NeuroDivine

Praying Through Illness and Forgiveness

Readings: Psalm 55 | 1 Maccabees 2:29–48 | Mark 14:53–65 | RB 13

Psalm 55 opens with a cry that feels achingly familiar: “Attend to me, and answer me; I am restless in my complaint and I moan.” The psalmist’s anguish—betrayal by a companion, the weight of fear and trembling—echoes through the body as much as the soul. For those of us who live with chronic illness, this restlessness is not metaphor. It is the ache of dialysis lines, the unpredictability of migraines, the quiet grief of missed mornings. And yet, like the psalmist, we speak. We ask to be heard.

In 1 Maccabees, the faithful flee to the wilderness, choosing covenant over compromise. Their resistance is not loud but costly. They carry their Sabbath observance into caves, and some die for it. Chronic illness, too, can feel like a wilderness—an exile from the rhythms others take for granted. But it can also be a place of fierce fidelity. In the dialysis unit, in the waiting room, in the quiet of a morning Office said from bed, we choose covenant. We choose presence.

Mark’s Gospel brings us to the courtyard of scandal. Jesus stands silent before false witnesses, and Peter—so human, so beloved—denies him. The thorns of scandal are not only public; they grow in the private soil of disappointment, of faltering courage. The Rule of St Benedict, in its wisdom, insists that the Lord’s Prayer be said aloud at Morning and Evening Offices, “on account of the thorns of scandal which are apt to spring up.” It is not a performance, but a reminder: we are bound by a covenant of forgiveness. “Forgive us as we forgive.” Even when we falter. Even when we are tired. Even when our bodies betray us.

And so we pray. Not always in chapel, not always in full voice. Sometimes the prayer is whispered through nausea, or mouthed between alarms. Sometimes it is a teddy bear who holds the rhythm, who reminds us of the covenant. But always, we say it. And at the other Offices, we answer together: “But deliver us from evil.” Not from illness, not from weakness, but from the bitterness that can grow in their shadow.

This Friday, I honour the quiet fidelity of those who pray from the wilderness. Who keep covenant in the midst of scandal. Who forgive, even when the body aches. Who say the Lord’s Prayer not as obligation, but as anchor.