No. 94 of 124 · A Name of God · The Long Healing Prayer
The Most Holy
To call on God as The Most Holy is to turn toward a purity so complete it can touch even our deepest wounds.
I call on Thee O Most Lauded, O Most Holy, O Sanctified One! Thou the Sufficing, Thou the Healing, Thou the Abiding, O Thou Abiding One! Bahá'u'lláh, The Long Healing Prayer · read the full prayer
Plain meaning · Holy
1. Set apart to the service or worship of God; hallowed; sacred; reserved from profane or common use; holy vessels; a holy priesthood. "Holy rites and solemn feasts." Milton. 2. Spiritually whole or sound; of unimpaired innocence and virtue; free from sinful affections; pure in heart; godly; pious; irreproachable; guiltless; acceptable to God. Now through her round of holy thought The Church our annual steps has brought. Keble. …
Definition from Webster's Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain). When these Writings were translated into English, the translator relied on Webster's New International Dictionary, 1934 edition, of the same Webster's tradition. source
What “The Most Holy” means
The meaning above is the plain dictionary definition of the word. What follows reflects on it as a name of God, offered for your own contemplation, and not as an authoritative interpretation of the Bahá'í Writings, which rests with ‘Abdu'l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi alone.
The word 'holy' carries within it an ancient sense of being set apart, not in the way a stranger is kept at distance, but in the way a flame is set apart from darkness. When the Long Healing Prayer addresses God as The Most Holy, it reaches for the highest degree of that quality: a purity, a wholeness, a completeness that belongs to God alone and that nothing broken or corrupt can diminish. This is not holiness as a moral achievement earned through effort, but as an essential reality, the very nature of what God is.
There is something quietly steadying about this name. In moments of illness or confusion, when the body or mind feels disordered and far from anything whole, The Most Holy stands as the reminder that the source of all order and integrity is untouched. Human suffering can cloud our perception, but it cannot reach into the divine nature itself. To say this name is to acknowledge that there exists, at the heart of reality, something incorruptible, and that we are, somehow, in relationship with it.
Holiness in the Bahá'í tradition is not remote or cold. The Manifestations of God, those rare figures through whom the divine light is most fully reflected to humanity, are understood to embody this quality in a way that is also radiant and warm, drawing people toward greater wholeness rather than leaving them feeling judged. The Most Holy, then, is not a name that pushes us away but one that invites us closer, toward whatever is most healed and most whole within ourselves and our world.
Calling on The Most Holy for healing
When we are unwell, whether in body, in mind, or in the quieter, harder-to-name regions of the spirit, calling on The Most Holy can feel like placing something fragile into hands that will not drop it. There is no claim being made that a particular cure will follow, and the Bahá'í understanding is clear that healing comes in God's wisdom, which sometimes works through medicine, sometimes through patience, and sometimes through paths we do not anticipate. But there is real comfort in addressing the divine by this name: it orients the heart toward what is uncorrupted and whole, even when we ourselves feel neither.
If you are praying this prayer for yourself or for someone you love, you might sit for a moment with The Most Holy as a reality rather than just a phrase. Consider that whatever disease or distress is present, it has not reached into the source of life itself. That source remains pure, remains present, and remains attentive. This is not a technique for producing results, it is a posture of trust. And trust, even when it does not change a diagnosis, can quietly change the one who holds it. For matters of physical health, please also draw on the wisdom of competent physicians and healthcare providers; the tradition honors both the spiritual and the practical.
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Living the Word
Applying The Most Holy in your life
A name of God is a virtue to grow into. Where is The Most Holy being asked of you right now, and how will you practice it? Keep a short note each time you return, and watch your own path with this name take shape over time. It stays on this device.
In the Bahá'í Writings
“15.3O handmaid of God! The prayers which were revealed to ask for healing apply both to physical and spiritual healing. Recite them, then, to heal both the soul and the body. If healing is right for the patient, it will certainly be granted; but for some ailing persons, healing would only be the cause of other ills, and therefore wisdom doth not permit an affirmative answer to the prayer. 15.4O handmaid of God! The power of the Holy Spirit healeth both physical and spiritual ailments. Acquiring Divine Virtues”
Read in full at bahai.org →“4.3Even the holy, divine Manifestations have had a nature in the utmost equilibrium, the health and wholesomeness of their bodies most perfect, their constitutions endowed with physical vigour, their powers functioning in perfect order, and the outward sensations linked with the inward perceptions, working together with extraordinary momentum and coordination. 4.4Therefore in these sixteen states, because they are contiguous to other states and their climate being in the utmost of moderation, unquestionably the divine teachings must reveal themselves with a brighter effulgence, the breaths of the Holy Spirit must display a penetrating intensity, the ocean of the love of God must be stirred with higher waves, the breezes of the rose garden of the divine love be wafted with higher velocity, and the fragrances of holiness be diffused with swiftness and rapidity.”
Read in full at bahai.org →“The imperfect members of society, the weak souls in humanity, follow their natural trend. Their lives and actions are in accord with their natural propensities; they are captives of physical susceptibilities; they are not in touch or in tune with the spiritual bounties. Man has two aspects: the physical, which is subject to nature, and the merciful or divine, which is connected with God. If the physical or natural disposition in him should overcome the heavenly and merciful, he is, then, the most degraded of animal beings; and if the divine and spiritual should triumph over the human and natural, he is, verily, an angel. The Prophets come into the world to guide and educate humanity so that the animal nature of man may disappear and the divinity of his powers become awakened. The divine aspect or spiritual nature consists of the breaths of the Holy Spirit. The second birth of which Jesus has spoken refers to the appearance of this heavenly nature in man. It is expressed in the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and he who is baptized by the Holy Spirit is a veritable manifestation of divine mercy to mankind.”
Read in full at bahai.org →Questions about The Most Holy
- Why does the Long Healing Prayer use so many names of God in a single line?
- The clustering of divine names in a single invocation is a feature of many sacred traditions, and in the Bahá'í writings it seems to reflect the understanding that God's nature is inexhaustibly rich and that approaching the divine from multiple angles deepens the act of prayer itself. Each name illuminates a different facet, and together they create something fuller than any single name could on its own. This particular line places The Most Holy alongside names like The Sufficing and The Healing, suggesting that purity and wholeness belong together with the idea of being truly met and truly healed.
- If I recite this prayer, am I guaranteed healing?
- No, and the Bahá'í writings themselves are thoughtful about this. Healing prayers are understood to address both the physical and spiritual dimensions of a person, and outcomes rest in divine wisdom rather than in the mechanics of recitation. For some, healing of the body is what is needed and what comes; for others, a different kind of grace, peace, courage, spiritual clarity, may be what is truly given. Please continue to work with qualified medical professionals for physical illness; prayer and medicine are not in competition with one another.
- What is the difference between 'The Most Holy' and 'The Sanctified One,' which appears in the same line?
- Both names orbit the same essential territory, purity and freedom from all limitation or deficiency, but they approach it from slightly different angles. 'Sanctified' often carries the sense of being actively set apart or consecrated, a kind of dynamic cleansing from all that is less than whole. 'The Most Holy' feels more like a statement of essential nature, the highest possible degree of that quality as simply what God is. Together in the same breath, they reinforce and deepen each other rather than simply repeat.
Listen to, recite, and reflect on the whole prayer, its more than one hundred names of God.
Hear the Long Healing Prayer