Book mines Anglican tradition for healing prayers
THORNHILL, ON—Prayer ministry is about expecting the unexpected, says Daniel Graves, associate pastor of Holy Trinity Anglican Church and member of the Archbishop's Committee on Healing.
"Sometimes you've gone to the hospital to pray for someone and the person in the next bed says, 'Hey, can you pray for me too?' Or you're suddenly dragged down the hall to pray for a person you've never met who is dying….I realized there was a need for a pocket-sized resource that could help people enter into these moments prayerfully and with sensitivity."
Graves has compiled a collection of prayers for such occasions. Prayers for Healing draws together prayers from different Anglican liturgies around the world.
"Some of the prayers are very traditional and some are quite contemporary," says Graves. "Some are very new and some are quite ancient.
"Sometimes when we rely on a text that is tried, tested and true, we're able to enter into the situation without imposing our own meaning on it," he adds. "It's amazing the comfort people get from the timeless words. When they hear words that have been prayed before, they know they're not alone."
The book includes a guide on prayer and some pastoral advice on how to pray in various situations including surgery, addiction, depression, recovery, unconsciousness, old age and end of life. It also includes prayer for emotional healing.
"One of the things I've been trying to communicate about healing in general is that while cure is an important component, God also cares for the healing of the whole person, body, mind and spirit," says Graves. "Even when our bodies fail we can be whole human beings. Even someone dying can die whole, knowing the healing power of our Lord."
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