10/09/2026
Healing through Soaking Prayer
Catherine Marshall wrote, “I am a very slow learner spiritually. Sometimes it takes me years to grasp a lesson the Helper is trying to teach me. Thus I have long pondered why I was not instantly healed of my lung disease by Jesus' presence in my bedroom that September night in 1943. That was definitely the turning point in my illness; from that night there was steady improvement. Yet to many Christians the slow-returnto-health route does not seem to honor the Lord as much as dramatic instantaneous healing.
I also asked myself: did an instantaneous or a gradual healing hinge solely on the level of my own faith? This is a theology of healing often taught. Yet to believe this places a burden of guilt on the sick person. The sufferer is already oppressed by disease; he does not need the added burden of guilt.
In our time the Helper is now giving us quite a different explanation: many authentic healings through prayer are a gradual process rather than a one-time miracle. The complete healing thus takes time and persistently repeated prayer work. And this slower timing, by the way, is consistent with all normal processes of the body, as well as of everything in nature.
Interestingly, the Helper is currently bringing this truth to the attention of a number of people scattered over the Church at large and not necessarily in contact with one another. Thus the Reverend Tommy Tyson, evangelist-teacher from North Carolina, has stumbled upon what he calls ''the soaking prayer.'' This means that the person being prayed for is gently bathed in the prayer-atmosphere for a considerable time. In this case, those praying conceive of Jesus' life and power as pouring steadily into the affected area.
Another is Father Francis MacNutt, active for ten years in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. He now asks for a frank appraisal of the results for those prayed for. ... Is the pain gone? Is there movement in the affected part of the body? Is there some or much improvement? From many such experiences Father MacNutt's best rough summary is that after prayer 75% feel demonstrable results. Of that total, 50% feel improvement but the need of further healing.
Teenager Bunni Determan was one who needed persistence in prayer. Bunni had to wear a neck brace because of severe scoliosis, which is an S-shaped curvature of the spine. In June 1975, after a group including Father MacNutt and Bunni's mother (a professional nurse), prayed with the girl for about ten minutes, some improvement could be seen. Encouraged, they continued the soaking prayer for two more hours. By then most of the curvature at the top of the spine had straightened out.
At this point in his healing work. Father MacNutt often has to withdraw, and the patient's family and friends in a local prayer group take over the prayerwork. Thus everyone concerned becomes involved in a growing and learning experience. With Bunni the healing has continued as her mother and teenage friends have continued to pray. The girl is now out of the neck brace and her spine is about 90 percent straight, despite the fact that the medical prognosis on scoliosis is usually progressive deterioration.
If the soaking prayer seems costly in time and effort (and it is), a prayer-effort of eight or ten hours for someone like Bunni compares very favorably with the medical effort of weeks and even months spent in hospitals, the outlay of thousands of dollars, the pain and trauma of operations, long series of X-ray or cobalt treatments, plus medication that goes on and on.
I wonder now why I ever expected five or ten minutes of prayer to cure everything. Or why any of us have accepted the principle, often taught, that to pray more than once betrays a lack of faith.
Asking questions like "Do you see anything now?" and looking for results actually stimulates faith. When Father MacNutt marked Bunni's spinal S-curvature in red ink, and all those praying could see a noticeable straightening after ten minutes of prayer — even if only a little — everyone was jubilant. Faith then sprang forth to undergird the group for more praying.”
Catherine Marshall wrote these comments in her book, “The Helper” (Chosen Books, 1978).