Miracles don't happen in our postmodern age--or do they? Dorothy Day and my friend Sarah

In The Keys of the Kingdom, A.J. Cronin's delightful novel about the spiritual journey of Father Francis Chisholm, a Scottish priest, Cronin sketches a story about Father Gerald Fitzgerald, who is hoodwinked by Charlotte Neily, a young woman who claims to have experienced a beatific vision of the Virgin Mary and to have discovered a miraculous spring of healing water. After reporting this amazing event, Charlotte takes to her bed,where she displays the stigmata and survives for nine days without any food or drink.

Father Fitzgerald is completely taken in and soon envisions the construction of a shrine like the one at Lourdes and an influx of pilgrims and tourists.  Unfortunately, Father Fitzgerald's junior curate, Father Francis, unmasks the miracle as a hoax when he comes to visit Charlotte and discovers her propped up in her sickbed, eating chicken and drinking beer.

Meanwhile, another Catholic family, the Warrens, are anticipating the death of their young son Owen, who is dying from an ulcerated leg. Without telling anyone, Warren's mother bathes Owen's leg in the spring that Charlotte discovered, and his leg is healed.

When Father Francis is invited to the Warren house to witness Owen's recovery, he thinks he is being summoned to administer last rites and even fears he may be too late.  But when he arrives, Father Francis finds a healthy young Owen along with Owen's physician, Dr. Willie Tulloch, a kind man but fiercely atheist.

Dr. Tulloch is happy to see his patient recover but he is somewhat angry as well. "There's bound to be a scientific explanation beyond the scope of our present knowledge," he tells Father Francis. "An intense desire for recovery--psychological regeneration of the cells."

Then Doctor Tulloch stops short and grabs Father Francis's arm. Almost desperately, he cries out: "Oh, God!--if there is a God!--let's all keep our bloody mouths shut about it!"

Even today, almost all of us know someone who was at death's door who mysteriously recovered. But, like skeptical Dr. Tulloch, most of us refuse to believe in miracles. There must be some scientific explanation, we tell ourselves. After all, we live in a postmodern age--an age of reason, rationality, and secularism. If there is a God, we damned sure don't want to know about it.

But in truth miracles happen every day. I have a good friend, Sarah Maple, who was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. Her doctors told her she could expect to live about two years.

But in 2010, Sarah's brain tumor began to shrink and eventually disappeared. In early 2014, her doctors discovered a second brain tumor, but in July that tumor too began to shrink.

It is true that Sarah has received excellent medical treatment at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. Nevertheless, almost everyone who began treatment with Sarah at Mayo and who had the same diagnosis has died. Surely the fact that Sarah has survived so long is miraculous.

During this harrowing experience, Sarah experienced a second miracle. Although she had been raised in a severe Protestant denomination that is well known for its hostility to Catholicism, Sarah had abandoned that tradition before she became ill. And during her illness--at the age of 63--Sarah entered the Catholic Church.

Many people have prayed for Sarah. I myself invoked the aid of Servant of God Dorothy Day and I am absolutely sure that Dorothy heard my prayer and was sympathetic. My friends Mark and Louise Zwick, who run the Catholic Worker Hospitality House in Houston, also sought Dorothy's aid. Friends of mine from Tanzania--two Catholic priests--prayed for Sarah and asked the Ugandan Martyrs to intercede on her behalf, and I am satisfied that their prayers have great power.

And whatever one may think of the miraculous powers of the Catholic saints, almost everyone I have told about Sarah's story--Catholic or non-Catholic-- has said that Sarah's conversion to Catholicism is miraculous.

So let us look for miracles in our daily lives--let us expect them. Even though we live in a deeply cynical postmodern world, God's healing power is surely present now as in ages past. His spirit constantly moves among us as we give ourselves over to a childlike faith that we are not alone in a soulless universe. We are all sustained in the palm of God's loving hand.

And God sent Christ to dwell among us. Mysteriously, he is present in the bread and wine of the Eucharist. And though we are not worthy that he should come under our roofs, let us have confidence that if he but says the word, our souls shall be healed.

Dorothy Day

References

A.J. Cronin. The Keys of the Kingdom. Chicago: Loyola Classics, 1941.

Let us pray for Dorothy Day's canonization in our lifetime

Designation as a saint is by no means the only measure of a person's virtue and ability to inspire spiritual seekers on the path to union with God. Yet, in a world populated with 1.1 billion Catholics, it is surely a powerful way for the Catholic Church to officially multiply the effect of saintly persons on others, through increased awareness of their exemplary lives and contributions. 

                                               Marilyn H. Fedewa

                                               Mariá of Ágreda : Mystical Lady in Blue

I just finished reading Marilyn Fedewa's biography of Mariá of Ágreda , the mystical lady in blue.  Mariá of Ágreda was a seventeenth century mystic who spent her entire adult life as a cloistered nun in a convent founded by her mother in her home town of Ágreda in northeastern Spain. 

