You ask for your son's healing and protection. This is good, for a parent ought ever to bear such a child before the throne of God. But consider: what true healing is, and what protection the Lord provides. You pray for body and mind and spirit; yet many seek bodily cure from charms and amulets, running to old women who mumble words, calling themselves Christians. Flee such things! They are idolatry, though they pretend otherwise. If your son lies sick and you refuse those vain remedies, you have made a sacrifice; you become a martyr in resolve, entrusting him to God alone. The sign of the Cross is our only weapon, our only remedy. Do not turn to those who peddle false hope, for they cannot add one cubit to his life, and they defile the soul.
But hear how the Lord Himself speaks of His flesh, saying it profits nothing. God forbid that His own flesh is useless! It is carnal hearing that profits nothing, that is, looking only to outward things and imagining nothing beyond. You ask for healing, seek first the spiritual, and all else shall be granted as He wills. The body indeed may languish, but the inward man is renewed day by day. If your child is sick, lament not as those without hope; rather, let your bewailing be a healing treatment, as one who mourns over a soul that neglects the Physician. And if the child is small, think of Moses: his parents saw he was a proper child, and by faith they hid him, not fearing the king's command. That grace was poured out from the very swaddling clothes. So too, were we not often children in mind, thoughtless and needing to be carried as a nurse carries the sucking child? So let patience have her perfect work.
Do not seek your own comfort merely, but let love cast out the puffing up of pride, like a child blowing out his cheeks. The self-subdued man is as a spiritual physician, settled in a calm harbor. The true protection is to be one flesh with Christ through participation, far more than the child who comes from commingling of seed. Bind your son to the Lord, that whether he lives or dies, he belongs to Him. I do not cease speaking of almsgiving and virtue; neither will I cease urging you to trust not in worldly means. For if you have not yet learned this simple letter of the alphabet, blame not the teacher who repeats it ceaselessly. Wake, then, from slumber, and set your hope entirely upon the grace of God, who is able to keep him from seen and unseen evils, and to grant the peace that passes all understanding.