Salvation comes from the word...

Salvation comes from the word salus, which means healing. It is not dependent on feeling or any person's response to me.

It is a gift received when the will has given up control and we are standing in that threshold place which allows us to see anew.

When we stand at the threshold, we stand before sacred signs. The true helper will get out of the way and encourage us to get out of the way so we can see them. Grace, then, walks us into the temple...

We all are deeply hurt people, and we've all been infected. People are not whole and yet they constantly long for holiness, for wholeness. That's why Jesus' call to holiness is paralleled by the healing ministry.

In fact, you could say that's almost all Jesus does: preach and heal, preach and heal, preach and heal. For the mature ones, the preaching is already healing and the healing is its own sermon.

Richard Rohr, from Radical Grace: Daily Meditations

It is in our acknowledging our need for healing that we are healed; it is in our being healed that healing comes to a broken creation. This is surely what Paul means when he says, in Romans 8.18-23, "I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies."

But how do we pray for a thing like that? I know I keep on about this - it lies at the heart of all that God has been teaching me about prayer all these years - but Paul has an answer for us in vv. 26-27: "Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God."

As Maggie Ross said, "Even something as simple as refusing to anesthetize the gnawing pain in the pit of your soul that is a resonance of the pain of the human condition is a form of habitual intercession. To bear this pain into the silence is to bring it into the open place of God’s infinite mercy. It is in our very wounds that we find the solitude and openness of our re-creation and our being. We learn to go to the heart of pain to find God’s new life, hope, possibility, and joy. This is the priestly task of our baptism."

It is in this priestly task that we find our own call to prayer. I wrote about this in my article on Intercession & Contemplative Prayer on The Mercy Site:

Brother Ramon SSF in Praying the Jesus Prayer (1988): "We have seen that the Jesus Prayer involves body, mind and spirit – the whole of man. If the whole person is given to God in prayer, then it reflects the greatest commandment, [to 'love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.' (Mark 12:30 NRSV)] The cosmic nature of the prayer means that the believer lives as a human being in solidarity with all other human beings, and with the animal creation, together with the whole created order... The Christian is well aware of the fact that the world is evil. There is a falseness and alienation which has distracted and infected the world, and men and women of prayer, by the power of the Name of Jesus, stand against the cosmic darkness, and enter into conflict with dark powers [Ephesians 6:12]... The power of the Jesus Prayer is the armour against the wiles of the devil, taking heed of the apostle's word: 'Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication. [Ephesians 6:18 NRSV]'"

As intercessors, all God asks of us is broken hearts - we do not need to find solutions to the prayers we pray, nor just the right words to frame them. God knows what is on our hearts (Romans 8:26-27) - we need only be honest and courageous enough to feel: feel the pain and the grief and the confusion and betrayal and despair the world feels, and to come before our Lord and Saviour with them on our hearts, and ask for God's mercy in the holy name of Jesus.