The healing of Vertigo (The Blessing of a priest), The Sacrament of the Sick

The healing of vertigo  (The blessing of a priest)

A young boy of about four years of age was suffering from vertigo attacks.  (This feels as though the room is spinning very quickly around the person. This can be terrifying experience even for an adult, so it is hard to imagine how a young child would cope with it). He used to cry out in terror: “The room is falling down”.  His mother asked every priest that they met to bless her son.  He was healed of the vertigo.

The Sacrament of the Sick

A priest was called to a nursing home to give the Sacrament of the Sick to a dying elderly lady.  After he had done that, he had a cup of the tea with the nursing home’s matron.  A few minutes later to their amazment the elderly lady walked into the room.  She was healed.

Another priest gave a blessing to a very ill patient in a hospital and the patient, much to the surprise of the priest was healed immediately of the sickness.

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Favours from the saints: A bad case of laryngitis (Saint Blaise)

Each month I used to meet with a friend.  We attended Mass at the cathedral and then had lunch at the shopping centre afterwards. On one of these occasions my friend showed up with a very severe case of laryngitis.  She told me that she had been in this state for a few weeks. I introduced her to the priest.  He gave her a blessing in honour of Saint Blaise the patron saint of throats.  I jokingly remarked to her, “You should be all fixed up now because Father has blessed you.”  We went into the church. A few minutes later the Mass began.  I was amazed to hear my friend singing the hymn in her full strength soprano voice. 

Saint Blaise is the saint who is invoked for protection against throat problems. On his feast day (February 3),  there is a special blessing.  The priest takes two candles which are held in a crossed position and places them upon the throat of the person to be blessed and invokes Saint Blaise to protect the person from throat troubles.

This story is from my book: Help from heaven (Answers to prayer), which can be read free on-line here. 

How I came to know St Philomena the Wonder Worker

In 1976 a Carmelite priest started up a club for singles. I was then twenty years of age. In early May of that year our club attended a dance some miles away. I met my husband Chris there. He joined our club. I liked him very much but he took no interest in me. He also thought that I was too young for him anyway. (There is an eleven year age difference). To make matters worse I was extremely shy. By September I had made no progress in getting his attention.

A novena was needed. I went down to a Catholic bookshop (in the Sydney suburb of Parramatta) during my work lunch hour. I asked the shop assistant for a novena to a good miracle working saint. She was very busy with customers who were picking out First Holy Communion gifts, so she pulled out a box full of prayer cards and leaflets and told me to go through it and select whatever I needed. I then found a leaflet on St Philomena the Wonder Worker. It had a novena, some sketchy information and a black and white picture on it.

The most important bit of information on it was that St Philomena was a wonder worker and that she worked miracles of every kind for people in every class of society.

I had never heard of her before, although I know now that my great aunty Rose’s second name was Philomena, so that implies that my Irish great grandmother (who had migrated to Australia) had known about St Philomena and my mother has since told me that the Church of St Brigid, which was built in the middle of the nineteenth century* which was near our home (on the corner of the street that we lived in) had at one stage had a statue of St Philomena in it. (This must have been when I was very little, or even before my birth because I had absolutely no recollection of it).

I made the novena to St Philomena in September 1976 for a boyfriend. I did not specify anyone in particular and Chris took me out to the pictures the following month on October 15. St. Philomena was fast!

We were married on December 3, the following year. In December 2007 we celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary.  We have five children (three girls and two boys).

Since then St Philomena has done a great deal in my life and I have seen her work wonders for myself and for many others.

Mary Ann Matulis

(Australia)

*St Brigid’s Church at Prospect was demolished in 1975.

Some more St Philomena items

Novena to St Philomena the Wonder Worker for the healing of autism

St Philomena chaplet  

St Philomena’s intercession for mothers and babies

Many more St Philomena topics are listed here

Would you like to join a Living Rosary? Click here for more information.

Read my book: Help from heaven (Answers to prayer), free on-line.

The powerful intercession of the Holy Souls in Purgatory for their benefactors and ways to help them.

If St Philomena has granted you a favour, please let everyone know about it by putting a comment in the comments box.  Thank you.

Prayers for the souls of deceased priests

I read somewhere the comment of a priest, that there is nothing so dead as a dead priest. What he means is that when priests die there is a tendency to canonise them immediately, because people think that such a good priest does not need any prayers for his soul. This even happens when they are alive. A priest asks someone to pray for them and sometimes the response is along these lines:  ‘Father you don’t need my prayers. Say one for me instead’.  This is simply not so.  Everyone needs prayers.

