No. 15 of 124 · A Name of God · The Long Healing Prayer
The Most Praised One
In a single breath, this name lifts the heart from petition to praise, reminding us that the One we call upon is already worthy of all adoration we could ever offer.
I call on Thee O Most Praised One, O Holy One, O Helping 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 · Praised
from “praise”: 1. To commend; to applaud; to express approbation of; to laud;
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 Praised One” 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 name 'The Most Praised One' carries within it a kind of completed wholeness. Praise, in human experience, is something we offer after the fact, after a kindness received, a wound healed, a fear that passed. But here the name declares that God's praiseworthiness is not contingent on any single act or outcome. It is simply who God is, prior to our asking and beyond our measuring. To call God 'The Most Praised One' is to acknowledge that whatever we are about to bring before the divine presence, our fear, our pain, our hope, we are bringing it to Someone who has already been recognized, across all times and traditions, as the source of every good thing.
There is something quietly humbling about this. Human praise can be fickle and selective; we tend to glorify what benefits us and overlook what we do not understand. But the name 'The Most Praised One' gestures toward a praise that is total and unconditional, the kind that arises not from a transaction but from clear sight. Many spiritual traditions have understood that genuine worship begins precisely when we stop trying to negotiate with the divine and simply acknowledge what is true: that all we have, including life itself, flows from a generosity we did not earn and cannot fully comprehend.
In the arc of the Long Healing Prayer, arriving at this name feels like a small act of reorientation. Before laying out any need, the one who prays is invited to stand, however briefly, in a posture of wonder rather than urgency. Praise and petition are not opposites, they can deepen each other, but the name 'The Most Praised One' gently insists that praise comes first, grounding the whole act of prayer in something larger than our immediate circumstances.
Calling on The Most Praised One for healing
When illness or suffering presses in close, praise can feel like the hardest thing to summon. Yet there is a long and honest tradition within many faiths of returning to praise precisely because it shifts something in the one who prays, not by denying the reality of pain but by placing that pain within a larger frame. Calling on God as 'The Most Praised One' while seeking healing is a way of saying: I do not fully understand what is happening to me, but I trust that I am held by a presence whose goodness runs deeper than my current experience of the world. That kind of trust does not bypass the need for medical care, physicians, treatments, and the wisdom of trained professionals remain important gifts, and seeking them is itself a responsible act, but it can sit alongside that care as a source of steadiness.
It may help, when praying this name, to spend a few quiet moments actually noticing what there is to be grateful for, however small. A breath taken, a hand that held yours, a moment of relief between episodes of pain. This is not a spiritual exercise designed to produce a cure; healing remains entirely in God's hands, and what healing looks like, or when, or whether, lies beyond any person's power to determine or promise. But gratitude and praise have a way of softening the grip of fear, and fear, as many who work with the sick have observed, can compound suffering in both body and spirit. In this sense, the name 'The Most Praised One' is an invitation to return, again and again, to the ground beneath the ground of our need.
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Living the Word
Applying The Most Praised One in your life
A name of God is a virtue to grow into. Where is The Most Praised One 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 →“God Is the Great Compassionate Physician Who Alone Gives True Healing October 19th All true healing comes from God! There are two causes for sickness, one is material, the other spiritual. If the sickness is of the body, a material remedy is needed, if of the soul, a spiritual remedy. If the heavenly benediction be upon us while we are being healed then only can we be made whole, for medicine is but the outward and visible means through which we obtain the heavenly healing. Unless the spirit be healed, the cure of the body is worth nothing. All is in the hands of God, and without Him there can be no health in us! There have been many men who have died at last of the very disease of which they have made a special study. Aristotle, for instance, who made a special study of the digestion, died of a gastric malady. Avicenna was a specialist of the heart, but he died of heart disease. God is the great compassionate Physician who alone has the power to give true healing. All creatures are dependent upon God, however great may seem their knowledge, power and independence.”
Read in full at bahai.org →“Consider how grateful anyone becomes when healed from sickness, when treated kindly by another or when a service is rendered by another, even though it may be of the least consequence. If we forget such favors, it is an evidence of ingratitude. Then it will be said a loving-kindness has been done, but we are thankless, not appreciating this love and favor. Physically and spiritually we are submerged in the sea of God’s favor. He has provided our foods, drink and other requirements; His favors encompass us from all directions. The sustenances provided for man are blessings. Sight, hearing and all his faculties are wonderful gifts. These blessings are innumerable; no matter how many are mentioned, they are still endless. Spiritual blessings are likewise endless—spirit, consciousness, thought, memory, perception, ideation and other endowments. By these He has guided us, and we enter His Kingdom. He has opened the doors of all good before our faces. He has vouchsafed eternal glory. He has summoned us to the Kingdom of heaven. He has enriched us by the bestowals of God. Every day he has proclaimed new glad tidings. Every hour fresh bounties descend.”
Read in full at bahai.org →Questions about The Most Praised One
- Why does the Long Healing Prayer use so many names of God?
- Each name illuminates a different facet of the divine reality, much the way light passing through a prism reveals colors that were always present but not separately visible. By invoking name after name, the prayer moves the person praying through a kind of sustained encounter with God's nature rather than a single quick appeal. This also reflects a broader principle in Bahá'í devotional life, that approaching God thoughtfully and with full attention is itself a form of worship.
- Does praising God as 'The Most Praised One' mean I have to feel joyful even when I'm seriously ill?
- Not at all. Praise in a spiritual context is not the same as forced cheerfulness or denial of pain. Many of the great prayers across religious traditions, including those in the Bahá'í writings, were composed in or for moments of acute suffering. Naming God as praiseworthy can be an act of honest faith, a choice to orient toward what one trusts to be true even when feelings do not cooperate. Struggling with that honestly is itself a legitimate part of prayer.
- Should I use this prayer instead of seeing a doctor?
- No, these are not alternatives. Seeking qualified medical care for physical illness is encouraged, not discouraged, within the Bahá'í teachings. Prayer and professional medical treatment are understood to work together rather than in competition. The Long Healing Prayer addresses both physical and spiritual dimensions of wellbeing, but it is not a substitute for the diagnosis and treatment that a trained physician can provide.
- What language was this prayer originally written in?
- Bahá'u'lláh composed this prayer in Arabic. The title Lawḥ-i-Anta'l-Káfí translates roughly as 'the Tablet of Thou Art the Sufficing,' reflecting one of the recurring divine names woven throughout the prayer. Translations into English and many other languages exist to make the prayer accessible to communities around the world.
Listen to, recite, and reflect on the whole prayer, its more than one hundred names of God.
Hear the Long Healing Prayer