My dear brothers and sisters peacesign
First of all, God does not need a prayer in 'words' to know what we or other people need. He already knows what we need before we pray. I suppose that is one of the 'perks' that come with Him being "All-knowing" and "omniscient" :sippingcoffeemunda: Our prayers will have no effect on God, especially if by praying we hope somehow to force God's 'hand' and bend his will to ours, such prayer is useless. Prayer is ultimately a gift from, for our benefit and not the other way around:
"...God has stood in unmoved detachment from all eternity, and still so stands. All the prayers that a human being can do in time affect God’s detachment as little as if no prayers had ever occurred in time, and God never became more ready to give or more inclined towards a person than if that person had never uttered the prayer..."
- Meister Eckhart (c. 1260 – c. 1327), Catholic Mystic & Dominican priest
So why bother to pray at all? Well it makes us aware of our lack of self-sufficiency and need for God's grace. It helps us grow towards ever closer union with God, as we strip away our self-will and tame our passions. And finally God wants us to pray because we are his co-workers.
Might it not be the Will of God that we pray for other people when they are ill or so ask us?
I consider it a possibility that it might be God's will for a person to turn to God in prayer on behalf of another, not out of hope for a chance miracle or a changing of God's will, but rather so as to turn that person's thoughts away from self to selfless concern for the welfare of the other person. By praying for others in their time of need, we surrender our time and the thoughts in our head that otherwise would probably be put to self-use or self-gratification, so as to humbly prostrate our hearts before God and ask that he might vouchsafe whatever he wills - be it grace, benevolence, peace, health or whatever else - for the benefit of that other person.
In so doing we come into spirtual solidarity with others.
Of course this is no substitute for actually having physical contact with another person, however there are times when this is simply not possible, or indeed we continue to worry about that person's health even when we are not with them, and so feel the need to direct our worries towards God.
After all, God is in all things and all things are in God. This means that when we direct our thoughts in prayer to God, who is in all, we are therefore with that other person
in spirit since the God we are praying to is with that person, within that person and all around that person.
Prayer is thus a form of
connection. It is never a solitary act. That is why Christians pray, "
Our Father" not "
my Father". When we pray, we unite ourselves with God and since God is already within everything, we thereby unite ourselves with all our fellow human beings, all creatures and all creation.
That said, I fully agree that we should never seek to change whatever God wills to happen to us or to other people:
"...You must know that people who resign themselves to God and diligently seek his Will alone, whatever God sends them will be best...Sickness or poverty, hunger or thirst, whatever God sends you or does not send you, what He grants you or withholds, that is best for you...whatever you have or lack, be minded to honor God in all things, and then, whatever He sends you will be for the best. Now you might say, 'How do I know whether it is God's Will or not?' Be sure, if it were not God's Will it would not be. You have neither sickness nor anything else unless God wills it. And so, knowing it is God's Will, you should so rejoice in it and be content that pain would be no pain to you...If you loved God, you could rejoice in nothing more than in that which pleases Him best and that His will is done in us. However great may seem the pain or distress, unless you have an equal delight in it, it is wrong. One thing I am wont to say and it is a fact, that we daily cry in our paster noter (Our Father), 'Lord thy will be done!' and when His Will is done, we are angry and discontented with it. But whatever he did should please us best. Those who do take it as best ever remain in perfect peace. But sometimes you think and say, 'Oh, it would be better if it had turned out differently,' or, 'If it had not been so, things might have been better'. As long as you think this way you will never find peace...No hardship and loss is without some gain, and there is no harm that is wholly negative. Whoever has abandoned themselves and gone entirely out of themselves, for such a person nothing can be a cross, or pain or suffering, but for them all is bliss, joy and the heart’s delight and they will come and follow God truly. There are people who enjoy God in one way but not in another. They only want to possess God in one way of devotion and not in another. I will say no more about this, but it is nevertheless quite wrong. Whoever wants to receive God properly must receive him equally in all things, in oppression as in prosperity, in tears as in joy. Always and everywhere He is the same..."
- Meister Eckhart (c. 1260 – c. 1327), Catholic Mystic & Dominican priest
To this end Eckhart says:
"...People often say to me, 'Pray for me'. And I think, 'Why do you go out? Why do you not stay within yourself and draw on your own treasure? For you have the whole truth in its essence within you.' That we may thus truly stay within, that we may possess all truth immediately, without distinction, in true blessedness, may God help us..."
- Meister Eckhart (c. 1260 – c. 1327), Catholic Mystic & Dominican priest
A very simple Catholic prayer for people who are suffering from illness reads as follows:
"...
I confidently turn to you for help in my present sickness. God, relieve me of this sickness, if it be your Holy Will. But if it should be your Holy Will that I bear this sickness, give me courage and strength to accept these trials from the loving hand of God with patience and resignation, because you know what is best for the salvation of my soul..."
This prayer is addressed by the sick person to God, however would it not be acceptable to offer up such a prayer on behalf of another person?
We ask God to help our loved one/friend in their present hour of trial in whatever way he wills. We ask that God relieve the person of the illness if it be his Will for them to recover. And we finish the prayer by asking, that if it be God's will for this person to bear the sickness, that he through the power of his Divine Spirit grants them courage and the strength to endure whatever awaits them with pure trust in God's Will and perfect love of God.
It is not that we expect God to work miracles, or to bend to our will, but rather it is a show of spiritual solidarity on behalf of the sick person, because when we address our thoughts to God we are united with Him and with everyone else on the deepest level, including our loved one, for God is in all things and all things are in Him.
It is also beneficial to our health, since by entrusting all our worries about that person to God, we are helping ourselves to become more conformed to his Will rather than stress ourselves and fret over the health of our loved one or friend.
These are just some thoughts. I do regard prayer as a means to growing in union with God, as I wrote in a previous post - quoting another person on another forum:
My dear brother Harry Haller ji peacesignkaur
On another forum, a Christian forum, a few years ago I read a short post by a fellow Catholic which I think was very powerful and had a really impact on my spiritual formation. In it, he also quoted the writings of a Catholic mystic - John Ruysbroeck - to back up what he was saying, and he said precisely what you have just said brother, here is his post:
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To my mind, and that of my dying mother, there is more to prayer than supplication. For some, prayer is training the mind to be receptive to grace and to God. My mother's cancer will not be prayed away, but she can draw closer to God through prayer while she is still alive. As I say, for some prayer is about the union with God in our inner lives, not begging a Big Santa for favours or presents. My mother's faith has increased since being diagnosed as terminal - and she knows the cancer isn't going away, miraculously or otherwise.
"...There we will abide—unified, empty, and imageless—raised up through love to the open bareness of our mind, for when we transcend all things in love and die to all rational observations in a dark state of unknowing, we become transformed through the working of the eternal Word, who is an image of the Father. In the empty being of our spirit we receive an incomprehensible resplendence which envelops and pervades us in the same way that the air is pervaded by the light of the sun. This resplendence is nothing other than an act of gazing and seeing which has no ground: What we are is what we see, and what we see is what we are, for our mind, our life, and our very being are raised up in a state of oneness and united with the truth that is God himself. In this simple act of seeing we are therefore one life and one spirit with God. This is what I call a contemplative life. When we cleave to God in love we are practicing what is called the better part, but when we gaze at our superessential being in the way just described we possess God whole and entire...."
- Blessed John Ruysbroeck (1294-1381) – The Sparkling Stone quoted from The Spiritual Espousals and other works [Paulist Press, Wiseman, James A. trans. p 171]
That said I also see nothing wrong with praying for someone as described above
