# Prayer for Illness on the Feast of St. Clare of Assisi
*2018-08-11*

> Bill Young reflects on St. Clare of Assisi and offers a heartfelt prayer asking that any illness we experience may bring forth good and unite us more closely with Christ.

## St. Clare of Assisi

St. Clare (1194‑1253) is remembered on August 11. At the age of fifteen she refused an arranged marriage and chose the religious life. With the help of Saint Francis, she founded the Order of Poor Ladies, later known as the Poor Clares, becoming its abbess at twenty‑one. She spent her life caring for the poor and the sick, trusting that God could bring good out of suffering.

## A Prayer for Illness

Lord, you are ever‑good and gentle. Grant me your grace so that I may not act unchristianly in the condition you have allowed me to be in. May I always recognize you as Father and God, regardless of my physical or mental state, for your nature never changes.

When you permit illness, keep me from using it to irritate you with impatience or self‑centered sorrow. Let me desire health and life only so that I may use them for you, with you, in you, fulfilling your will.

I ask neither for health nor for illness, nor for life nor for death, but that you dispose of my health, illness, life, and death according to your will—for your glory, my salvation, and the good of the Church.

Help me accept your will and glorify you through my suffering, that it may draw me nearer to you. Unite my will with yours, my pain with the suffering of Christ, that my afflictions become yours. Fill me with your Holy Spirit, entering my heart and soul, sustaining me so that my hardships may bear fruit for the Church.

May Christ live and suffer in me, and may I be a perfect instrument of your presence. Amen.

## Closing Blessing

May God bless you and grant you the grace to see every illness as an opportunity for growth in holiness.

*Illness can become a means of drawing closer to Christ when we unite our suffering with His.*