A Healer's Journey

Fr. Nigel Mumford is currently in the ICU of Saratoga Hospital. I am told that 1,000 of us are praying for him regularly. Please join us in praying for Fr. Mumford's full recovery. ed.

From Guideposts.com:

How one man came to touch many

When he was a drill instructor in Her Majesty's Royal Marines, Nigel Mumford had no inkling he'd one day be involved in any kind of healing ministry. He retired from the service and moved to the United States in 1980, opening a picture-framing shop in western Connecticut. When his sister, Julie, a ballerina, was paralyzed with a neurological disease for which doctors could find no cure, Nigel was shattered.

Then one day a clergyman from Australia traveling with a healing ministry stood beside Julie's hospital bed and prayed for her recovery. Before leaving her room, he wrote a large sign and posted it where Julie could see: "Even when we are too weak to have any faith left, God remains faithful to us and will help us. Thank you, God, you are healing me now." That evening Julie sat up for the first time in months. She continued to recover and after three months was able to resume her life. "I was as flabbergasted as anyone that this happened," Nigel remembers. "For the first time, it occurred to me that the love of God wasn't some pie-in-the-sky concept but a power literally present for use in our lives."

Months later in his frame shop, when a customer complained of a crushing headache, Nigel impulsively laid his hands on her head and prayed. In astonishment she announced the pain had disappeared. More and more hurting people asked him to pray with them. Nigel's father, an Anglican priest in England, was now involved with a healing ministry of his own. "I can't explain how and why God's power may be working through you," he told his son. "Don't try to figure it out. Just be available to it."
Nigel gave up his business and comfortable home and began what he calls "a semi-monastic life" at a vacant church retreat house that has now become the Oratory of the Little Way. Some words he'd read in the bible now held great meaning for him: "The prayer of faith will save the sick..."

Nigel Mumford—like many others involved in healing ministries—avoids using the term faith healer. "I don't heal," he says. "God does. That may not involve physical healing as much as emotional, psychological or spiritual healing. Of course, someone who's sick should always have good medical care. But one's anger or grief about his or her situation needs to be healed, too." Today, as an increasing body of medical research shows that prayer and faith can have a profound and positive effect on blood pressure, the immune system, and a patient's recovery from physical and mental illness, it seems wise for everyone to "be available" for healing.
Read one about one woman's experience with Nigel in Being Healed.

To contact the Oratory of the Little Way, call 860-354-8294 or go to www.cysol.com/oratory.