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Miraculous healing at Knock Shrine confirmed by Irish bishops

September 5, 2019 CNA Daily News 0

Tuam, Ireland, Sep 5, 2019 / 04:24 pm (CNA).- The Catholic Church in Ireland has for the first time recognized a miracle attached to the Knock Shrine, where a woman was cured of multiple sclerosis thirty years ago.

Marion Carroll had been bedridden for years until she was healed in 1989 during a blessing with a monstrance at the shrine.

“I recognise that Marion was healed from her long-standing illness while on pilgrimage in this sacred place,” Bishop Francis Duffy of Ardagh and Clonmacnois said in his homily during a Sept. 1 Mass at the shrine, located in Knock, about 20 miles north of Tuam.

“Many have attested to the dramatic change that came about in Marion here and on her return to Athlone in 1989. Without doubt there was a healing, a cure of the illness that beset Marion for several years. Marion was liberated from sickness and its impact on her and on her family. It is also a healing for which there is no medical explanation at present, it is definite and yet defies medical explanation.”

Bishop Duffy was leading a diocesan pilgrimage to the shrine, in which Marion and her family participated.

Archbishop Michael Neary of Tuam also spoke at the Mass, saying, “today the Church formally acknowledges that this healing does not admit of any medical explanation and joins in prayer, praise and thanksgiving to God. In these situations, the Church must always be very cautious. This is illustrated by the fact that thirty years have elapsed since this took place, during which time the examination by the Medical Bureau testifies that there is no medical explanation for this healing.”

While many visitors to the shrine have claimed cures or favors, this is the first cure which the Church in Ireland has recognized as miraculous.

Carroll was cured in 1989, when Bishop Colm O’Reilly, then Bishop of Ardagh and Clonmacnois, blessed her with a monstrance.

She had been taken to the shrine on a stretcher, as she was paralyzed. Her eyesight was also impaired, and she was epileptic.

After the Mass, she was taken to a rest and care centre, where she asked that her stretcher be opened; when it was, she stood up and was well.

Since her cure, Carroll has volunteered at the shrine, assisting pilgrims.

The Knock Shrine is built on the site of an 1879 apparition of the Virgin Mary, St. Joseph, St. John the Evangelist, angels, and the Lamb of God on the south gable of the town church. For a period of about two hours, a crowd gathered to adore the apparition and to pray the rosary. Despite a rainstorm, the ground around the gable did not get wet.

Unlike most other Marian apparitions, the Virgin Mary was silent the entire time and did not offer any sort of message or prophesy.

Vatican officials found the apparition at Knock to be “trustworthy and satisfactory” after two separate commissions, in 1879 and in 1936.

Shortly after the apparition, Knock became a sight of pilgrimage. Pilgrims chipped away the original wall by taking away pieces of cement as relics.

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From inspiration to adoption: A story of working with Mother Teresa

September 5, 2019 CNA Daily News 0

Rome, Italy, Sep 5, 2019 / 11:24 am (CNA).- More than 20 years ago, Ann Pollak traveled to Calcutta, hoping to volunteer alongside Mother Teresa. The experience would spark a years-long process that would eventually lead her to adopt a severely handicapped child from one of the care centers run by the Missionaries of Charity. 

“It has not been easy, at all, but the blessings have far, far outweighed the sacrifices,” Pollak told CNA. “Oddly, in adopting a blind child, I began seeing the world through my own eyes from a different perspective.”

Nearly 18 years ago, Pollak adopted a child from one of Mother Teresa’s orphanages. But adoption was not initially her intent. 

In 1995, Pollak travelled to India in order to meet Mother Teresa. She spent two weeks doing volunteer work and was impressed with Mother Teresa’s constant smile, and the fact that despite winning a Nobel Prize and being globally famous, the religious sister was very approachable.

Pollak would return to do volunteer work numerous times in the years that followed. In 1997, about a month before Mother Teresa’s death, she was working with handicapped children. She was assigned to feed one little girl, Rekha, who was blind, autistic and mentally delayed. 

“She had the sweetest smile on her face,” Pollak recalled of Rekha. “I just fell in love with her.” She also believed that the child had potential to develop and grow, if she was able to get the proper care and attention from a family.

A year later, Pollak returned to India to see if the little girl was still there. She was. 

Pollak said that she wanted to find the young girl a family, or at least a school, somewhere that would be able to offer the proper care for someone with her particular needs.

But as time went on, she became frustrated with her inability to find anyone to care for the girl. She began praying every day, asking God for a solution. Although she had not previously considered adoption, she began to feel an inner call to adopt Rekha.

“I couldn’t find any other solution,” she reflected.

It took almost a year to prepare and get everything in order. Numerous complications arose. Pollak recalled praying what Mother Teresa had termed her “Little Novena” – a series of 9 Memorare prayers offered consecutively. 

Within days, the complications had been resolved and the adoption process was complete. “I attribute that to the intercession of Mother Teresa and also the Blessed Virgin Mary,” Pollak said.

Rekha was seven-and-a-half years old at the time of her adoption. Now, almost 18 years later, Pollak said that her daughter has come a long way. While some of her conditions can never be cured – for example, she was born without eyes, and therefore has no chance of ever being able to see – there are other areas in which she has developed significantly. 

Despite autism and mental delays, Rekha was able to start speaking at age 15. Once she started speaking, she began picking up more and more words, and now has a basic vocabulary.

But the transition was not easy. For years after she was taken away from India, Rehka had frequent, violent fits. 

“During these fits, she would bite herself, rip off her clothes, throw herself on the floor…and she also physically hurt me,” Pollak said, recalling times that her daughter would bite her or tear out her hair.

Pollak believes that these fits were caused by Rekha’s inability to communicate her needs, combined with insecurity at being transported to a new and unknown life, as well as hormonal changes as she went through puberty.

Thanks to medication and a great deal of devotion and time, Pollak said that “Rekha is today a much calmer individual – the fits still occur but they are much less intense and much less frequent.”

“Rekha has helped me to become a more patient person!” she added. 

Many of Pollak’s friends and family were not initially supportive, with some of them believing that she was making a serious mistake. A dear friend told her that she was ruining her life.

Her younger sister was married to an adoptee and was sympathetic and supportive, she recalled. But her older sister made it clear that she wanted nothing to do with the adoption, including assuming any responsibility if anything were to happen Pollak. 

But over time, Pollak said she seen how her daughter has brought out the best in humanity.

“Over the…years that she’s been with me, I have witnessed the graciousness, kindness and love of other human beings, from people whom we’ve met maybe only on a bus ride to people who have become a part of our life,” she said, pointing specifically to the caregivers they had worked with over the years.

“People frequently stare at us in public because we are sort of an ‘odd couple’ and because Rekha is often very boisterous, but those stares are so often accompanied by smiles.”

On Sept. 4, 2016, Pollak and Rehka were both able to attend Mother Teresa’s canonization, an opportunity that Pollak considers incredibly special. 

“Today, I believe that my mission to meet Mother Teresa indirectly led me to Rekha,” she said, reflecting on her own journey to adoption. While there were many factors in her decision, which unfolded over several years, she said that watching the saint’s work more than 20 years ago was part of the inspiration that led to her become more deeply involved in the life of the girl she would go on to adopt.

“Seeing Mother Teresa’s work in Calcutta and in other places in the word has a strong impact, and can turn a casual observer into a protagonist,” she said. 

 

An earlier version of this story was originally published on CNA Sept. 5, 2017.

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