Our Saviour has taught us: Ask and it shall be given you; seek and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh, receiveth (Matt. 7:7-8).
Therefore, when we are in pain we must
pray for understanding of our malady, patience to bear it, and deliverance from
it, if such be God's holy will. We are also expected to ask for the prayers of
others and especially of the Church, for the effective fervent prayer of a
righteous man availeth much (James 5:16).
"Anyone who is sick should seek
the prayer of others, that they may be restored to health; that through the
intercession of others the enfeebled form of the body and the wavering footsteps
of our deeds may be restored to health....Learn, you who are sick, to gain
health through prayer. Seek the prayer of others, call upon the Church to pray
for you, and God, in His regard for the Church, will give what He might refuse
to you" (St. Ambrose, On the Healing of the Paralytic).
The great public prayer of the Church
for those who are ill is the Service of Holy Unction. This Service, which is
long and exceedingly rich in readings from Scripture, and contains numerous
allusions to biblical figures who were healed by the power of God, gives, in
concentrated form, the Church's teaching about healing.
Acknowledging that illness sometimes
comes through the activity of demonic powers, the priest asks: "Let no
interposition of malignant demons touch the senses of him who is marked with
Thy divine anointing." Showing that the Church also understands the
connection between sin and suffering, the priest prays that through this
anointing the "suffering of him who is tormented by the violence of
passions" may be washed away.
Many do not discover prayer until they
are on a sickbed. And those who have all of their lives piously participated in
the public prayer of the Church, discover during illness that they have sadly
neglected the treasures of private or interior prayer. St. Gregory Nazianzen, a
great man of prayer even when his health was good, exclaimed during his last
illness: "The time is swift, the struggle is great, and my sickness
severe, reducing me nearly to immovability. What then is left but to pray to
God?" (Letters).
Two incidents from the lives of the
saints show how simple yet incorruptible this prayer can be. In the life of
Elder Hieroschemamonk Parthenius of the Kiev Caves Lavra we learn that in his
final illness, even after he had been given Holy Unction, he continued to
perform his daily prayer rule of reading the entire Psalter. The day before his
repose he said to his spiritual children:
"Soon, soon I shall leave.
Yesterday I already could not complete my Psalter — only half of it."
"Is it possible, Father, that
until yesterday you said all of your customary rule?"
"Yes, the Lord helped me; after
all, I now do it by memory; I cannot do it with my lips; there is nothing to
breathe with; but yesterday I could not complete it even by memory, for my
memory is leaving me. Only to the Jesus Prayer and to the praises of the Mother
of God do I cling unceasingly" (Orthodox Life, no. 3, 1969).
"Dositheus, take care over the
Prayer; see that you be not deprived of it."
"Very well, Father," replied
the monk, "only pray for me."
When he had become still worse, St.
Abba Dorotheus said to him:
"Well, Dositheus, how is the
Prayer? Does it continue as before?"
He answered him: "Yes, Father, by
your prayers."
When, however, it became extremely
difficult for him and the illness became so severe that he had to be carried on
a stretcher, Abba Dorodieus asked him:
"How is the Prayer,
Dositheus?"
He answered: "Forgive me, Father,
I cannot keep it up any longer." Then Abba Dorotheus said to him:
"And so leave the Prayer, only
keep God in mind and represent Him to yourself as if He were before you"
(The Orthodox Word, vol. 5, no. 3).
"He suffered from sickness and
bodily pain. The time of my father's sufferings was the season of the holy and
illustrious Pascha, the Queen of Days, the brilliant night which dissipates the
darkness of sin. Of what kind his sufferings were, I will briefly explain: his
whole body was on fire with a great and burning fever; his strength failed him,
he could take no food, his sleep had departed from him, and he was in the
greatest distress. His whole mouth was so ulcerated that it was difficult and
even dangerous to swallow even water. The skill of physicians, the prayers of
his friends, earnest though they were, and every possible attention, were alike
of no avail. In this desperate state his breathing was short and fast and he
had no perception of present things.
"The time of Divine Liturgy was
come, when all due order and silence is kept for the solemn rites. At this moment
my father was raised up by Him Who quickens the dead. At first he moved
slightly, and then more decidedly. Then, in a feeble and indistinct voice, he
called a servant by name to bring his clothes and support him with his hand.
The servant came in alarm and gladly waited upon him while he, leaning upon the
servant as upon a staff, imitated Moses on the mountain and arranged his feeble
hands in prayer...
"He retired again to his bed and,
after taking a little food and sleep, his health slowly recovered so that on
the first Sunday after the Fest of Pascha he was able to enter the church and
offer thanksgiving...
The acknowledgment of oneself as
deserving temporal and eternal punishment precedes the knowledge of the Saviour
and leads to knowledge of the Saviour.
By Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov
CONVERSATION