November 30 -- five days since a Pandemic Thanksgiving – in a world afflicted by plague and waiting in anticipation for a divine birthday approaching. Yet it has been a time of rejoicing over a healing that is miraculous to us who love her, and to the doctors who treated her.
I speak of my dearest friend, who as the pandemic enveloped the world, was diagnosed with an illness that most often is a death sentence, undergoing brutal chemotherapy and its matching brutal after-effects.
Every friend, every church and synagogue where I knew members, were asked to pray for her. She, a religious skeptic when I told her, came through the treatment that kills so many, and is now a stunning case of remission, and maybe complete cure. And now she says she will never again doubt the power of prayer.
“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving,
let your requests be made known to God,” St. Paul tells us (Philippians 4:6.). Yes, we stormed heaven.
With prayer and faith, we can indeed find our souls born anew, as the Holy Child would promise. Happy Birthday, Dear Lord. And thank you.
