ROGERS — On the fourth Sunday of each month, parishioners at St. Vincent de Paul Church in Rogers gather at the foot of the altar after each Mass to pray for each other.
This ministry grew out of an interest expressed by the Give Glory to God Prayer Group, a part of the charismatic renewal movement.
According to group member Frances Ryan, its mission comes from 1 Corinthians 12:7-11, which discusses sharing gifts and talents with others for the common good.
“The most important thing is the gifts that God gives all of us and if we are going to be working under the Spirit of God, we need to share our gifts,” Ryan said. “They are given to share among the people — to share with the body of Christ. They are not given to people to keep to themselves.”
The idea of Healing Sundays developed after discussing inner healing and physical healing in the prayer group. It was suggested that a ministry be provided to pray for others after the Masses. With former pastor Msgr. Richard Oswald’s approval in 2005, the group developed the program now used on Healing Sundays.
Because the prayer service follows the Mass, the tabernacle doors are opened “to pray for healing at the foot of the altar and have the presence of the Lord ongoing as the healing power of his Eucharist was used,” said Anna Lee Taylor, another team member.
Ryan said the team members follow guidelines during the Healing Sundays.
“One of the most important is the confidentiality. If someone asks you to pray for something, you never discuss it with anyone else,” she said. “You keep it in your own heart and pray for it. But you don’t share it with anyone else.”
The prayer team themselves pray before they start and they pray afterwards as well.
“It is important to share the responsibility with your prayer partner. You are a team player. No one person dominates the prayer time,” Ryan said.
In the healing prayer process, other members, Anna Lee and Kas Taylor, explained that many spouses work together as a team.
“We try to have husbands and wives to act as a team together if possible,” Anna Lee Taylor said. “We start out by asking the Holy Spirit to go before us and to intercede for us. Then we take time to be quiet and open ourselves up to the Word of God and just listen.
“After the person has asked for what he or she wants prayer for, we speak that in faith. And the person who is there with us is interceding for us that we will say the right words and hear what God wants us to say.”
The Taylors had been involved in prayers for healing for many years in other parishes in Colorado, and Anna Lee Taylor, a nurse, spent three years studying at the Inner Healing Institute in Colorado Springs. When they moved to Arkansas, they also worked as Stephen Ministers in the parish.
Another prayer team member, Kathy Crowell, said she has seen the value of healing prayer in both her professional and private life.
“I have been a nurse for almost 25 years and I have seen a lot of illness,” she said. “I have seen it from both sides. I have seen the greatest amount of blessings because for 20 years, I took care of babies — premature babies.
“All my nurses when they were with me used to tease me, but they were also serious when they said, ’Kathy, we need for you to say your prayer.’ My prayer in the nursery always was, ’Lord Jesus Christ, make my hands yours.”
Crowell herself has experienced the benefit of healing prayer because of her own medical conditions.
“I know that he listens and I know that all we have to do is ask. And sometimes we don’t even have to ask and he blesses us. This is what happened to me recently,” Crowell said.
After gastric bypass surgery, kidney problems developed, and she was scheduled to undergo a procedure for a blockage in a major vessel. But when she entered the hospital for the procedure, the doctor informed her that the blockage was gone.
The doctor said, “I don’t know why but the blockage is no longer there.” Crowell said, “I know why. Prayer.”
The month before the procedure, Crowell had attended a Healing Sunday to pray for the medical needs of her daughter and as an afterthought, one of the prayer team members prayed for Crowell as well.
“I know medically it is a miracle. It didn’t just go away,” she said.
Frances Ryan herself knows the power of healing prayers. Four years ago she suffered a brain aneurysm.
“I feel like myself I had a miracle,” she said. “In fact they didn’t think I was going to live. They told my family two or three times that I wasn’t going to live. I was in a coma for five and a half days. It was prayer, strictly prayer.”
Crowell said Healing Sundays are a blessing to the parish and she thinks it will bring the parish closer together as a family.
“I think that the Lord wants people to know that he is listening and all we have to do is ask,” Crowell said. “I believe others will respond to this. We stand at the altar and they will come forward. Sometimes they will speak up and say what they want. Sometimes they will say they don’t know exactly what to pray for. I will ask them what it is you want us to pray for or for whom? Then we use holy oil before we pray. We make the sign of the cross on their foreheads. Then we pray for them and with them.”
