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Summary
- Ten short prayers cover a father in the hospital, his doctors, pain, tests or surgery, a long illness, old age, a child’s prayer, praying from far away, the family and the first signs of recovery.
- Traditional prayers are quoted from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer (“A Prayer for Recovery” and “A Thanksgiving for the Beginning of a Recovery”) and from the Orthodox service of Holy Unction in Hapgood’s 1906 translation.
- Orthodox families give the priest a list of names “for the health and salvation” of the living; many also ask the prayers of Saint Panteleimon, a physician martyred around 305.
- Catholics can ask for the Anointing of the Sick, which the Catechism says is not only for the dying; Protestants can call the elders of the church, as in James 5:14.
- Scripture records Joseph visiting his sick father Jacob (Genesis 48), Hezekiah’s healing (2 Kings 20:5) and Paul healing the father of Publius (Acts 28:8).
- Prayer goes alongside medical care and never replaces it.
Bibliography (Click to show)
- Scripture quotations are from the King James Version (1611), text of Project Gutenberg eBook no. 10 (Genesis 48:1–20; 2 Kings 20:1–5; Psalm 41:3; 73:26; 103:2–3; Isaiah 46:4; Acts 28:8; James 5:14). https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10
- The Book of Common Prayer (Protestant Episcopal Church in the U.S.A.), Standard Book of 1928. Visitation of the Sick, “A Prayer for Recovery,” p. 315, and “A Thanksgiving for the Beginning of a Recovery,” pp. 315–316. PDF facsimile: https://www.artisticdailyprayers.org/uploads/3/0/1/6/30164961/bcp1928std.pdf
- Hapgood, Isabel Florence, trans. Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic (Greco-Russian) Church. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1906. The Office of Holy Unction, pp. 336–337. https://www.ponomar.net/data/hapgood.pdf
- Orthodox Church in America. “Prosphora for Ill and Departed.” Questions and Answers. https://www.oca.org/questions/deathfunerals/prosphora-for-ill-and-departed
- “Commemoration Lists.” Orthodox America, vol. 6, issue 58. Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. https://www.roca.org/oa/volume-vi/issue-58/commemoration-lists/
- Löffler, Klemens. “St. Pantaleon.” The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 11. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11447a.htm
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997. Paragraph 1514. https://www.vatican.va/content/catechism/en/part_two/section_two/chapter_two/article_5/ii_who_receives_and_who_administers_this_sacrament.html
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