The prayers are below. So is the part most pages leave out — the two concrete things available to anyone with a serious respiratory illness, neither of which is a text to read.
Historical Context
Bernardine was a Franciscan preacher who, as a young man in Siena, gave himself to nursing the sick through an outbreak of bubonic plague — a disease that killed by attacking the lungs. He is the patron of respiratory problems and of anything affecting the chest, and he died on 20 May 1444, which is his feast.
A Prayer for the Healing of My Lungs
Lord, you breathed life into a body of clay
and it stood up and walked.
Breathe into me now.
Open what is closed in me. Clear what is clouded.
Give me a full breath, and then another.
Steady the hands and the judgement of those treating me.
When the breathlessness frightens me at three in the morning,
be nearer than the fear is.
St Bernardine of Siena, pray for me.
St Raphael, medicine of God, pray for me.
Amen.
A Prayer for Someone Else’s Lungs
Father, I am praying for the breath of someone I love.
You know the name and the diagnosis.
Hold their lungs open through the night.
Give them a good day tomorrow, and the strength for the treatment.
Give their doctors clear sight.
Give me the patience to sit with them
without filling the silence.
And if this is not going to improve,
give us both the grace to be honest about it
and not to waste the time we have.
Amen.
A Prayer for a Child Who Cannot Breathe Easily
Asthma, croup, a chest infection, a child in an oxygen mask — the fear is specific and it does not respond to general prayers.
Lord Jesus, my child is struggling for breath
and I cannot breathe for her.
Ease her chest. Loosen it.
Let her sleep through the night without waking frightened.
Give me steadiness in front of her,
and let me fall apart later, not now.
Holy guardian angel, stay at her side.
Amen.
Get Your Throat Blessed on 3 February
This is a real thing that happens in most parishes and that hardly anyone with a chronic respiratory illness knows to turn up for. On 3 February, the feast of St Blaise, a priest holds two candles crossed and tied with red ribbon against your throat and says:
Through the intercession of Saint Blaise, bishop and martyr,
may God deliver you from every disease of the throat
and from every other illness.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
The candles are ones blessed the day before, at Candlemas. The rite is in the Book of Blessings, the red ribbon is the colour of martyrdom, and note the reach of the formula — “and from every other illness.” It is not narrowly about throats. If you have COPD, asthma, a lung condition or a cancer of the chest, that is the day to be in a church.
Ask for the Anointing of the Sick
The second concrete thing. Anointing is not reserved for the dying: the Catechism says the time has come “as soon as anyone of the faithful begins to be in danger of death from sickness or old age,” and that “if during the same illness the person’s condition becomes more serious, the sacrament may be repeated. It is fitting to receive the Anointing of the Sick just prior to a serious operation” (CCC 1514–1515).
A progressive lung disease is exactly the case the second half of that is written for. You can be anointed more than once as things change, and you ask by telephoning the parish.
Best Times for This Prayer
- On 3 February — and go and have your throat blessed.
- On 20 May, the feast of St Bernardine of Siena.
- On the day of a diagnosis or a scan result.
- Before a bronchoscopy, a biopsy or chest surgery.
- At three in the morning, which is when breathlessness is worst.
- For a child with asthma, at the start of a bad night.
Scripture Connection
“Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” — Genesis 2:7
The Hebrew word for that breath, ruach, is the same word used for the Spirit of God. Scripture does not treat breathing as a mechanical fact that happens to carry a metaphor — it treats the two as one thing. Which is why the risen Christ, giving the Holy Spirit to the apostles, does it by breathing on them (John 20:22). Praying about your lungs is not a small or an embarrassing request.
Related prayers
St Blaise has his own page, and the Saint Raphael Prayer is the general one for healing. St John of God is the patron of hospitals and the sick.
If you are praying for a relative rather than yourself, see the Healing Prayer for My Brother or the Healing Prayer for My Dad. For an illness that is not going to improve, the Prayer for a Happy Death covers Viaticum and the last sacraments.
