Forward Movement is an official, non-profit agency of the Episcopal Church whose mission is to create compelling content for Christian living. Since 1935 we have published the quarterly devotional Forward Day by Day, as well as pamphlets, booklets, and books that encourage and nourish people in their lives of prayer and faith.
WEDNESDAY, May 20 (Alcuin) Rogation Day
James 5:13-18. Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord.
As a pastor, I was baffled when a parishioner who was ill asked for no visitors. "I don't want to bother anyone," a sick person occasionally said. Or perhaps it was that she didn't want to be bothered by visitors who might stay too long or pry into personal matters. I could understand that, but illness is not meant to be endured alone.
In the developed West, we tend to think of illness in exclusively medical terms: Give me a prescription. Prescribe a diet. Send me to therapy. Give me a pill. Maybe surgery. Except for medical professionals, we discount the role of other people in our healing. But in Africa, many illnesses are seen in communal terms: if you are sick, I suffer, too; if you are healing, I am better, too. Healing is seen as communal, including the church as well as the family and colleagues of the person with the symptoms. Prayer for and with one another is an unquestioned part of healing in Africa. We in the West are the poorer for this. We have lost much.
PRAY for the Diocese of New Hampshire (Province I, U.S.)
Ps 119:97-120; Baruch 3:24-37; Luke 12:22-31
Baruch is in the Apocrypha
View the daily Lectionary Readings at Satucket.com.
Or view the Bible passages at Biblegateway.com.
A Meditation for Pentecost
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