Blessed Mary, the Mother of the Saviour of the world Lord Jesus Christ, never fails those who seek Her motherly love and care. This is a real-life story of Catherine Sims Kuiper, assistant professor of education at Hillsdale College and a mother who was seriously ill but found extraordinary healing at Our Lady of Lourdes Grotto. As her serious illness devastated her, she found healing at this famous grotto.
The mysterious illness didn’t seem all that scary at first. It started with little things but it slowly progressed into something terrifying. She says, “At first it seemed like fragments of problems… hair loss, pain in my fingertips, a rash,” recalled Catherine Sims Kuiper.
As her disease was debilitating, she wrote in Church Life Journal saying, “The disease accelerated and began to steal my strength,”. Her “never-ending fatigue” became “muscle deterioration and loss.”
Things went from bad to worse and made her totally unable to care for herself. She desperately said, “I became entirely dependent on my husband for all of life’s daily activities and forgot what it was like to be self-sufficient or to care for or play with my children.”
The severe illness turned out to be dermatomyositis. It is a diagnosis that would be devastating for anyone.
At that time, a pilgrimage to Our Lady of Lourdes Grotto was necessary to seek the mercy and nonpareil healing of Blessed Mary. She was excited and hopeful having realized the healing power of Blessed Mary all her life. Admitting the healing power of Blessed Mary, she said, “Miracles were probably reserved for people very unlike me, I, a mostly faithful and very average sinner, could not really expect much to happen.”
When she arrived in line for the baths, she leaned her head against the grotto wall, and felt an inner shift. She said, “I prayed like I meant it because for the first time in a long time, I did mean it. I asked her to heal me not as a pious formality but because I knew she could.” She added, “My world was charged again, with God’s grandeur, with His grace, with the power of the Mother that He gave to all of us.”
Catherine felt a profound inner movement from a “feared world of mechanical force” into “Mary’s world, of grace and prayer that is the real force in our lives.” That movement was “nothing less than a miracle.” Her body was healing at the moment.
But the true healing, the blessing she experienced, was spiritual rather than physical. “I do know that my soul was reborn in those waters,” she said.
Ii is to be admitted that the miracle of Our Lady’s mercy is alive and well today, not only at a beautiful grotto in France but everywhere that her children call upon Her name.
Lourdes is the most famous healing shrine in the world but it’s a fascinating pilgrimage destination for anyone, even if you’re not in need of a miracle. People from many nations fill its streets.
We pray to Our Lady of Lourdes seeking Her healing of all the ill saying: "Blessed be the Holy and Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God. Our Lady of Lourdes, heal us for the greater glory of the Holy Trinity. Our Lady of Lourdes, heal us for the greater glory of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lady of Lourdes, heal the sick, convert sinners. Health of the sick, help of the suffering. Blessed Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse in thee. Amen
