The Healing Team at the Parish of the Epiphany has 12 ministers dedicated to offering prayers during the 10:00am service every Sunday. We take turns being at the healing stations, during the distribution of communion, one in front of the lectern and the other in the rear of the Church. About once a month my turn comes up to serve, as I dress that morning I pray for the serenity to meet God as a channel for companioning another in prayer.

I arrive at Church a little early. Inside, it is busy with the warmth of friends greeting friends. As I slip into a familiar pew, I pray again. Then the service begins. When the consecration ends, I walk quietly up to the altar to receive communion before taking my place at the healing station. I stand and pray while people begin to file up for communion. A woman whose husband died a week or so ago passes by me. I send up prayers for her to find comfort in her sorrow. A woman with a cane limps by in visible pain. I pray for her healing. A man with his arm in a sling walks past. I give thanks because I know he is doing better. Soon people begin to find their way back from the altar rail. Not everyone who needs healing stops to ask for prayer, but a line does begin to form by the prayer desk. A young boy asks for prayer for his sick dog. He fears his dear companion will die. A woman asks for a prayer of Thanksgiving for her son's graduation. A disabled man comes up but he doesn't mention his physical pain. He prays for healing of a broken relationship. He regrets the wound he may have caused by what he said. Next, a father has been suddenly laid off. We pray for support and strength to find his way through this crisis. In the background I can hear the congregation saying the post communion prayer. But there are two more people waiting.

A young woman kneels in prayer. She tells me she has been diagnosed with an aggressive cancer. She is very afraid. Afraid of the terrible struggle she is facing. Afraid of what will become of her family if she dies. Together we ask God to stay by her side with strength and healing. There is one last person. He tells me that today is the anniversary of his wife's death. Together we give thanks for their long and devoted marriage. We pray for peace. We pray for new life. There is no time for more prayers. I hear a processional hymn beginning. I replace the chrism (healing oil) in the prayer desk and return to my seat in the pew. I'm so filled with prayer that I can't sing...surely we are an amazing parish family. Surely this is what communion is -- to pray together for one another, to uphold one another in sorrow and in gladness in the context of the Eucharist. I am grateful to be here at the Parish of the Epiphany.

This reflection is offered in the hope that it will help give our congregation a better sense of what is happening during the communion time in our service. The details of each situation have been changed to protect the privacy of those who ask for prayer. We on the healing team have a covenant of confidentiality. We do not speak to anyone of the prayer that is shared with us. We do not "follow up" to ask how the person is doing. We serve only to speak the prayers of those who ask for them, to accompany each one in a prayer of joy, or a prayer of sorrow, or a prayer of need. Our ministry is confidential prayer. We invite you to visit one of the prayer stations at the front or back of the Church. Jesus has promised, "wherever two or three are gathered in my name, I am with them." He is most certainly there with us when we pray. He is very present in the Parish of the Epiphany every Sunday morning.

Gayle Pershouse Vaughan

Once a month, I sit in front of my computer, close my eyes, and breathe. I remain in silence for a few minutes and then open the Parish prayer list.

As a member of the Intercessory Prayer Team, I have the opportunity and responsibility to reach out and contact parishioners who have requested prayers for themselves or others. While I sometimes struggle with what to say, I find these moments of ministry to be deeply centering. I feel my faith strengthened as I read and respond to parishioners. The trust that they demonstrate in sharing these requests fills me with gratitude and humility. As I begin typing, I sense that the Kingdom is near.

Are you curious about Epiphany’s Prayer List ministry? We would love to talk with you about our own experience. There are lots of different ways to participate:

1) You might consider joining us on Tuesday night for our prayer service. Every week, we gather at 6:00pm in the chapel. One volunteer reads each name on our Parish Prayer List. We repeat the name and sit in silence, lifting this person up to God. It’s a quiet service that usually lasts thirty-five minutes. For me, it provides a time to step away from the busyness of a work day and to be centered in the Holy Spirit.

2) You might consider signing up to pray with us. There are over thirty people who receive our Prayer List on Tuesday night. They commit to remembering those in need by praying for them. Some folks pray on Tuesday night from home; some take the List when they are out for a walk; others start each morning by prayerfully reading it. There’s no right way. This ministry is an opportunity to add a new dimension to your relationship with God. You can also sign up to pray for immediate needs that are sent out in an email alert. These requests usually arrive when someone begins a serious medical operation.

If you are interested in signing up for either Prayer List (the Tuesday Night Prayer List or the Emergency Prayer Chain), please send an email to prayer@3crowns.org. For our dedicated partners who have received these Lists this past year, please also send an email if you would like to continue this ministry for another year.

3) Finally, we invite you to share your prayers with us. When you are in need of prayer, or have friends and family in need, please send us an email or fill out a prayer request form on our website (https://3crowns.org/prayer). It is an immense gift to receive these requests. Each one reminds us of our interconnectedness. When we ask for prayers or pray for others, we are living as the Body of Christ.

We hope you’ll consider joining this life-giving ministry.

Grace and Peace,

Jake Montwieler, on behalf of the prayer list team,
Barbara DeWolfe
Brett Johnson
Martha Lewis
Gayle Pershouse

I am one…and our role is to visit those parishioners unable to attend church on a regular basis - perhaps because they are homebound, or in a nursing home, or caring for family members. Through our ongoing personal visits, we try to keep those parishioners part of the life of Epiphany and let them know they are still remembered and valued by us.

The visits vary from visiting someone at his or her home or nursing home and just chatting, bringing a copy of the Sunday church program for them to read or sometimes, if possible, we will have an outing: going to lunch, or taking a drive to see foliage, or a garden or a museum, or… running errands. I was once asked by my parishioner to buy her a new lipstick. When the saleswoman heard that the recipient was in a nursing home, she made up a lovely gift pack of other cosmetic items for me to take to her. I thought of the phrase, “the kindness of strangers.”

I have been an Epiphany Visitor for the past few years. When I began, I had assumed that I would be helping to provide the experiences of the outside community to the person I visited. But in fact, it has really been an exchange. Rather than me being the one bringing a sense of the outside world and the Epiphany community to the parishioner I visited, I realized my visitee was offering me a sense of her world and life.

“Alice,” my first visitee, was an 85 year old woman in a wheelchair, in assisted living. She had lived a life very different than mine in many ways. She had been born and raised in Colorado (to this day I have to look at a map to locate states between California and the northeast coast so she seemed rather exotic). She had ridden horses, hiked, camped, and moved to the east coast after college and marriage where she raised her family and had a career. She summered, still, on a New England island, despite the complications of getting the wheelchair on and off the boat and no cars on the island. Fearless, smart and funny, she was interested in everything. She had been very active in Epiphany and missed attending church. Through her internet connections, she kept in touch with friends new and old, was driven by friends to book club meetings, often apprising me of new books I’d missed and advising whether they worthy to be read or not. As her health failed, her humor and religious faith did not, and they kept her alert and learning to the end. Her death left a hole in my life.

My next parishioner had been born in the middle east, on the other side of world from Colorado. The tales of her upbringing, rich cultural background, education, and experiences of political change opened another world to me. It was as though I were reading a novel. Fiercely intelligent, independent, and deeply religious, she combined a strong stubborn streak with a sense of humor.

Another visitee, also in her 80’s, had been born in Oklahoma (I had to get out that map, again). When I first met her she still got about using a walker, organizing simple outings with friends to go to lunch or hiring a cab to take them all to a matinee. She spoke fondly of her days as an Altar Guild member, remembered being part of the rummage sales and Christmas Fairs’ planning and doing. Epiphany and her Christian community had been a big part of her life and she missed it and attending church, tremendously. Her cultural interests were broad; she belonged to a poetry club and invited me to join and her home was filled with wonderful oil paintings. When I asked about them, I was stunned to learn she had painted them some thirty years before. Her health declined and she moved reluctantly into a nursing home but to her surprise found the social life stimulating, and thrived there. She had monthly appointments to keep her hair colored and was very interested to learn that I knew a widower asking, “would I like him?” She kept me laughing.

Every spring the Ephiphany Visitors invite all our visitees to a gala tea held in Hadley Hall. Tables are beautifully set with flowers, there is laughter, music, and delicious things to eat. Transportation is provided if necessary. It’s wonderful to see this big group of otherwise isolated individuals all catching up, laughing, exchanging news.

I feel privileged to be an Epiphany Visitor, to have been invited to know people who otherwise I could not have. It has been a blessing.

Blessings,
Diana Obbard 

Photo: Members of Epiphany Visitors