A prayer for a deceased priest 

O God, Thou didst raise Thy servant, N., to the sacred priesthood of Jesus Christ, according to the Order of Melchisedech, giving him the sublime power to offer the Eternal Sacrifice, to bring the Body and Blood of Thy Son Jesus Christ down upon the altar, and to absolve the sins of men in Thine own holy Name.  We beseech Thee to reward his faithfulness and to forget his faults, admitting him speedily into Thy holy presence, there to enjoy forever the recompense of his labours. This we ask through Jesus Christ Thy Son our Lord.  Amen.

Pray for the souls of deceased priests

Don’t forget to include in your prayers for the dead, the souls of priest.  They are often overlooked because people think that they went straight to heaven.  No doubt some of them did, but not all of them. They are human beings like us with merits and faults.

Go to this webpage for some reflections on this subject.

and also go to this page for information on the powerful intercession of the Holy Souls in Purgatory and ways to help them.

Charity for the Holy Souls in Purgatory is the best form of charity.

Embarrassing and/or funny moments at Church

Do any of you have stories to tell of funny or embarrassing things that have happened at church? I will start off by relating one of my stories.

During my dad’s requiem Mass, the priest, his cousin made an embarrassing slip of the tongue. Instead of saying: Let us stand for the final commendation, he said, Let us stand for the final condemnation!

Notre Dame University nuttiness

Notre Dame University is no longer Catholic.  They have put pro-lifers including a Catholic priest into jail for protesting the honouring of President Obama (a very abortion minded president).  Why would any Catholic university honour him? No Catholic parent should waste money sending their child there. Send your child to a real Catholic university where their Catholic faith is taught and respected.

Today is Mother’s Day

Our parish priest is on holidays and we have a retired priest filling in for the month.  At the end of the Vigil Mass last night, Father gave each mother present at the Mass, a signed card (for mother’s day) with the following quote of St Therese on it:

The loveliest masterpiece of the heart of God is the heart of a mother. 

The card was decorated with roses. I was especially pleased because I have been praying to St Therese for a very important intention and that has given me encouragement regarding that matter. 

I know that Mother’s Day is a secular celebration and is also commercialized at that, but Anna Jarvis (the American lady)* who started it to honour her own mother never intended it to be that way. 

In this age where abortion has become so widespread, it does not hurt to give a genuine approach to mother’s day, recognizing the importance of mothers and babies. No pope, priest, layperson, scientist, king, queen, president**, teacher, tradesman, etc., ever got here without a mother*** yet mothers are so despised. They are supposed to go to hospital, get the baby out and turn up at their ‘real job’ in the office, in the parliament, on the board of executives etc. next week. 

Today is not only mother’s day, but it is also my own mother’s birthday. She has always liked the film: The Song of Bernadette, since it was first released in 1943 when she was a child, so I am giving her a DVD of that film. 

*Anna Jarvis was never a mother herself. (She never married). 

**President Obama your own mother Anne made sure you were born and grew up.  Let other babies be born and grown up. I send the same message to Hillary and to many other politicians and others around the world. 

***There are two exceptions to this. Adam and Eve never had an earthly mother, because they started out as adults with a lot going for them.

Loretta Young

The following story was told by the late Father Aeden McGrath an Irish missionary priest at a talk which he gave in Sydney, Australia.  Father McGrath was in China during World War II when the Japanese Army were in the country.  The Japanese were advancing toward the area where his parish was located. The local women were terrified of what was going to happen when the Japanese soldiers arrived. They begged Father McGrath who was a very short man to protect them.  There was very little that he could do. He prayed to Our Lady for help.  The Japanese soldiers arrived.  The Japanese sergeant had a big crush on Loretta Young the Hollywood actress, who he had seen in movies. He was keen to find out if Father McGrath had ever met Loretta Young.  As a matter of fact Father McGrath had met her, probably through association with Father Patrick Peyton (the founder of the Family Rosary Crusade). The sergeant ordered his soldiers to leave the people in peace, because Father McGrath knew Loretta Young!

This is one of the stories in my book: Help from heaven (Answers to prayers). The book can be read free on-line by pressing here. 

            

Instant Art (Father Paul of Moll O.S.B.)

One of my daughters suffered from a learning disability (autism).  She was having great difficulty learning to speak.  I made up special speech books for her from cheap second hand children’s’ picture books that I brought in bulk from church and school fetes. I had exhausted my supply of the picture books on this project and wanted to make up some more speech books for my daughter. About that time I read a book about a Benedictine priest of Belgium who lived in the nineteenth century.  He was a wonderworker and a zealous promoter of the Saint Benedict Medal. One day I casually prayed to him in these words, “Father Paul of Moll, you are going to have to get me some more children’s picture books or give me some art ability.” After the prayer I went and got a large art sketch book.  There was a book in the house which was illustrated with some cartoons of animals doing human activities like cooking the dinner and mowing the lawn. The pictures in the book were small. I sat down and looked at the cartoon book and began to sketch into the art book.  I did not stop to look at the drawings that I was doing. When I finally checked my work, I was astounded to see that I had made pages of professionally drawn pictures, scaled up to large size to fit the pages. I have never had this art ability before or since. From my book: Help from heaven (Answers to prayer), which can be read free on-line at the following place:

http://missionbell.homestead.com/HelpFromHeavenBook.html

There are many stories in the book. Please have a look. If you wish to give me feedback, you will find my email address on the webpage.

