Prayers are always answered once they are sincere and represent a wish to fulfill an urgent need. The divine fulfillment of prayers may be immediate, but it sometimes takes some time depending on the will of the Lord.
This is a real-life story that took place in 1853, when the Sisters of Loretto opened a school for girls in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Twenty years later and based on the need to design a beautiful, gothic-style chapel--then known as the Chapel of Our Lady of Light, which is now the Chapel of Loretto--the Sisters of Loretto managed to hire the same architect who had supervised the construction of the school.
However, the architect died before building access to the choir loft. Due to little space, they concluded that a staircase would take up too much room, therefore, minimizing seating.
WHAT WAS THE MYSTERIOUS EVENT?
As the Sisters of Loretto desperately looked to someone who could build the staircase but to no avail, they invoked St. Joseph the Carpenter’s intercession through a novena. On the ninth day, a mysterious man looking for work arrived on their doorstep with only donkey, a hammer and a carpenter’s square.
The man only used “simple tools and wooden pegs. The rare wood used was not native to the American southwest.” They knew he used a type of spruce wood, but no one knows where it came from or how the carpenter got while building the staircase over the course of three months, no one saw him enter or leave the chapel. Once he completed it, he disappeared without payment or a thank you.
The sisters also contacted lumber stores in the area, but were unable to retrieve any open accounts for the supplies he supposedly purchased.
WHO DID THE NEEDED JOB?
It is believed that St. Joseph had built this amazing structure himself. Yet, there are assumptions that St. Joseph might have sent someone to do thejob. No matter what, the staircase still “perplexes experts today.”
Praying the Holy Rosary or a novena with pressing needs draws us closer to Blessed Mary, Mother of the Church, Who always rushes to fulfill the needs of Her children.
