Our Lord is a great healer.
A Reflection by Fred Schaeffer, OFS
About 3-4 years ago, I began helping the Five Franciscan Martyrs Region of the Secular Franciscan Order with the regional prayer requests. Our region consists of many fraternities in Florida and the southern part of Alabama. Each week, I receive 1-3 such requests, often for families or individuals sent to me by fraternity ministers or others in these fraternities. These requests are often very long and wordy, and before I forward them to about 35 recipients, I’ll shorten the requests. Basically, we are interested in the name of the person requesting prayer and why (e.g. going to hospital), etc. If/when there is a healing, we’re always the last to hear; usually not at all.
A word of caution is warranted. Prior to disclosing an individual's medical condition and the specific organ(s) affected, it is imperative to consider that emails and text messages are notoriously unreliable in terms of both technological and personal security. I make a concerted effort—when dispatching requests to over thirty addresses—to safeguard the email addresses by utilizing the “bcc” (Blind Carbon Copy) field in Gmail. This method is generally sufficient for disseminating emails to multiple recipients while concealing their email addresses from one another. Such a practice is particularly advantageous when one seeks to preserve confidentiality or avert a "reply all" deluge. Additionally, I employ various software solutions that ensure the encryption of messages. Text messages, on the other hand, lack any encryption whatsoever. Before sending prayer requests to me, please be sure you have permission from the person seeking assistance to do so.
It used to be that I prayed for the entire list daily. There are so many intentions on this list that I now keep a separate list for “Morning Prayer” and “Evening Prayer,” (of the Liturgy of the Hours) and that works fairly well. Our Lord is a great healer, and He does heal people. I was diagnosed with cancer in 2017, received all sorts of chemo, first aggressively, later spaced about two months apart, and for the last year, not at all. A week ago, I had my annual PET scan; no cancer at all. Praise the Lord. "O Lord my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me". (Ps. 30:2)
Peace and Good,
Fred Schaeffer, OFS