Healing in the Temple

By Jonathan A. Stapley

Church History Department

Prayers for the sick and afflicted have remained an important part of temple worship from the days of Joseph Smith to the present.

Jennetta Richards had traveled across the Atlantic Ocean and half the North American continent to join the Saints in Nauvoo, Illinois. She also suffered for years with “general debility”—an undiagnosed chronic illness. In the Winter of 1844, the Nauvoo Temple was far from being complete. But the Prophet Joseph Smith had gathered a group of men and women together to perform the sacred temple ceremonies in locations such as the Red Brick Store. Included as part of these temple ceremonies was a unified prayer in which participants combined their faith in behalf of themselves and others. The journals of the Saints who attended these temple meetings are guarded and reverent when it comes to the sacred temple ceremonies in which they participated but regularly note the people for whom they prayed—often children who were critically ill. On February 10, 1844, Jennetta was suffering a great deal. Joseph held a prayer meeting for endowed members in the evening, and those who attended “prayed for Sister Richards and others.”

Prayers for the sick and afflicted have remained an important part of temple worship from the days of Joseph Smith to the present. In the temple, Church members unite and reach out to God as a community, exercising faith in behalf of each other.

Healing in the House of God

The connection between temple worship and healing has its roots in the scriptures. According to Matthew, when the Savior visited the temple in Jerusalem, he referenced the prophet Isaiah, explaining that “my house shall be called the house of prayer.” And then we read that “the blind and the lame came to him in the temple; and he healed them” (Matthew 21:13–14; see also Isaiah 56:7). In the Restoration, this pattern of finding healing in the temple follows the New Testament exhortation that we should “pray one for another, that ye may be healed” (James 5:16).

In the pioneer era, many people sent letters and telegrams to the temples, asking to be remembered in the temple prayers. Some traveled long distances to find healing in the temples, where individuals could be baptized in the temple font for healing or receive a blessing of healing from other Saints who were called to administer there. But as Latter-day Saints began to perform temple work for their ancestors in greater numbers, Church leaders ended the practice of having Saints come to the temple for healing blessings. Priesthood blessings could be administered wherever an afflicted person found themselves, but the temple ordinances had to be administered in the house of the Lord.

Even with this change, temples remain places of healing. Today, Church members can submit the names of individuals to be included in temple prayers. This can be done in person at the temple, online, or in the Member Tools mobile app.

Physical and Spiritual Healing

Jesus Christ’s ministry in both the New Testament and the Book of Mormon is notable for the care He took to heal the sick and afflicted. The Book of Mormon also explains that this healing extends to all of humanity. The Savior suffered, died, and rose from the dead so He would “know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities” (Alma 7:12). Jesus Christ invited all to “repent of your sins, and be converted, that I may heal you” (3 Nephi 9:13). This healing can be physical, but we also have spiritual and emotional traumas that can be healed in Christ.

For example, during a period of crisis in the early Restoration, Jesus Christ reminded the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of their great commission and then stated that they would have both temptations and tribulations. He explained that “if they harden not their hearts, and stiffen not their necks against me, they shall be converted, and I will heal them” (Doctrine and Covenants 112:13), suggesting that the Savior would heal their spiritual afflictions.

Today, as Church members make and keep sacred covenants, they look forward to being “sanctified by the Spirit unto the renewing of their bodies” (Doctrine and Covenants 84:33; see also 89:18). However, they also recognize that physical ailments are not the only type of affliction in need of healing. Latter-day Saints experience the full range of human adversity and in temples find healing for broken hearts, broken relationships, and even broken expectations. All are welcome to heed Jesus Christ’s call to “come unto me with full purpose of heart, and I shall heal [you]” (3 Nephi 18:32).

A Foundation of Temple Worship

Miraculous healings are documented in the lives of many Latter-day Saints. For example, after being administered to and being prayed for in a Nauvoo Temple group, Vilate Kimball was immediately better. However, not every prayer results in a miraculous intercession. When the Lord does intercede and blesses us, healing may only last months or years. Ultimately, our mortal lives end in death. But we have this hope: that “when the Lord shall come, and old things shall pass away, and all things become new,” we “shall rise from the dead and shall not die after, and shall receive an inheritance before the Lord, in the holy city” (Doctrine and Covenants 63:49).

A year and a half after being prayed for in the 1844 temple meeting, Jennetta Richards passed away. Notwithstanding her faith, and the united faith of her family and their temple community, just after 10:00 a.m. on July 9, 1845, Jennetta stopped breathing. The scriptures explain that even where there is faith to be healed, the healing comes only if the person “is not appointed unto death” (Doctrine and Covenants 42:48). Like Joseph Smith, who was murdered in the summer of 1844, Jennetta did not live to see the temple completed. She did, however, help lay the foundation of temple worship in the Restoration. And part of that foundation was her example of seeking healing from the Lord through a prayer offered by others—a prayer offered in the same manner we experience in temples today.