A PRAYER BEFORE OPENING THAT MEDICAL REPORT.

The notification comes in while you're doing something else. The document is ready. Up until an instant earlier you were focused on spending, on a message, on a work thing. Now there's only that file.

Maybe it's a routine checkup. Maybe it comes after weeks of questions. Sometimes the most difficult moment is just the one that precedes the reading: you still do not know what will be written and meanwhile the mind has already tried to fill the space.

Some open the results straight away; others wait until they are home or with a doctor or someone they trust. If you need words for the waiting today, this prayer can keep you company.

Before opening, choose a presence

If you can, ask yourself who you'd like to face this moment with. A person can stay with you, hear you on the phone or accompany you to your appointment. It is not necessary to tell everyone everything: you can choose a precise support.

You can also prepare the contact of the professional who follows you and mark the questions. The terms of a report need to be read in the clinical context. Looking for every word online, alone and quickly, can add confusion. The doctor will clarify the meaning of the result and the appropriate steps.

Praying, for a Catholic, can stay within this path. He doesn't take the place of the medical evaluation and doesn't ask to postpone the treatment. It may be the way to entrust to God what you are experiencing as you seek the necessary information and help.

Fear can enter into prayer

In the account of Gethsemane, Jesus goes through anguish, prays to the Father and asks his disciples to watch with him. The passage by Matthew 26,36–46 belongs to his Passion: it must not be reduced to a technique to manage anxiety. However, it maintains a decisive presence for those who believe: the suffering and the request for company are not foreign to the life of Jesus.

If you're afraid today, you don't have to say a confident phrase you don't hear. You can ask for help sincerely. Even the Catechism, in its reflection on the difficulties of prayer, recognizes that the relationship with God goes through trials and questions. If you wonder where to start, here we talk about how to pray even when you distract yourself ↗, without waiting to find a perfect concentration.

The following words are an original composition of CHIARA!: not a liturgical formula, not a quotation of a saint and not a promise of healing. You can read them slowly, edit them, or just stop on one line.

Sir, stay with me while I open this result.

Sir, this document weighs more than I can say. It's still closed, but there are plenty of possibilities in my head. You know the questions I ask aloud and the questions I keep inside so I don't worry about others.

Today, I entrust you with this waiting. I don't know how I'll feel in a few minutes. I don't want to pretend I don't have a calm. I ask you to accompany me just like that, with short breath and the need to understand.

Help me find a good presence. Give me the words to tell someone: I wish you were here. Let me not be ashamed of my fear and be able to receive a stretched hand.

Support the doctors and those who care for me. Help me ask questions, ask explanations when I don't understand, distinguish what I know from what I imagine. Give me patience for the steps that will take time.

If there is good news, that I may receive it with gratitude. If there's more checks, help me deal with them one at a time. If hard news comes, let them find people who can stay and care that I can trust.

Guard those who love me, too. Help us talk with sincerity, without having to be strong at the same time. Give us respect for our silences and the courage to ask for what is needed.

Now I open this result, or I choose who to read it with. I'll give you the next step, what I can do today. Stay with me, sir. Amen.

After reading, you don't have to deal with everything together.

When you have read, you can take a moment before forwarding the document or responding to people waiting for news. You can write down a question and contact whoever follows you. You can tell a loved one that, for now, you prefer to have company rather than advice.

If the outcome is reassuring, there is no compulsory way of celebrating. If it requires insight, it is understandable to feel suspended. If it's hard, you can ask for someone to help you remember the directions you received. Concrete support can also start with a schedule, a car ride or a phone call made together.

If you want to pray for someone you love

You can replace my name with hers and also ask to understand how to be close to her. Before sending out prayers, counsels, or stories of other diseases, ask what would be good for her.

Sometimes he'll be happy to pray with you. At other times he'll want to talk about something normal or stay silent. The cure can respect both possibilities. That respect is already a concrete gesture of love, while the path continues.

If at this moment you can only stop, you can continue with a prayer for when you don't find the words ↗.