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Summary
- Short prayers cover the night before, the move into the operating room, the surgical team, a child’s operation, a long operation such as heart surgery, the family’s wait, complications, recovery and thanksgiving.
- Traditional prayers are quoted from old Catholic prayer books: the Memorare and a prayer to Saint Raphael from Lasance’s Catholic Girl’s Guide (1906), and the Angel of God prayer from the 1888 Manual of Prayers.
- The Catechism of the Catholic Church says it is fitting to receive the Anointing of the Sick just before a serious operation (paragraph 1515); only a priest can give it.
- Saints linked with medicine include Luke, “the beloved physician” (Colossians 4:14), Cosmas and Damian, whom the Catholic Encyclopedia calls patrons of physicians and surgeons, and Raphael, whose name means “God has healed.”
- Ecclesiasticus 38 tells the sick both to pray and to honor the physician, and says doctors also pray that their remedies succeed.
Bibliography (Click to show)
- Scripture quotations are from the King James Version (1611), text of Project Gutenberg eBook no. 10 (Psalm 4:8; 31:15; 55:22; 107:1; Isaiah 41:10; Jeremiah 17:14; Matthew 26:39; Mark 10:14; Colossians 1:24; 4:14; James 5:14–15). https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10
- Quotations from Tobias (Tobit) and Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) are from the Douay-Rheims Bible, Project Gutenberg eBook no. 1581 (Tobias 12:15; Ecclesiasticus 38:1–2, 9, 12, 14). https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1581
- Lasance, F. X. The Catholic Girl’s Guide: Counsels and Devotions for Girls in the Ordinary Walks of Life. New York: Benziger Brothers, 1906. “Memorare,” p. 588; “Prayer to St. Raphael, Archangel,” p. 601. https://archive.org/details/catholicgirlsgui00lasa
- A Manual of Prayers for the Use of the Catholic Laity, prepared and published by order of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore. New York: Catholic Publication Society, 1888. Morning Prayers, “Angel of God,” p. 54; The Litany of Loreto, p. 67; “Prayer in the Beginning of Sickness,” pp. 459–460. https://archive.org/details/AManualOfPrayers1888
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997. Paragraphs 1514–1516. https://www.vatican.va/content/catechism/en/part_two/section_two/chapter_two/article_5/ii_who_receives_and_who_administers_this_sacrament.html
- Driscoll, James F. “St. Raphael.” The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 12. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12640b.htm
- Meier, Gabriel. “Sts. Cosmas and Damian.” The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 4. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04403e.htm
- “Raphael (archangel).” Wikipedia (feast day and the 1969 calendar revision). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphael_(archangel)
