The miraculous healing
of a French nun, Sister Marie Simon-Pierre, who like Pope John Paul II suffered
from Parkinson’s disease, paved the way for the John Paul’s beatification,
which took place in Rome on May 1, 2011.
Then, on that very day of beatification, somewhere in Costa Rica, a terminally
ill, partially paralyzed woman on pain medication lay in bed, clutching a
magazine with a photo of John Paul II on the cover. She was Mrs. Floribeth Mora Diaz, a 50-year old mother
of four, who had been told by the doctors that her death was “just a matter of
time”.
The hopeless Mrs. Mora
said that at that moment John Paul appeared to her in a vision, with his hand
reaching out to her from the magazine’s cover photo. He reportedly told her to get up and go to the kitchen
to see her husband. Startled she
responded to the vision, “Yes, I feel fine now, I’m going, I’m going,” and from
that day on, Mrs. Mora insisted she was completely cured.
After the proper
medical examination her neurosurgeon Alejandro Vargas Roman, said, “If I cannot explain it from a medical
standpoint, something non-medical happened. I can believe it was a miracle.” The story of Mrs. Mora’s cure was recounted on a website
linked to John Paul II’s beatification.
Soon the Holy See’s experts led by the postulator in charge of advancing
John Paul II’s sainthood scrutinized Mrs. Mora’s case.
The Vatican flew Mrs.
Mora to Rome to be examined in a Church-run hospital where she was registered
under a false name. She said she
was to observe “maximum secrecy” and was to be known simply “as a tourist from
Costa Rica who had fallen ill while on holiday in Italy.” The “tourist from Costa Rica” was
subjected to tests, all of which showed her to be completely healthy.
That was the miracle
that led to the elevation of Blessed John Paul II to sainthood. Mrs. Mora was a guest of honor at the
canonization of the two popes on Divine Mercy Sunday, 2014.
We know that miracles
are a requirement prior to a candidate’s being proclaimed “Blessed” and then
“Saint.” But almost always, the miracles validated are medical in nature. While miracles involving instant cure
or healing, having been subjected to scientific scrutiny, are more dramatic and
therefore create a great impact on the public, we cannot deny that perhaps
millions of other miracles take place in secret which offer healing and a new
life to their recipients.
Take the case of
Aileen, a searcher and an agnostic for the longest time. She has kept John Paul II’s miracle on
her a secret lest people think she’s crazy. Inside the Manila Cathedral awaiting the arrival there of
Pope John Paul II in February 1981, she was stunned to see a dazzling “about
2-feet wide” light around the pope as the doors opened to let him in. She admitted she does not see auras as
some people claim to do, so she blinked repeatedly and hard, thinking maybe
there was something wrong with her eyes, that maybe the light was but the
reflection of the pope’s white vestment, etc. But why, she also wondered, was he the only one surrounded
by that indescribable light when all others around him—priests—also wore
white? To her sight, the others
registered as “normal”. The
skeptic in Aileen prevailed: it couldn’t have meant that she now had the gift
to see auras, she concluded, and eventually forgot about the incident.
Until one day, during a
retreat with her co-workers, in the early 80s. Aileen was sitting quietly in the back of the chapel, when a
priest emerged from the confessional box, his face looking as though lit up by
a fluorescent bulb from within.
Instantaneously, the image of John Paul II dazzling white at the door of
the cathedral flashed in her memory.
A question percolated in Aileen’s mind: “What happens to a priest when
he hears confession?”
Aileen, a nominal
Catholic, was not an ardent believer of confession, nonetheless she
subconsciously linked the priest’s radiant face to it. Thoughts unrelated and
disconnected—about the sacredness of the priest’s vocation, about confession,
about a hundred other things coming from nowhere—cascaded through her
consciousness but Aileen wasn’t seeking explanations, nor desiring to make some
sense of it. From that day on the
dazzling image of John Paul II entering the cathedral door would flash back in
her mind’s screen every so often, and by association lead to the thought of
confession.
Aileen had not gone to
confession for about 20 years then, but a mysterious something must have
touched her so that
That was to be the
start of a deeper relationship between Aileen and the Divine. And John Paul II, residing on the
other side of the planet, became, in a way that defied reason, a convenient
guide in her search for the Living God.
Of course, nobody knew that she was “conversing” with John Paul II, but
that didn’t matter to her—for her it was sometimes wise to “go with the flow,”
and it was like child’s play anyway.
Doors were opening for
Aileen, happening too fast for her skepticism to arrest. Without any effort from her she met
Pope John Paul II again—but this time he held her head while she kissed her
ring—at the Udienza Generale in Rome, the general audience where the pope
greets pilgrims. She was also
given a rosary blessed by the pope himself. In a subsequent “conversation” with John Paul II, Aileen
quipped, “Now, Papa, you want me to pray the rosary? You know it bores me.
But if that’s what God wants, ok.”
She saw John Paul II in
person on three more occasions, World Youth Day in Manila 1995, in Paris 1997,
and in Toronto 2002. Those times
there was quite a distance between them, but being there would make Aileen so
happy and content, and she would cry for unknown reasons the moment she would
catch sight of him, even just by watching him on the big screen. Age was overtaking her “spiritual
father,” she thought, but he would not let his failing health stand in the way
of his ministry. “What a holy
man!” Aileen would say, continuing with her lighthearted occasional
“conversations” with the ailing pontiff, not caring whether she was heard or
not.
It was only after John
Paul II’s death in 2005 did Aileen realize the gift God had given her in the
person of John Paul II. Her
“connection” with him was not imaginary, after all. At Mass, against her desire, she tearfully “told” the dead
pope: “Papa, you know how I so
want to attend your funeral but, I couldn’t do so without feeling guilty. Imagine $1,400 airfare when my niece in
the province couldn’t even go up the stage for her graduation because they
don’t have 350 pesos to rent a toga!
I’d rather save the money for needy relatives. Anyway, you know you’re in my heart; I’ll be there with you
in spirit!”
The following day, from
out of the blue, the opportunity to attend John Paul II’s funeral for free
dropped in Aileen’s lap. She was
beside herself in disbelief—she would only believe her good fortune once she was
there in the Vatican witnessing John Paul II’s burial.
Two dozen years, from 1981 to 2005—it had been quite a journey of faith for the agnostic searcher that was Aileen. John Paul II died without ever knowing he had been her companion in her journey to God. What would he have said if he knew that the agnostic had since that fateful day in 1981 returned to the fold and in fact has become a passionate defender of the Church?
The dictionary defines
“miracle” as a “surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural
or scientific laws and is therefore considered to the be the work of a divine
agency.” From “terminal cancer” to “perfect
health” is a miracle. Miracles
cure not just bodily sickness; they also cure the soul. From doubt to conviction
is a miracle. From “God is dead”
to “God lives forever” is a miracle.
From “My way is best” to “Thy will be done” is a miracle. But whatever healing they effect in a
person, they always signify a new life—new eyes, new ears, new hands, new
heart, new everything. Albert
Einstein once said, “There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is
a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.” The faithful are fearless—they choose
to believe in miracles, thus life for them is always new. And that’s the truth.
