliction, will come and relieve and comfort you, giving you new courage.”

“He is the Father of all; He is so in a very special manner for the unhappy.” “The Cross will not crush you; if its weight makes you stagger, its power will also sustain you.” “What does it matter whether Jesus wishes to guide you to heaven by the way of the desert or by the fields, so long as you get there by one way or the other? Put away excessive worrying which results from trials by which the good Lord has desired to test you; and if this is not possible resign yourself to the divine will.” “Walk with simplicity in the way of the Lord and do not torment your spirit.”

“Each soul…is a stone destined to build up the eternal edifice…it has to be polished with the blows of hammer and chisel…these hits of the chisel are the shadows, the fears, the temptations, the afflictions of the spirit, the spiritual tremors with some aroma of desolation, and also physical illness.”
 
Last edited:
Some protestant friends believe that speaking words out loud gives spiritual power to them.

So with saying what she did, she is not giving any power to the diagnosis.

I hope this makes sense.
 
Last edited:
I hear what she’s saying, as you note in your beautiful, gentle way, Katie 🌻🌹

From a practical viewpoint it makes no difference to the reality that if we ignore our cancer, our broken arm…it’s not going to benefit us, nor remove the danger.
Once again, tediously, sorry, to use own experience

I didn’t know that my immune system was targeting the thyroid, but I became extremely weary.
I didn’t know I was celiac when I was a child, but the intestinal pain was frequently so intense that I could only curl up in a fetal position and wait for the pain to pass. That and other symptoms were there whether or not I knew, or whether or not, later I accepted the diagnosis checked by the relevant tests. I was surprised when my doctor said he was testing me for celiac , but he did so because I was losing bone density three times the rate relative to my age.

I can refuse to accept it all, but that would make me King Canute ordering the tide not to come in.
I’m fine, by the way. Those issues are manageable if you heed the doctor’s advice and don’t pretend they’re not real. I do the right things on the basis of diagnosis and evidence regarding them and THEN I can ignore them in positive, cheerful attitudes of how I live life.
 
Last edited:
Thanks everyone, as usual, you’ve been a great help. And thanks for the prayers and good wishes. We press on!
 
There is nothing wrong with praying for healing. We are to pray unceasingly. We need to talk to God with our prayers to help us accept & bear the crosses of life. Praying for your health & recovery. God bless.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top