Praying to God of the sick when you’re sick of being sick

Here is a story that every family I know can tell: All of us have been sick. For a long, long time.

In the past few months our household has endured countless rounds of colds and coughs, flu and fevers. With four kids in school and one toddler at home it’s not surprising. Over the weeks I’ve spent pouring doses of cough syrup and searching frantically for fever medications in drugstores, I’ve read everywhere about the “tripledemic”: the extra-potent convergence of COVID-19, RSV and the flu that’s hitting families, schools, workplaces and hospitals across the United States right now.

Caught in our own endless slog of hacking coughs, feverish kids and runny noses, I started stockpiling ways to pray through this winter’s sick season. Tuck one of these ideas in your pocket (along with extra tissues) to remember the God of the sick sees you, too.

uInvoke the Trinity. What better way to counter the tripledemic — or any illness from mild to severe — than by calling upon God’s own name for strength and comfort? The Prayer of St. Patrick’s