Five Healings



Pilgrim Rosary


Five Healings

By Richard Bingold


In the fall of 1994, I received a call from the Reverend Father Vince Malone, pastor of St. Barbara's Church in Winchester, Massachusetts. He had been approached by Maureen O'Connor, my friend in Reading, about my coming to give testimony and pray over his parishioners.

Fr. Malone and I set a date. When I arrived a day early to prepare, I received a call from a woman who asked me to visit her nephew, Jamie, 27, who had been critically injured in an automobile accident and had been in a coma for the past seven months.

I asked my good friend, Bruce Ellavsky, an FBI agent, with whom I had visited Medjugorje, to go with me to the hospital. Jamie was lying on his bed on top of the sheets and his condition took us by surprise. Bruce and I exchanged questioning frowns of pain and concern: still in a coma, the young man was in a spastic state, shaking without stop.

I opened its case, and, holding it steady, placed the Miraculous Pilgrim Rosary across Jamie's body. In an instant, he slept as if he had been sleeping at peace all the while. Again, Bruce and I exchanged glances, but now with looks of surprise, relief and wonder.

I said, "Let's pray," then I placed my hand on Jamie's forehead and prayed for a minute, not more than two. Seeing him so peaceful, we stood peacefully. Five or six minutes passed. Bruce and I exchanged a glance and prepared to depart. But just before we did, I placed a large picture of Our Lady above his bed.

The following night, some 300 attended the solemnity at St. Barbara's Church. After my testimony, the main aisle filled with those who, one at a time, came forward to be prayed over. Shortly after I began, a woman stood before me and said, "I am Jamie's mother."

I was totally surprised. She told me that, though her son would require months of therapy, he had that very morning awakened from his coma. And then she lifted her head and looked me in the eye. "I have my son back," she said.

That simple statement would have made the service complete, but there was more to come – another four hours of stories of suffering and Our Lord's mysterious ways.

Immediately behind Jamie's mother stood two young women, who turned out to be sisters, suffering from bipolar disease, the modern name for manic depressive disorder. Both were on medication and both had husbands who were abusing them, one verbally and the other physically. They came up to me, arm in arm.

"We know you," one said. "We had a dad that was a drinker and out of fear we would hide under the day bed when he would come home, placing our baby brother in between us."

The other sister said, "We don't want you to pray for us, but rather we ask you to pray for our girlfriend, Susan, who lives about an hour away, in Lenox, Massachusetts. Susan is dying of Leukemia. She was in remission and now she is told she has about two months to live."

She was to have come with them tonight, the sister told me, but it was too risky, for she was hemorrhaging. I was very moved by their unselfish request, and I proceeded to pray for Susan. In addition, I quietly prayed for these two generous women.

By the end of the service, which had taken some four hours, the church was empty but for the two sisters, at that moment in the very first pew, heads bowed, praying before the statue of Our Lady of Medjugorje and the Pilgrim Rosary.

"They are in a bad way," Fr. Vince Malone said, "see if you can console them."

I went forward and, standing near them, asked, "Have you ever asked Our Heavenly Father to remove this depression from you?" They looked up, their expressions saying in so many words, "Are you kidding?"

With that, I said, "Why don't we go ask Him!"

One each side of me, I took them by their hands, led them toward the main altar, saying to them, "Kneel and pray to our Heavenly Father, and from the bottom of your hearts, beg Him to remove this depression from you, in whole or in part, whatever is His will for you."
I got up and went to pack up to leave. Fr. Vince came through the church at that moment, and seeing them in front of the tabernacle asked what they were doing. I said, "They are praying to Our Heavenly Father." Fr. Vince responded, "Oh! O.K." And we left them there, praying.

Some three months later, I received a call from one of the sisters. She said, "Richard, have I got a story to tell you. My sister and I have not had a moment of depression since that night. I am totally off my medication and my sister is on the mildest prescription. Our husbands are now behaving so well. We had the most joyous and peaceful Christmas you can imagine."
I said, "Praise God!"

"But that's not why I called you," she said. "I want to tell you about Susan. We called her the next morning to relate the evening. Susan asked what time we had prayed for her. We told her about 7 p.m. Susan said that she had felt well at dinner and had got up to go to the bathroom to check her bleeding and found her bleeding had all dried up."

I waited at the other end of the line, wondering what would come next.

"Richard, since then, Susan has been to every doctor in Boston General Hospital and none can find a trace of the cancer."

As of this writing, August 15, 2010, Susan is still cancer-free. This event happened in the fall of 1994.

COMMENTARY:

The events that took place at St. Barbara's Church were certainly very profound. This story reflects on the power of God to heal those who come to Him with humility and faith. We are weak souls that find it hard to trust (faith). Yet, time and time again, Our Lord shows us the way to Him. We question too much and trust too little. Yet through His mercy, He shows us how to come to Him. He draws us near so we may witness His Mercy.
Source  http://www.spiritofmedjugorje.org/