A very important request: As soon as your time permits, please take a few moments to offer up prayers for a few dear friends of Jim who are battling health issues.
Colonel Frank Monaco and Colonel Mike Meuleners are two long-time, faithful U.S. Army officers with 56 years of devoted service between them. Through war and peace and everything else these men–and their respective families who have always been their foundation and support–have worked and fought for us and our country.
Frank and Mike both have cancer and continue to fight on this strange battlefield of cancer treatment–marching through daily/weekly appointments for treatments, enduring challenging side effects and anticipating their next steps in care.
I truly believe we can lighten their load through our prayers. Let’s carry them for a while and give them respite from the battle. So please, grab the beads, the bibles, the prayer cards, the statues--whatever your prayer tradition entails--and concentrate on Frank and Mike, their bodies, minds and spirits, while asking God to shower them with healing comfort and confidence.
St. Peregrine is the patron saint of cancer patients and is known to have been cured of the disease after Jesus came to him in a dream and touched his ulcerated leg. I offer this prayer:
O great St. Peregrine, you have been called "The Mighty," "The Wonder-Worker," because of the numerous miracles which you have obtained from God for those who have had recourse to you. For so many years you bore in your own flesh this cancerous disease that destroys the very fiber of our being, and who had recourse to the source of all grace when the power of man could do no more. You were favored with the vision of Jesus coming down from His Cross to heal your affliction. Ask of God and Our Lady, the cure of the sick whom we entrust to you.
We ask you to look down on Frank and Mike today. Aided in this way by your powerful intercession, we shall sing to God, now and for all eternity, a song of gratitude for His great goodness and mercy. Amen.
Also please ask for the intercession of another saint on behalf of Jane Shadid, the wife of Jim’s West Point classmate Colonel Ted Shadid. Jane lives with Cushing's disease and the painful challenges that condition brings. Ted is serving his bride in every way possible to keep her comfortable, but with some prayers from us, maybe we can lift both Jane and Ted and give them a break from their pain and hard work. St. Padre Pio, the Patron Saint of Pain, Suffering and Healing,gave us this prayer to appeal to Christ’s healing ways. You might pray this on behalf of Jane:
Heavenly Father, I thank you for loving me.
I thank you for sending your Son,
Our Lord Jesus Christ, to the world to save and to set me free.
I trust in your power and grace that sustain and restore me.
Loving Father, touch me now with your healing hands,
for I believe that your will is for me to be well in mind, body, soul and spirit.
Cover me with the most precious blood of your Son,
our Lord, Jesus Christ from the top of my head to the soles of my feet.
Cast anything that should not be in me.
Root out any unhealthy and abnormal cells.
Open any blocked arteries or veins and rebuild and replenish any damaged areas.
Remove all inflammation and cleanse any infection
by the power of Jesus’ precious blood.
Let the fire of your healing love pass through my entire body
to heal and make new any diseased areas
so that my body will function the way you created it to function.
Touch also my mind and my emotion,
even the deepest recesses of my heart.
Saturate my entire being with your presence,
love, joy and peace and draw me ever closer to you every moment of my life.
And Father, fill me with your Holy Spirit
and empower me to do your works
so that my life will bring glory and honor to your holy name.
I ask this in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Thank you all for your prayers and good vibes on behalf of Frank, Mike and Jane. As the simple graphic above shows, we CAN help each other profoundly through prayer.
God bless us and save us and keep us from harm.
Love, Patty
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