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Summary
- Short prayers cover a blood test or scan, a biopsy or procedure, a doctor’s appointment, sleepless waiting, a friend who is waiting, good news, hard news and medical bills.
- The 1928 Book of Common Prayer supplies two traditional prayers: “For One about to undergo an Operation” and “For Trustfulness,” which asks to be kept from “faithless fears and worldly anxieties.”
- Ecclesiasticus 38 tells the sick both to pray and to see the physician, “for his works are necessary,” and says doctors themselves pray for their remedies to work.
- Russian Orthodox Christians often ask the prayers of Saint Panteleimon, a physician martyred about 305 and long honored as a patron of physicians; most Protestants pray to God alone.
- Bible verses for the wait include Psalm 112:7, “He shall not be afraid of evil tidings,” and Psalm 56:3.
- 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 (Psalm 31:15; 56:3; 112:7; Proverbs 16:24; Isaiah 38:2–5; 40:29; 41:10; Matthew 6:34; Philippians 4:6–7; 2 Timothy 1:7; James 1:5; 1 Peter 5:7). https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10
- Ecclesiasticus 38:1, 9, 12, 14 is quoted from the Douay-Rheims Bible (Challoner revision), Project Gutenberg eBook no. 1581. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1581
- The Book of Common Prayer (Protestant Episcopal Church in the U.S.A.), Standard Book of 1928. Family Prayer, “For Trustfulness,” p. 596, and “For One about to undergo an Operation,” p. 597. 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, p. 342. https://www.ponomar.net/data/hapgood.pdf
- Löffler, Klemens. “St. Pantaleon.” The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 11. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11447a.htm
- MedlinePlus, US National Library of Medicine. “How to Understand Your Lab Results.” https://medlineplus.gov/lab-tests/how-to-understand-your-lab-results/
