by
Damien F. Mackey
‘Go back and report to John [the Baptist] what you hear and see:
The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to
the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me’.
Matthew 11:4-6
With these words, based on his miraculous actions, Jesus confirmed to the imprisoned John the Baptist, on behalf of John’s disciples, that He was indeed ‘the One who was to come’, the Messiah.
And his healing work has not ceased to this day.
With a new miracle (the 71st) now recorded at Lourdes, and with the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes occurring next week, 11th February (2025), I have decided to up-date this article.
Caroline De Sury writes:
https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2024/12/10/lourdes-confirms-first-miracle-english-speaker-249449
Lourdes confirms 71st miracle—and the first for
an English speaker
Caroline De Sury — OSV News December 10, 2024
PARIS (OSV News) -- The list of miracles that have taken place at the French Marian shrine in Lourdes now includes, for the first time, an English-speaking soldier-patient.
Archbishop Malcolm McMahon of Liverpool, a seaside British city, officially announced on Dec. 8 that the 71st miracle had been granted to a British soldier, wounded during World War I.
John Traynor, a soldier in the Royal Navy, was hit by machine-gun fire in 1915 in present-day Turkey. He was cured at Lourdes during a pilgrimage for his diocese in 1923.
“This is a very special case, since we simply searched the archives for the result of investigative work that had been carried out almost 100 years ago,” Fra’ Alessandro de Franciscis, the doctor in charge of the Lourdes Sanctuary’s Office of Medical Observations since 2009, told OSV News. “In reality, this healing had already been officially recognized at Lourdes in 1926,” the medical professional, who is also grand hospitaller of the Sovereign Order of Malta, said.
[Millions of pilgrims travel to Lourdes each year. What made it such an important symbol of hope and healing?]
According to details provided by the sanctuary, Traynor had undergone numerous surgical operations after his injuries, but to no avail. He had lost the use of his right arm and suffered from severe epileptic seizures. Attempts at medical treatment had resulted in partial paralysis of his legs.
“He was living on a war pension,” de Franciscis said, “but in July 1923, he went to Lourdes on the occasion of the first pilgrimage of the Archdiocese of Liverpool, and he was cured on the third day, immediately, instantly, after being immersed in the sanctuary’s pools.”
St. Bernadette Soubirous witnessed 18 Marian apparitions beginning on Feb. 11, 1858, and people of her time witnessed the first physical and spiritual healing miracles after visiting the shrine or drinking or washing in the spring Our Lady pointed Bernadette to in an apparition.
To date, dozens of miracles have been confirmed by the special medical commission permanently working at the shrine, which de Franciscis leads.
“When he returned home to the U.K., he was examined by the doctors,” the doctor said. “They were amazed.”
“I would point out that his recovery was complete,” de Franciscis added. “Previously, he was almost paralyzed in his legs, and out of condition to have children. But after his recovery, he and his wife had several children,” he stressed.
“Three doctors who were with him on the pilgrimage encouraged him to return to Lourdes to testify to his healing,” the head of Lourdes’ medical office recounted.
“That is what he did in July 1926. The collegial investigation took place in Lourdes, according to the usual procedures. The conclusion was that this cure was truly inexplicable.”
Everything was properly noted by the predecessors of doctors now working in Lourdes.
“The sanctuary’s newspaper published in full, at the time, the minutes of the Office of Medical Observations doctors’ meeting, with the testimonies from the English doctors who had examined John Traynor before and after this cure.”
Because of post-war turbulence in Europe, communications between Lourdes and Liverpool regarding conclusions of the inquiry were never forwarded to the Archbishop of Liverpool.
“But this was the post-war era, and there were still organizational and communication dysfunctions at the shrine. ... In general, the healings recognized by the sanctuary in the 1920s and 1930s were most often not made public until the 1950s,” the lead Lourdes doctor said.
“After his recovery, John Traynor became a member of the Hospitalité of Lourdes, where he went every year,” de Franciscis said, referring to the religious confraternity under the spiritual authority of the bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes, which is active in Lourdes during the main pilgrimage season, providing people to welcome pilgrims at … the sanctuary’s baths.
“He was strong and healthy, and to English and Irish Catholics, it was obvious that there had been a miracle. But the official documents attesting to his recovery in Lourdes, before and after the miracle, were forgotten,” the doctor told OSV News.
“On the occasion of the centenary of this first pilgrimage to Lourdes by the Archdiocese of Liverpool, we turned our attention back to his case,” de Franciscis explained. “We undertook a search of the archives, and found the documents. They prove beyond doubt that the Lourdes Bureau had made a definitive judgment on the unexplained nature of this cure. They are clear and unambiguous.”
In recent months, Bishop Jean-Marc Micas of Tarbes and Lourdes, was able to forward a complete dossier to the Archdiocese of Liverpool, which led its archbishop to recognize the healing as a miracle, the doctor confirmed.
Traynor, who died in 1943, is therefore the 71st recognized miraculous cure from Lourdes.
