Prayer Exercise

In whatever form you use, prayer benefits health through the physiological effects of positive emotion. Levin asserts that the heartfelt emotional responses are potentially protective and religious worship has few equivalent.

Levin, J. (2001). God, Faith, and Health: Exploring the Spirituality-Healing Connection. New York: John Wiley & Sons. pg 81.

Select a daily reading (for example, a psalm or an excerpt from a book of meditations). Read it slowly, connecting with the words, and reflecting on them. You may want to read the passage several times. To enter a contemplative state more quickly, it helps to do this at the same time and place each day.

Listen and reflect on this prayer.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is discord, union;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

and where there is sadness, joy.

Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love.

For it is giving that we receive. It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.

And it is dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen