You ask for healing, strength, and peace for your son, and you call upon the Father in the name of Jesus. That is right and good. But understand what peace truly is, lest you mistake a calm surface for the deep healing of the soul. For Christ Himself said, "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I am not come to send peace, but a sword." Why a sword? Because there is a diseased peace, a harmony of robbers, a truce with sin, which must be cut away if heaven is to be united to earth. The physician amputates to save the body; the general divides conspirators to restore order. So too, the peace that passes all understanding may first come as a severing, a disturbance, a holy war against whatever in your son, or in you, keeps him from full surrender to God.
Do not then measure peace by mere comfort or the absence of pain. The peace Christ gives is reconciliation with the Father, the end of enmity, the stilling of the mutinous passions. This is the peace the angels proclaimed: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will to men." It is a peace that can coexist with bodily sickness, for it is founded on grace. And see how Paul always begins with grace and peace together: grace first, then peace. Grace comes from the love of God, making sinners into sons, and peace follows. If you would have that peace guard your son, seek first the grace that restores him to the Father's household.
Now, you ask for physical and mental healing. It is lawful and good to bring these requests, for God cares for the body He created. Yet be careful. Many in their love for the body run to amulets, incantations, and old women's charms, calling upon God in word but practicing idolatry in deed. What fellowship has the sign of the Cross with those superstitious whisperings? If you are faithful, let the Cross be your only amulet, prayer your only medicine. To set aside the remedies of Christ and grasp after the world's mockeries, even when the child lies sick, is not faith but a kind of sacrifice to demons. She who endures, refusing such things, even if the child dies, wins a martyr's crown. Do not think this cruelty; it is a mother's true love, which commends the soul to God rather than surrender to the enemy.
Remember that the body's ailments are often a furnace for the spirit. As gold is tried in fire, so the soul is refined through affliction. I have seen many who, after countless sermons, remained hard as stone, yet at one blow of illness fell and broke and brought forth fruit. Do not be impatient if the healing delays. The word of God is a slow-working medicine; ten blows may seem to leave the tree standing, but the eleventh brings it down. So too, this trial may be doing a hidden work. Cry out, then, with tears, with fasting, with alms, but say in all things: "Thy will be done." For He who formed the ear, does He not hear? He who gave you a mother's heart, is He less tender than you? Trust the Physician when He prescribes a bitter draught.
Finally, if you would have your son raised up, lift him up yourself in prayer and in the life you set before him. The peace of a household flows from the altar of God. Let there be no warring in your own soul, no discord between your lips and your deeds. For if you ask peace while nurturing bitterness or disobedience, you build a tower with one hand and tear it down with the other. As the Church prays again and again, "Peace be unto all," so let that peace begin in you, the mother. Only when our thoughts are at rest, when our passions are subject to Christ, can we truly be called peacemakers, and then we become sons of God, able to bring that peace to others.
Persevere. Pray without ceasing. Cover your son with the Scriptures, sign him with the Cross. And whether he rises from this bed or is taken to the bosom of Abraham, know this: the true healing is the salvation of his soul, the true strength is patience in trial, and the true peace is Christ Himself, who is our peace.