The 70th person miraculously cured is still alive, de Franciscis said. She is a French woman religious, Sister Bernadette Moriau, now over 85. Her miraculous cure was recognized in 2018, after 10 years of investigation.
"And John Traynor is the first case of healing of an English-speaking patient," de Franciscis said. "Most of the miracles are French. There are Italians too, a Belgian and a German. But there were not any English speakers yet."
"I am personally sensitive to this," the doctor concluded with a smile. "I myself am Italian, born in Naples, but of an American mother, from Connecticut!"
And we read in the article, “Is there a God?”, of the scientifically inexplicable healings there: http://www.is-there-a-god.info/life/lourdes/
Healings at Lourdes
This page in brief
Apparent divine healings are a challenge to our natural way of thinking. Are the stories true? Is the evidence reliable? Are the explanations we are given true? Do they prove God exists and heals, or is that only for the gullible?
This is a brief summary of the apparent miracles at Lourdes, how they have been investigated and the conclusions of a medical commission, which found many apparent miracles had insufficient evidence to justify acceptance, but a small number seem to have no other explanation.
A world-famous place of healing
Lourdes is a village in southern France, close to the Pyrenees mountains and the Spanish border. Many healing miracles are reputed to have occurred there since 1858, when a 14 year old girl claimed to have ‘seen’ a beautiful lady that Roman Catholics believe was the mother of Jesus. Of the estimated 200 million people who have sought a cure there, millions claim to have been healed.
Where possible, people claiming healing are examined on the spot by a medical bureau, and the information is reviewed by an international commission of medical specialists, independent of the Catholic Church and including sceptics.
To be regarded as authentic, claims have to satisfy four requirements:
• the illness and cure was well documented,
• the illness was serious and was unable to be effectively treated,
• the symptoms disappeared within hours, and
• the healing lasted for sufficient time to ensure the ‘cure’ was not just a temporary remission (e.g. in the case of leukemia, 10 years is required).
The miracles
Most claims lack sufficient evidence to be verified, but 68 miracles have passed this stringent checking and have been proclaimed as authentic, while several thousand other remarkable cures have been documented. Some examples of claimed healings include:
• Margerie Paulette, 22 years old, cured of tubercular meningitis in 1929.
• Mademoiselle Dulot, cured of stomach and liver cancer in 1925.
• Louise Jamain, cured in 1937 of tubercular peritonitis.
• Jeanne Fretel, cured in 1949 of tubercular peritonitis.
• Rose Martin, cured of cancer of the uterus in 1947.
• Vittorio Micheli, cured of a malignant tumour of the hip in 1963.
• Serge Francois, cured of a herniated disc in 2002.
The stories of a few other ‘approved miracles’ are outlined below at Some stories.
Doubts and questions
These miracles which have passed the medical commission’s strict criteria are apparently sufficiently well documented to meet any reasonable requirement for evidence. If we are willing to be convinced by evidence, then the evidence is there that in each of these cases, something very unusual happened.
Many atheists and rationalists are quite sure that miracles cannot occur, and thus may not be willing or able to be convinced by any evidence. Therefore they probably will not be convinced here, and will look for natural explanations or, despite the evidence, question the truth of the stories.
Protestant christians may also be sceptical that God would heal via the Virgin Mary, and in a place where they may believe superstition is prevalent. But again, how can they explain the evidence?
Some stories
Jean-Pierre Bely
Jean-Pierre Bely was paralysed with multiple sclerosis, and was classified by the French health system as a total invalid when he went to Lourdes in 1987. He received ‘the anointing of the sick’, and when he returned home he was able to walk. Subsequently, virtually all traces of the illness disappeared. Patrick Fontanaud, an agnostic physician who looked after Bely, said there is no scientific explanation for what occurred.
Gabriel Gargam
Gabriel Gargam was severely injured in a railway accident in 1900, in which he was almost crushed to death and was paralysed from the waist down by a crushed spine. A court ordered the railway to pay him compensation because he was a human wreck who would henceforth need at least two persons to care for him. His condition continued to deteriorate. He was not a religious person, but his mother persuaded him to go on pilgrimage to Lourdes, very weak, fed via a tube and lapsing into unconsciousness. But at Lourdes his paralysis disappeared and he was able to walk, although still very thin and weak. Within a short time, he was eating normally, able to resume work and he lived to 83.
Serge Perrin
Serge Perrin began to suffer neurological problems in 1964 at age 35, and was subsequently diagnosed with thrombosis in the left carotid artery, for which surgery was nor recommended. He visited Lourdes in 1969 as his condition worsened, but there was no improvement. His deterioration continued until 1970, when he was almost blind and unable to care for himself alone. At his wife’s insistence, he visited Lourdes as second time and received the anointing of the sick. By that afternoon, he could walk without the aid of a walking stick and could see without using spectacles. He returned home, fully cured, as was confirmed by a serious of medical tests.
References
o Wikipedia on Lourdes and Our Lady of Lourdes.
o A description of all 68 approved miracles at Lourdes in The Miracle Hunter.
o A Protestant Looks at Lourdes.
o Scientific Evidence of Miracles at Lourdes in Doxa.
