• Home
    • About
  • Prayer Diary
  • Daily Quote
    • Untitled
    • Archives Quote musings 2012
    • Archives, Quote musings 2011
  • Word & Image
  • Resource List
  • Books
  • Prayers and Poems
  • Spiritual Books
  • Archives, scripture
  A Prayer Diary

Healing Power #5

8/30/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
Discussions about intercessory prayer often begin with a question. In my previous post Henri Nouwen posed one. Today, I ponder a question by George MacDonald (1824-1905), Scottish author, poet, and Christian minister: “And why should the good of anyone depend on the prayer of another?” Although he is confident enough to answer, he does so with another question: “I can only answer with the return question, ‘Why should my love be powerless to help another?’” 
        MacDonald was writing at a time and place when the Christian theology of a loving God, who created human kind in God’s imagine, was accepted and believed throughout the culture. I love his nineteenth century response, which I believe is an affirmation of the power of love; but must work through twenty-first century intellectualism and skepticism  to turn his question into a statement of faith: my love is powerful enough to help another.

0 Comments

Healing Power #4

8/23/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
How important is my intention when I pray for someone’s healing? Henri Nouwen offers this: “To pray for others means to offer others a hospitable place where I can really listen to their needs and pains.”  
    Does this mean that if I am angry at the person, or deep down don’t want their healing, my prayer means nothing? That doesn’t sound like a prayer. Rather, it is self-centered me wanting what my self-centered me wants! 
    I believe that healing prayer should come from the best me I can be. Sometimes that is mighty pathetic, other times it is my better loving self. Regardless, I must offer my honest self to God. From that point I can listen to the needs and pains of the person for whom I am praying. 
    However, praying for ‘my enemies’ while not listening to their needs and pains is sometimes the best start I can offer. I know that God is there for the person. And, God is there for me, to help me move to love of self and neighbor.

0 Comments

Healing power #3

8/20/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
The gospels are replete with stories of physical and emotional healings by Jesus. Through word and deed Jesus demonstrated that alough people have physical ailments and may need to be rid of demons, they are not sick because of sin. 
    However, as the western church grew in power and prestige, it began to ignore this message, as well as Jesus' actions of God’s healing presence in this life.  Word of his healings, teachings, and miracles faded, and over time was replaced by the dogma of the ‘church fathers’, with overpowering emphasis on sin and preparation for life after death. 
    Most twentieth century theologians, including Bultmann, Barth, and Bonhoeffer, ignored Jesus as healer, claiming that Jesus’ healings were preparation for the church as an institution and thus not needed any more. And yet, there is nothing in the four gospels to suggest that Jesus was founding a church. In fact, he never mentioned the word church. Jesus taught, preached, healed, and offered intercession so people could live a full, joy-filled life in the kingdom of God now. 
    For sure, we need many thoughts and ideas to help us pray thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, however, offers a comforting aspect of intercession.


    To make intercession means to grant our brother the same right that we have received, namely, to stand before Christ and share in his mercy.

    Intercession means no more than to bring our brother into the presence of God….

0 Comments

Healing power #2

8/17/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
The challenges to those who ‘dare’ think they are a healers or intercessory are many. Just the thought of embracing the idea is either arrogant or humbling, or both. If I choose humbling, then I have the chance of believing that whatever I do or however I pray is sacramental. God’s grace working within in and the person I pray for. 
    Morton Kelsey, in his in-depth study, Healing Christianity, 1995, offers this for us to ponder.

Finally, there is a religious or sacramental healing, the result of the healer’s conscious and deliberate relation to God. The healers as individuals are not viewed as the primary source of healing power. Rather they are seen as an agency through which the Spirit and power of God, the very creative force of the universe, is transmitted. The acts of healing depend on the power of God and are therefore sacramental. Spiritual healing is an outer and visible sign of particular grace, inward and spiritual, at work within both the healer and the one who seeks healing (p, 67).

0 Comments

Healing power #1

8/15/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
Physical healing, emotional healing, psychological healing, situational healing! Healing can seem so obvious—you get better!  You go from something bad, uncomfortable, and fearful, to no longer feeling angry, afraid or sick. You are now are loving, healthy, calm. You feel healed. 
    That summary just rolled from my finger tips to the screen. I didn’t have to do much thinking because like many people, I know what bad things need to be healed and the results of what this healing might look like. As a person of faith, I am intrigued with the healings Jesus performed and how they might translate into what we, 2000 years later, might do. 
    Jesus prayed, and so I pray. I pray to discern my part in God’s healing; I pray for God’s healing love to surround a person or situation; I pray that my loving heart reaches out to God’s loving heart; I pray Jesus walking with the person needing healing. I pray as I am able, which is the best I can do, all I can do. I’m not looking for results or proof that I’m on the right track, or for some amazing healing, or for some cause and effect result .
    I don’t have THE ANSWER, but I know and have come to believe that healing happens through prayer. Through reading and prayer I have been gathering ideas about healing. I will share them in subsequent posts. 


​

0 Comments

Praying, by Mary Oliver

8/5/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
 It doesn't have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don't try
to make them elaborate, this isn't
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.


