Matthew Linn - Simple Ways to Pray for Healing

ILLUSTRATIONS DY FRANCISCO MIRANDA

We want to thank the following people for their help in the preparation of this book: Mary Jo Brauner, Walter & Mary Hanss, Barbara & Dr. Morton Kelsey, Maria Maggi, Antonio Martinez Baez, Jr., Jim Reid, Judy Ryan, Rev. John Sachs, S.J., Rev. Robert Sears, S.J., Dr. Douglas & Frances Schoeninger, Sr. Eleanor Sheehan, C.S.J., Donna Stone, Rev. Leo Thomas, O11', Anna Verstegen, Rev. Flora Wuellner.

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Marguerite Doyle Banovetz Jacob & Libe Schreft Fabricant Fanny & Louis Nasher Kalis Leonard & Agnes May Doyle Linn

in gratitude for all their simple and heartfelt prayers for us.

Earlier this year we were invited to make television programs for a Hungarian satellite network that broadcasts to three million dispersed Hungarians from Finland to Israel. We recorded the programs before a live audience of 250 people gathered in a church in Budapest. During one of our talks Sheila mentioned baking brownies because Dennis and Matt like to eat them. As the audience listened intently through their headphones to the Hungarian translator, they looked puzzled and then the entire group burst out laughing. We later found out that what the translator had said was the Hungarian equivalent of, "Dennis and Matt like to eat little girl scouts"

Although our Hungarian friends may not have understood the difference between little girl scouts and chocolate pastries, we were happily surprised by how easy it was to communicate with them. Our presentations were based upon the eight simple ways of praying contained in this book. We chose these eight processes as the basis of our retreat in Hungary and as the content of this book because they are the prayer processes we have returned to most often in our ministry. For twenty-five years Dennis and Matt have given retreats and workshops to at least a thousand groups in over forty countries, with Sheila joining our team fifteen years ago. Our participants have come from a wide variety of religious, cultural and educational backgrounds. Their experiences lead us to believe these prayer processes are universally healing.

Perhaps the reason these eight simple ways of praying are so healing is that they integrate contemporary spirituality and psychology with the proven wisdom of the Spiritual Exercises of St. I~iiatiiis. (St. Ignatius was the founder of the Jesuits, by whom all three of us were educated.) Also, these ways of praying are simple enough for small children, yet profound enough to touch sophisticated adults.

When and Matt first began writing about healing prayer in 1974, our readers were primarily charismatic Christians. Since then, our audience has widened considerably and so has interest in prayer for healing. One turning point was the publication of Dr. Larry Dossey's book, Healin,E' Words, which was on the New York Tines bestseller list for many months. Dr. Dossey is a highly respected physician, formerly Chief of Staff at Humana Medical City in Dallas.The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has invited Dr. Dossey to be co-chairperson of a panel that will study the medical effects of prayer. One NIH project collected over 250 empirical studies verifying the healing effects of religious practice that includes prayer. Dr. Dossey concluded that "not to employ prayer with illy patients was the equivalent of deliberately withholding a potent drug or surgical procedure" and "will one day constitute medical malpractice."

In an article, "Should Physicians Prescribe Prayer for Health%" the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association concluded, like Dr. Dossey, that they should. Interest in healing prayer is now so widespread that Time magazine recently devoted its cover story to the evidence that prayer brings healing of body, mind and spirit.

Perhaps this growing interest in prayer is a symptom of an evolutionary shift in consciousness that is taking place all around us. While many Christians fear the twenty-first century will bring a violent end to the world, we wonder if in fact it is an end to an old way of living, and the beginning of a new stage in human development. Most of us have heard that we use only five to ten percent of our brain and we take this to mean that if we studied harder or memorized more facts, then we would use more of our brain. However, some theories of brain function suggest that the real problem is not how hard we try, but rather where we focus our attention. Our focus has been on manipulating the material world around us. Only five to ten percent of the neocortex, the distinctly human part of the brain, is needed for this. It seems possible that the rest of the neocortex has been unused because it is intended for something different: higher consciousness and spirituality (that which transcends space and time).We were made for prayerful contact with God and even our brains develop most completely when we pray.

We write as Christians who have experienced the healing love of Jesus in our own prayer lives. However, we hope this book will be used by people of all faiths. Experiments on prayer indicate that its efficacy is not determined by the private religious affiliation of the one who prays. Dr. Larry Dossey says,

As long as love, empathy and compassion are present, the prayer seems to work. I feel there is a great lesson in tolerance in these experiments in prayer. When it comes to prayer, no religion has a monopoly.

We are writing for anyone who wants to give and receive the healing love of God as he or she understands God.

This is a book about simple ways to pray for healing and it is meant to be prayed rather than only read. Healing is a process and thus you may wish to take as much time as you need to pray through each chapter before you move on to the next one.

For those who wish to share this book with others, see the section "Process for Group Sharing" For those who wish to explore these prayer processes more deeply, several of them are the subjects of entire books, described in the section "Resources for Further Growth by the Authors"