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Summary
- Jeremiah 17:14, “Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed,” is a short prayer for healing from the Bible; Psalm 6:2 and the leper’s words in Matthew 8:2 are others.
- The 1928 Book of Common Prayer, the Catholic Manual of Prayers of 1888 and the Orthodox service of Holy Unction each supply a traditional prayer for the sick.
- The Catholic Catechism says “even the most intense prayers do not always obtain the healing of all illnesses” (paragraph 1508); the Assemblies of God calls divine healing “an integral part of the gospel.”
- Scripture records faithful people who stayed ill, among them Paul with his “thorn in the flesh” and Trophimus, whom Paul left “at Miletum sick.”
- Scripture pairs prayer with remedies: Isaiah had figs laid on Hezekiah’s boil after God promised to heal him (2 Kings 20:5–7).
- James 5:14–15 lies behind the Catholic Anointing of the Sick, Orthodox Holy Unction and the elders’ prayer for the sick in Protestant churches.
Bibliography (Click to show)
- Scripture quotations are from the King James Version (1611), text of Project Gutenberg eBook no. 10 (Exodus 15:26; 2 Kings 20:1, 5, 7; Psalm 6:2; 30:2; 41:4; Isaiah 40:29; 53:5; Jeremiah 17:14; 32:27; Matthew 8:2–3, 8, 17; 26:39; Mark 9:24–27; 2 Corinthians 12:8–9; Philippians 2:27; 4:7; 1 Timothy 5:23; 2 Timothy 4:20; James 5:14–15; 1 Peter 2:24). https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10 ; Sirach 38:1, 9 from the Douay-Rheims Bible, Challoner revision. https://www.drbo.org/chapter/26038.htm
- The Book of Common Prayer (Protestant Episcopal Church in the U.S.A.), Standard Book of 1928. Prayers and Thanksgivings, “In Time of Great Sickness and Mortality,” p. 45; Visitation of the Sick, “A Prayer for Healing,” p. 315; “Unction of the Sick,” p. 320. PDF facsimile: https://www.artisticdailyprayers.org/uploads/3/0/1/6/30164961/bcp1928std.pdf
- 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. Devotions for the Sick, “Prayer in the Beginning of Sickness,” pp. 459–460; The Visitation of the Sick, p. 496. https://archive.org/details/AManualOfPrayers1888
- Hapgood, Isabel Florence, trans. Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic (Greco-Russian) Church. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1906. The Office of Holy Unction, p. 346. https://archive.org/details/servicebookofhol00orth_0
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997. Paragraphs 1505 and 1508: https://www.vatican.va/content/catechism/en/part_two/section_two/chapter_two/article_5/i_its_foundations_in_the_economy_of_salvation.html ; paragraphs 1514 and 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
- Assemblies of God (USA). Statement of Fundamental Truths, section 12, “Divine Healing.” https://ag.org/Beliefs/Statement-of-Fundamental-Truths
- Assemblies of God (USA). “Divine Healing,” position paper adopted by the General Presbytery, August 2010. https://ag.org/Beliefs/Position-Papers/Divine-Healing