Maria of Agreda:
The Mystical Lady in Blue

Although she never left her convent, Mariá became a trusted advisor to King Felipe IV, engaging in an intense correspondence that accumulated to a total of more than 600 letters. She was investigated by the Spanish Inquisition when she was in her 40s, kneeling before her questioners for six hours a day for eleven days. She dazzled her inquisitors, however, with her piety and sincerity, and was exonerated.

Mariá has been named one of the nine most influential women in Spanish history, but she was also an important figure in the American Southwest. Through bilocation, she visited Native Americans in what later became Texas and New Mexico, evangelizing them before they were reached by Spanish missionaries. That a woman who could be in two places at once--places separated by an ocean--seems fantastic to the modern mind; but these incidents of bilocation were thoroughly investigated by ecclesiastical authorities in the New World and were accepted as bona fide by the religious figures of her day.

Mariá of Ágreda was a prodigious writer, but her crowning achievement was Mystical City of God, her multi-volumed biography of Mary.  This work has been translated into many languages and remains today as one of the great contributions to Catholic mystical literature. 

When Mariá died in 1665 at the age of 63, a great clamor arose to canonize her. The Vatican designated her as venerable in 1673, the first step to canonization. Unfortunately, although the cause for her canonization has waxed and waned over the centuries, Mariá of Ágreda has yet to be canonized.

Why it takes so long for some worthy people to be canonized I cannot say. Even St. Thomas More, who was beheaded for the Catholic faith by Henry VIII in 1535, was not canonized for 400 years. 

Dorothy Day, Servant of God

Canonization is not simply an honor for particularly pious Catholics. As Marilyn Fedewa explained in her biography of Maria of Ágreda, canonization is a means for the Catholic Church "to officially multiply the effect of saintly persons on others, through increased awareness of their exemplary lives and contributions." As the Mass reminds us, we can invoke the intercession of the saints on our behalf, to strengthen us and aid us in the challenges of life.

And this brings me to Dorothy Day. I am one of thousands of people who pray for the day Dorothy Day will be canonized, and we have powerful allies among the clergy. The American Bishops have endorsed her canonization, and Pope Benedict spoke of her holiness in a public address he made shortly before stepping down from the papacy.

So far, although she has been named a Servant of God--the first step toward canonization--and her cause has been enthusiastically taken up by the Archdiocese of New York and Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Dorothy has not moved up the ladder to canonization.  So far, she has not even be beatified.

What does she need to become a Saint?  Two miracles.  Miracles have been attributed to her.  The eminent psychologist and author Robert Coles attributed his wife's recovery from cancer to Dorothy's prayers while she was still alive.  These are Dr. Coles' words, which are taken from his biography of Dorothy:

[S]he often wrote to me, and when my wife became seriously ill in 1973, she prayed long and hard for her. My wife miraculously--the doctor's words--survived  the illness, and she and I have never really been the same since then with respect to our feelings for Dorothy Day, who wrote to us every single morning for a while: a testimony of concern we scarcely know how to acknowledge, even now. God bless her soul. (Coles, 1987, p. xx).  

I myself have reported on the miraculous recovery of Sarah Dorothy Maple, whose brain tumor disappeared after I sought Dorothy Day's intercession, in spite of the fact that Sarah's doctors gave her no hope for recovery.  My intercession was documented in the Houston Catholic Worker, which also printed Sarah's own testimony of her miraculous recovery.  I sent a copy of Sarah's medical records to the New York Archdiocese.

Perhaps Sarah Maple's recovery from brain cancer  is not the miracle Dorothy Day needs. If not, let us keep praying for other miracles.  Let us have faith in Dorothy's power to intercede on our behalf.

As the old Christmas hymn attests, long our world has lain "in sin and error pining."  We live in a culture that has lost its way--drugged by materialism and selfishness and the insatiable lust for power and recognition. Dorothy--through her humility, through the clarity of her beautiful writing, through her saintly lifelong witness--can show us the way home.

Even now, she waits with other saints of the ages--Saint Teresa of Avila, Saint Catherine of Siena, Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross--to aid us.  Let us pray for Dorothy Day's official recognition as a saint--sometime within our lifetimes.

References

Robert Coles. Dorothy Day: A Radical Devotion. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1987.

Marilyn H. Fedewa. Maria of Agreda: Mystical Lady in Blue. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 2009.

Sarah Maple. Dorothy Day Miracle Visits Casa Juan Diego. Houston Catholic Worker, November-December, 2011. Accessible at: 
http://cjd.org/2012/02/05/answer-to-prayers-miracle-visits-casa-juan-diego-2/

Sarah Maple. Miracle After Prayers to Dorothy Inspires New Convert: My Long, Circuitous Journey into Catholicism. Houston Catholic Worker, June-August, 2013. Accessible at:  http://cjd.org/2013/07/05/miracle-after-prayers-to-dorothy-inspires-new-convert-my-long-circuitous-journey-into-catholicism/