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As we move away from God winks for a bit and devote our time and love to understanding the big questions, we encounter a very big question, “Can prayer heal?”

Q: I read your column faithfully. My question for you is my prayer list. It just keeps growing, and I have had a difficult time reading my list and praying for each person and their needs. Sometimes I feel like a fake when I say “I will add you to my list.” But I do add them. I worry at night when I can’t seem to say the prayers, hold onto the paper and ask God to please take care of my people. Do you think he understands? A faithful reader. – (From C)

A: God understands. The question is what do we understand? Whether or not prayer heals people, your friends are very lucky to have such a compassionate friend. The recent fires in LA and plane crashes in Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia have filled the news with a flood of speakers who always throw in the formulaic phrase, “Our thoughts and prayers are with them and their families.” I do not want to succumb to cynicism, but I wonder how many of those speakers really do say prayers for the victims and survivors.

I feel that if they were serious, they would stop their speechifying right there and actually pray for them or ask for a moment of silence for everyone to pray for them.

I apologize for doubting them but you, dear C, are different. You pray for people on your prayer list. Your pious and loyal soul torments you over the possibility that God will not understand your frailty. God understands and since God knows your soul, God does not even need your words. The meditations of your heart for the healing of your friends are more than enough. After all, it is God doing the healing not you as we learn in Exodus 15:26, "I am the Lord your healer."

Your question does, however, raise one of the favorite atheist arguments against prayer, religion and God. It is the argument that prayer does not work because it is not medicine and because God does not exist and so cannot hear or answer prayers.

Actual randomized double-blind studies have been conducted by the NIH and other scientific organizations to test the healing power of prayer. Their conclusions:

God may indeed exist, and prayer may indeed heal; however, it appears that, for important theological and scientific reasons, randomized controlled studies cannot be applied to the study of the efficacy of prayer in healing. In fact, no form of scientific enquiry presently available can suitably address the subject.

I agree.

I believe in the healing power of prayer with all my soul but I do not believe in it the way I believe in the laws of thermodynamics or the Pythagorean theorem. Science and religion are both true but they are true in their own domains. They are NOMAs (non-overlapping magesteria). They are concerned with entirely different questions. As I tried to explain last week, science is about questions that are problems. Religion is about questions that are mysteries. Problems have answers. Mysteries have responses. Medicine is about the problems of health and disease. Faith is about what is the meaning of disease and how we can cope with it without losing our hope.

I have a different view. Because we are made in the image of God; and because God wants us to heal each other so that our sacred lives can be preserved for as long as possible; I believe that doctors are the hands of God. They are not merely medical technicians. They are healers and healing is a sacred act. Praying for the ill is also a sacred act, not because prayers cure disease but because they cure fear. As Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus–the Jesuits – my favorite Catholic order – taught, “Everything that one turns in the direction of God is prayer.” Healing people through medicine is prayer.

As rational but religious people (no that is not a contradiction) we must acknowledge that a prayer is not a replacement for clinical therapy. Prayer is a response to illness that reminds us that we are not alone, but we are acknowledged, and we are loved.

As my favorite poet, Mary Oliver wrote about prayer in her book of poems, “Thirst,”

Praying

It doesn't have to be

the blue iris, it could be

weeds in a vacant lot, or a few

small stones; just

pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don't try

to make them elaborate, this isn't

a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which

another voice may speak.

(Send ALL QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS to The God Squad via email at godsquadquestion@aol.com. Rabbi Gellman is the author of several books, including “Religion for Dummies,” co-written with Fr. Tom Hartman. Also, the new God Squad podcast is now available.)

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