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WHEN BLOCKED FROM PRAYING, STEP BACK FROM WORLDLINESS AND CLEAR THE SPIRIT

We mentioned, last week, that at times it can be hard to pray for someone (or ourselves) if there's a "block," which can come through sin or other spiritual problems -- a wall around a person. It's true; prayers can bounce back. We had an article just yesterday on how an exorcist said a "curse" generations before was preventing normal life for one of his subjects.

But here's a question: Might there also be times we can't pray for someone to regain health or improve in some other needed way because we're praying for the wrong result?

That is: are there times when God wants us to first pray that the afflicted person -- the focus of our prayers -- develop spiritually -- be healed at a higher level -- before we're cleared to pray for a physical result?

Yes. And so this advice: if you're stymied in praying for a physical healing -- if your prayers seem like a huge strain -- first pray for the spiritual aspect. Pray that the person progress spiritually from the problem (growing in humility, love, kindness); pray for growth; then, pray for the "miracle"!

How often we hear our priests say that spiritual healing is more important than physical healing, and they say that because it's what Jesus indicated!

Which brings us to another recent topic: worldliness.

Nothing stops healing more than over-attachment to the world. Take it from Thomas à Kempis in his classic The Imitation of Christ, when he quotes Christ as saying in a locution:

"My son, if, for your own pleasure or worldly friendship, you set your peace in any person, you will always be unstable, and you will never be content. A man draws nearer to God in so far as he can withdraw himself from the world and from all worldly comfort, and he ascends higher toward God in so far as he can descend lower in himself and become mean and abject in his own sight.

"If you could bring yourself to nothing -- and wholly banish from your heart all created love -- then, says our Lord, I should come to you with great abundance of My Grace."

"Created love" is worldly affection.

In other words: love at the deepest level if you want to see the miraculous -- and that means having concern not first and foremost with physical well-being but spiritual progression (the walk toward Heaven). Many people who are seriously ill have spiritual issues. These need to be resolved. God's main aim is bringing us directly to Him, and sometimes we are purified through suffering.

There is nothing like hardship -- especially a health scare -- to make us put things in better perspective.

That's not to say that all seriously ill people have issues. Hardly! Some are saints. Suffering can be a gift. It brings progression rapidly.

But in cases where there is a dark spot, healing the spirit transmits to the physical.

Confession is important here: where deliverance and even exorcism remove a spirit from the body, Confession removes evil from the soul (which by means of God controls the physical) and releases us for blessing.

To heal or be healed there must also be a climate of love. Love is the power of God and God alone wills a healing. Breathing love breathes in healing. To connect with Him, we must purify our innermost selves and build an atmosphere of goodness, kindness, and longsuffering, which bring us the pure oxygen of well-being.

If you're at real odds with someone -- wasting time going over and over a hurt (and rehearsing sharp replies, which are worldly) -- think instead, and simply: "quiet strength and humility and love. Totus tuus. (Mary, I am all yours). Lord Jesus!" It is an instruction to your soul.

That can help purge those parts of the spirit that are secret chambers, of which we have previously spoken -- parts of us that can affect health but are so deep we are not even aware of them (only Jesus is).

When someone is ill, and you feel resistance, pray first that the person be healed spiritually; pray that the person develop; pray that the Will of God bring the best result (as far as the person's eternity); do this also for yourself; and the Lord will allow your prayer for healing to be released into His almighty arms as body and soul head for the joy of His favor.

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