​Mary Oliver



0 Comments

Jesus' healing ministry

8/1/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
Every Tuesday evening at the Iona Abby is the Service of Healing. Although I missed it this year, healing was the center of my time on the island. I met a mom and dad and their son 12 year old son who had had intensive surgery on his legs—the first wasn’t successful, the second they are hopeful is working. For me, talking with this mom deepened my faith in prayer. Not just deepened it, but raised it to a new level of belief. 
    According to Morton Kelsey, one fifth of the narrative portraits in the four gospels is about healing by Jesus and his followers. What was Jesus showing us? That healing is real— not just for back in his times, but is for us now. What does this mean for me, who knows and has come to believe that I am called to pray for people?  In following Jesus, how can you and I be healers? We mainline Protestant are missing the opportunity of a lifetime-no pun intended.

0 Comments
    Contact me
    [email protected]

    Archives

    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011

    Categories

    All
    55 Maxims Of Fr. Hopko
    Amy Carmichael
    Anne Lamott
    Art
    Assisi
    Awe
    Bede Griffiths
    Benedict
    Bible
    Billy Graham
    Blessing
    Bliss
    Bonhoeffer
    Books
    Breathe
    Brigit
    Call
    Canticle Of The Sun
    Celtic Daily Prayer
    Centering Prayer
    Christ
    Christian Life
    Christmas
    Church
    Cloud Of Unknowing
    Coleridge
    Communion
    Compassion
    Contemplation
    Contemplation And Action
    Contemplation And Action
    Cottage By The Sea
    Craft
    Cross Roads
    Cynthia Bourgeault
    Dad
    Daily Prayer
    David Steindl-Rast
    Death
    Death And Dying
    Desert Mothers And Fathers
    Desiderata
    Dietrich Bonhoeffer
    Doris Grumbach
    Dostoyevsky
    Easter
    Edin
    Edinburgh
    Emmet Fox
    Energy
    Epiphany
    Ermetic Life
    Eve Kiley
    Everyday Simplicity
    Faith
    Fasting
    Father Maximos
    Fear
    Florence
    Food
    Forgiveness
    Frederick Buechner
    Friends
    Fruit Of The Spirit
    Gardens
    Gift
    Giving And Receiving
    Giving Thanks
    Giving Thanks
    God Moment
    Grace
    Gratitude
    Harold Rohheiser
    Healing
    Health
    Heart
    Hildegard De Bigen
    Holy Spirit
    Holy Week
    Hope
    Hospitality
    Howard Thurman
    Humility
    Humor
    I Believe
    Icons
    Incarnation
    Intercessory Prayer
    Intercessory Prayer
    Iona
    Iona Prayer Circle
    Ireland
    Italy
    James Martin
    Jeffrey M. Gallagher
    Jesus
    Jesus Prayer
    Joan Chittister
    Job
    John Baillie
    Joy
    Julian Of Norwich
    Kate Tristram
    Katherine Paterson
    Kazantzakis
    Kinds Of Prayer
    Kingdom
    Kyriacos C. Markides
    Laura Hillenbrand
    Lent
    Louie Zamparini
    Love
    Madeline L'Engle
    Maranatha
    Margaret Bullitt Jonas
    Margaret Bullitt-Jonas
    Marsha Sinetar
    Martin B. Copenhaver
    Mary Luti
    Mary Oliver
    Matthew 25
    Max Ehrmann
    Meditation
    Meeting Jesus In The Gospel Of John
    Meister Eckhart
    Midrash
    Ministry
    Miracles
    Mom
    Monastery
    Monastery Of The Heart
    Morton Kelsey
    Mountain Of Silence
    Moving
    Music
    Mystery
    Nature
    Northumbria Community
    Now
    Oliver Herford
    Oswald Chambers
    Othona Community
    Outreach
    Oxyrtynchus Manuscript
    Pamela Dalton St. Francis
    Passivity
    Peace
    Phyllis Tickle
    Pilgrimage
    Pope Francis
    Praise
    Prayer
    Prayer List
    Prayer Questions
    Prayer Questions
    Prayer Shawls
    Prayer Walk
    Pray Without Ceasing
    Psalms
    Raven's Bread
    Reading
    Religious Orders
    Retreat
    Richard Rohr
    Robert Frost
    Robert J. Wicks
    Rome
    Ronald Rolheiser
    Ross King
    Rule Of Life
    Sabbath
    Sacred Places
    Sacrifice
    Scotland
    Scripture
    Silence
    Simone Weil
    Simplicity
    Sister Madonna Kolbenschlag
    Skye
    Society Of Saint John The Evangelist
    Sol
    Solitude
    Son Of Man
    Spiritual Exercises
    SSJE
    St Augustine685a78b5bd
    St Benedict2e69d019b8
    St Brigid8a489d0d27
    St. Francis
    St Francisda1a8c4071
    St Ignatius97c6861c0b
    Suffering
    Taize Lent743fec0e30
    Talking With God
    Thanksgiving
    Theophan The Recluse
    The Reader
    Thomas Keating
    Thomas Merton
    Thomas-merton
    Thy Will Be Done
    Trinity
    Unbroken
    Upper Room
    Walking With God
    Walter Ciszek
    Way Of A Pilgrim
    Welcoming Prayer
    Wm Paul Young757e23b986
    Wonder
    Writing

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly