HUNT VALLEY – They came to pray by name for themselves and loved ones battling cancer, touching a first-order relic of a patron saint of cancer patients as they spoke a litany of names.
About 50 pilgrims arrived Feb. 6 for the weekly prayer gathering at the chapel of the Catholic Community of St. Francis Xavier in Hunt Valley, some traveling across state lines. In the presence of a first-order relic of St. Michael of the Saints, a 17th-century Spanish priest and member of the Trinitarians known for his deep devotion to the Eucharist, the names flowed like water.
“Through his intercession, comfort those in distress, confirm those in debt, satisfy their spiritual needs and the treasure of your grace,” the prayer says. “Remember all those who call on your help, but especially those who call on his name.”
A brief Mass celebrated by Trinitarian Father Binoy Lucka, pastor, and fellow Trinitarian Father Xavier Kachappilly Ouseph, associate pastor, led to the assembled believers praying for their loved ones through the litany of St. Michael, who lived only 33 years before illness took his life.
“People have experienced healing in their lives,” said Father Lucka, who started the post-Mass novena prayer service after he and Father Kachappilly came to the parish last summer. “Not only physical, but psychological and spiritual healing has taken place. As they come here and when they venerate the relics of St. Michael of the Saints, they feel that comfort within themselves.”
Father Lucka said many people have told him that being able to say their loved ones’ names aloud during the novena prayer brings them real comfort and a sense of divine intercession, and some even bring lists of people they want to pray for.
Russ Letra, a parishioner, joined his wife, Mina, in praying for two friends in faith who were undergoing cancer-related surgeries that day.
“It will ease their suffering and their family’s suffering and worries,” Letra said. “It helps us too. It heals you as well when you pray for somebody else.”
Letra added that the closeness of a first-order relic of the patron saint of cancer patients reflected the tangibility the Catholic faith provides.
“The beauty of the Catholic Church with the sacraments, God created us as sensual beings, and these sacraments are sensual,” Letra explained. “It’s the same with the relics, that it’s a personal connection here on earth while we are experiencing God through the five senses, and the relic is here every day.”
Dr. Patrick Walsh, a retired Johns Hopkins urology professor and Hunt Valley parishioner, comes every week because he has seen that the power of prayer brings miracles.
“The wife of a very good friend had kidney cancer a couple of years ago, and he wrote to me around Thanksgiving and told me that the cancer had returned, and it was now in her lung, her liver and her bone, so I’ve been praying for her at these Friday novenas,” Dr. Walsh explained.
“Just around Christmas, he wrote to me and told me that they had gone to the University of Pennsylvania, received some immunotherapy. The lesions in her lung have completely regressed, and the ones in her liver are much smaller. … I firmly believed that attending these novenas and praying for her played a major role in her recovery.”
Father Kachappilly said he has also seen healing come simply through a patient or loved one’s recognition that God is present in their suffering, and an army of people are holding them in prayer.
“Jesus is with us,” he said. “That makes and brings a lot of joy into their lives. With faith, when they pray, they have a real healing in their lives.”
The novena services are held each Friday, following the daily 12:10 p.m. Mass.
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