by Karen Griefzu, prayer group leader
Sometimes when praying for someone who is very sick or dying, the first image of them that may come to our minds is that of the person suffering and our prayer is even sad as we think of them this way.
Sometimes when praying for someone who is very sick or dying, the first image of them that may come to our minds is that of the person suffering and our prayer is even sad as we think of them this way.
Many years ago I learned about Visualization Prayer and realized how comforting and powerful this form of prayer can be. It seems that I had no sooner learned about it myself than someone called me to pray with her for her toddler who was hospitalized. She described his condition as being hooked up to all kinds of tubes and monitors and being terribly ill. Every time she thought of him or prayed for him that was the picture of him she saw in her mind and all she could do was fret, cry and feel desperate. So using the visualization type of prayer, we began by seeing the hospital room and the sick child. Then I asked her to see herself sitting in the chair next to the bed weeping. Next, I asked her to try to visualize Jesus opening the door and entering the room. I asked her what He did when He came in. She said, “He smiled at me and walked over to my chair. He placed his hand on my cheek and as I looked into his eyes I felt a sense of peace. Then he leaned over the bed and looked at my son. Again I felt a great sense of peace and great love filling the room. He reached out his healing hands and caressed my son. Once again he smiled at me as he left the room”. I then asked her what she wanted to happen next. She said, “I want the doctor to come in and take all the tubes out and tell me to take my son home because he is well again”. So I asked her to try to remember what she saw in her prayer instead of the hopelessness she was feeling. Two days later she called to tell me the doctor had just left after removing the tubing and telling her to take her son home, he was fine.
About a year ago I remembered this prayer form again and used it to pray for my daughter and my niece who had both been trying for a long time to get pregnant, finally did, and then both lost their babies. Instead of picturing them grieving and feeling hopeless, I decided to picture them sitting and cuddling their new born babies. So every day during my rosary and while praying the three Hail Mary’s at the beginning (for an increase of Faith, Hope and Love), when I came to the Hail Mary for the gift of Hope, I would pray for them by picturing them as happy moms. I would just say, “Jesus, this is my hope for them.” while consciously visualizing them cuddling their babies. We now have this precious little granddaughter, Ava Grace, (picture) and our great niece, Gabby Glow, will make her first appearance on the 4th of July.
No prayer is magical, but every prayer we say is so filled with grace. Each time we seek the Lord and ask His help for ourselves or those we pray for His great love and peace and blessings are bestowed, whether the prayer is answered our way or His way. A friend of mine used to always remind me that prayer is a sliding board into the arms of Jesus. Learning new prayer forms and finding which one is most helpful in different situations has always been important to me. I have found Visualization Prayer to be not only a powerful but a far reaching prayer because as I picture those I am praying for, my heart and prayers seem to flow out to all those others I don’t know but who are also in need of the same graces. So now that you know about or have been reminded of Visualization Prayer you might want to try it some time. A teacher of mine used to always say, “God prepares His saints.” So maybe He is preparing you to use this type of prayer some time in your life.
Since we are celebrating the Resurrection during this Easter Season let our prayer for tonight be Sister Jean Hill’s, PRAYING IN THE RESURRECTION LIGHT PRAYER.
Reach out your hands to the Blessed Sacrament and say after me, Lord of Lords, Light of Lights, True God and True Love. Come Lord Jesus.
Wait until you feel the warmth of that light coming into your hands. If you don’t feel it, wait until you know you have attended to the faith vision of what Jesus has promised when He said, “Behold, I am with you all days, even unto the end of time.” Now, place your hands on your head, putting on the helmet of salvation, leave them there, and listen with your heart to these words. Jesus, I thank you for the light of your life now coming into my head. May the chemistry of my brain, the electrical impulses, the entire circulatory system come today under your perfect Lordship so that my body might function in perfect health. Let your light permeate the entire chemistry of my body, drawing all the fluids and tissues, the functioning of every organ and system into your perfect order. Jesus, may my mind be taken up today into your mind, that I might walk today in the perfect truth of your word. Let the light of your loving presence spread into all the unhealed areas of guilt which still need your saving grace and wisdom. I thank you, Jesus for making this body your temple, and I sign it with your cross. Let’s now make three crosses on our heads and say In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Now reach out again to the Blessed Sacrament and gather your consciousness into the presence of Jesus. Place your hands on your heart and continue to listen and pray…I ask you now, Jesus, that my heart might enter into your Sacred Heart, that my blood might merge with Your Precious Blood, so that as it goes throughout my body it might carry the good news of Your presence – from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet, from the marrow of my bones out to the farthest reaches of my skin. Let my blood carry the message: Jesus Christ is Lord. He who created you loves you and calls you today into His resurrection life. I command my blood to take to every cell all that it needs to be in perfect health and in harmony with the whole body, taking nothing from any cell which is not according to the perfect plan of Jesus Christ. I thank you, Jesus, for gathering me into Your Heart. Soften my heart; fill it with your love. Fill it with your light so that every person who comes before me today might find a resting place in that heart, coming in and out of my life with perfect freedom, just as we move in and out of the Father’s presence through the veil which is Your promised presence with us. I thank you, Jesus, and ask that even in moments when I am inattentive, You will be able to minister out of Your perfect love the mysterious presence of Your peace. Keep me today in Your word, in Your truth, in Your perfect love. Wash through me and purify me by the events of this day. Now sign your heart three times as you say, In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
