The Healing Journey

June 10, 2024

As Catholics, we believe that our prayers can help a loved one get to Heaven sooner. One traditional prayer for this intention appeared in “My Prayer Book,” by Fr. Francis Xavier Lasance, a priest from Cincinnati, Ohio, who died in 1946 and is known for his more than 40 devotional works and missals, which have been reprinted over the past century.

For most of his life, Father Lasance knew suffering and was often bedridden because of debilitating headaches. He endured decades of chronic pain, and in “My Prayer Book,” he wrote: “By suffering we become like to Christ and His Blessed Mother, Our Lady of Sorrows. Suffering is meritorious and intensifies our love of God.” He said every trial in life “can be turned into a blessing by the will of the Christian sufferer.”

In the introduction to “My Prayer-Book,” he wrote: “This book aims to point out the brighter side of life — the silver lining to the cloud o’er head — the sunshine that follows the rain — the sweet little wildflowers that grow by the wayside amid thorns and briers….All desire happiness, but many do not attain it because they seek it where it cannot be found. Seek happiness in goodness, in virtue, in loving God; in loving your neighbor, in doing good for others for the love of Jesus Christ — that is the keynote, the dominant note of this book.”

Here is a prayer for those who have died, written by Fr. Lasance, who died at 86 in 1946 in his hometown of Cincinnati:

“O Lord, we ask you, on behalf of the soul of your servant whom you have called out of this world, to look upon him/her with pity and let him/her be conducted by the holy angels to paradise, their true country. Grant that they who believed in you and hoped in you, may be admitted to eternal joys. Through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord, Who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns world without end. Amen.”

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