Starting in September, Special Prayers Will Be Offered Once a Month on Sunday Mornings in the Chapel after Daily Morning Prayers

 The Pastoral Care Team at Grace and Holy Trinity has been exploring ways to offer prayers for healing and for other specific purposes at our church.  

 The Team has been exploring the possibility of offering such prayers on Sunday mornings.  After much discussion and also a presentation as a part of adult Sunday School, the Team has decided that one Sunday a month, prayers will be offered after the late, morning service.   This will be done on Sundays when Daily Morning Prayer is offered, which is usually the second Sunday of the month.  Immediately following the service, a member of the clergy will go to the chapel.  Anyone who wants special prayers may meet them there.  You may request prayers for healing for yourself or for someone else.  You might also simply ask for prayers of guidance or for some other purpose.    After ascertaining your specific request, the clergy will have a brief prayer for you at the altar and with the laying on of hands.

  These prayers are not meant to supplant the prayers the faithful offer as a part of corporate worship or to imply that if people do not avail themselves of this  opportunity that their prayers are somehow lacking.  Rather, some people desire to state their hopes to another person in a confidential relationship and to have their prayers acknowledged with the laying on of hands.

Marion Hatchett, in his Commentary on the American Prayer Book has this to say about the tradition of prayers for healing:  “It was Jewish practice to offer prayer for the sick and to anoint them with oil…In the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus (c. 215 AD) are two notes concerning ministry to the sick…Many accounts also come from the pre-Nicene period which tell of clergy or laity with healing gifts who visit the sick, pray over the person, and then anoint.”  With the passage of time, this service of healing was typically offered prior to death and was called, “Last Rites.”  Our current prayer book reclaims the ancient Jewish and Christian tradition of anointing with prayers for healing.  Because we are a sacramental people, it is appropriate that our prayers of healing be joined together with the outward and visible sign of  laying on of hands and/or anointing with oil.

  Prayers for healing do not take the place of medical treatment, but are used in conjunction with the ministry of physicians.  God answers our prayers in a variety of ways. We seek relief from physical suffering and in the mystery of God’s grace, our prayers are directly answered sometimes.  Our prayers are also answered in other ways.

  It seems as great a man as St. Paul prayed for physical healing but his prayer was answered in a different way.  In II Corinthians 2:7 Paul writes:  “…to keep me from bring too elated, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated.  Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’”   Paul is probably referring to a physical illness or disability and “having to deal with it and even understanding that God would not remove it by miraculous healing has taught Paul to know the divine strength that can be at work in human weakness when surrender comes.” (notes in The New Interpreter’s Study Bible, page 2075ff).