Help for people who are suffering from Panic attacks

Prayer is the most important thing to help the sufferer of panic attack. I have had firsthand experience of this unpleasant condition and have also given voluntary counseling, to people who have been sent to me, by a priest friend who did not know what else to do to help people who came to him, seeking prayers and help to overcome their panic attacks.

These people did recover from the condition.  When you add prayer to the equation things improve out of sight.

 

As well as prayer, I would like to recommend to your friend the following advice.  There are many books on panic attack, however the one which I would recommend to your friend is entitled: Living with It. The author of the book is Bev Aisbett. It is published by HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd.

 

A search of the Internet  will quickly locate web sites which distribute the book.  What is different about this book, is that it is actually a cartoon book with captions.  The author of the book Bev Aisbett, is a professional cartoon artist, living in Sydney.  She wrote this book, after suffering and recovering from this debilitating condition.  The visual humour in the book is extremely valuable to the sufferer of panic attack, and instructs them in what the condition really is, and the techniques which you can use to overcome panic attack.

 

Briefly the symptoms of panic attack are caused by a release of a large flood of adrenaline into the blood stream, which ordinarily is meant to protect you in dangerous situations, such as when you would flee if you saw a violent person running toward you to physically attack you, or to help you to move with great haste out of the path of a speeding car, which was coming toward you. However in the case of panic attack the body releases a flood of these chemicals inappropriately, (when there is no real danger).  However you are not sunk in this matter. There are steps that you can take to deal with the situation and be healed of panic attack.

 

I will outline some of these for you now.  If you feel the condition of panic attack coming upon you with its unmistakable symptoms of heart palpitations, sweating, shaking, extraordinary fear that doesn’t match the situation that you are in, (for example you may be just simply shopping at the supermarket, where no real danger exists), there are special breathing techniques which can be used.  Another technique is that you dare your body to unleash the symptoms upon you.  The symptoms will abate or stop completely, if you adopt an attitude that says,  “I do not care if the body unleashes the symptoms of panic attack upon me”.  The release of adrenaline in panic attacks is not able to operate when this attitude is adopted.  The more often you get on top of this matter the sooner you will recover from this condition. 

 

It has been observed that consciously switching to a calm attitude, during a panic attack, somehow enables the brain to switch off further releases of Adrenalin, thereby minimising the severity of the attack.

 

The habitual use of relaxation techniques, such as lying down and listening to soothing music or using imagination techniques, such as the imagining yourself in a very relaxed calm place such as the beach, are also useful in the treatment and management of panic attack.  It is important to replace negative and fearful ideas with the calming and positive ones.

 

It doesn’t really matter what stresses in your life led to panic attack, the important thing is dealing with it, and recovering from it.

 

The healing of migraine headaches (Saint Philomena the Wonder Worker)

A lady came to my house. She was selling cleaning detergents in support of a charity. We had a chat.  She told me that she suffered from constant migraine headaches. I asked her if she would like a book and a novena card on Saint Philomena and explained that this saint is a great miracle worker. Even though the lady is a member of the Anglican Church, she willingly agreed. A year later the same lady returned and I recognised her and asked. “Aren’t you the lady that I gave a Saint Philomena book to?” “Yes” she replied.  I then asked her if she had prayed to Saint Philomena. The lady told me that she had prayed to the saint and that her migraine headaches were healed. In addition she said that she had asked Saint Philomena to improve her ten pin bowling score and this was also granted.

Useful links 

Novena to St Philomena the Wonder worker for the healing of autism

Each person who is enrolled in this novena will be prayed for regularly by a priest at Lourdes, in France.

 

Healing of autism (Mary Help of Christians)

In the 1980’s an outdoor shrine of Mary Help of Christians was built and blessed in Sydney. Our daughter was three years of age at the time. She had severe autism and could not talk. The man who was in charge of the shrine was a friend of our family. He told us that he had a plan to hold regular gatherings at the shrine, where people would pray for specially chosen intentions. e.g. a person with cancer. He selected our daughter as the first person who would be prayed for. We willingly agreed. It was his hope that our daughter would receive a miracle healing. On the appointed day, a group of people gathered at the shrine. A Jesuit priest brought our daughter up to the microphone and introduced her to the people and explained to them that she had autism.  He asked them to join with him in saying the Rosary for her healing. At the end of the Rosary the priest asked the people to keep this intention in their prayers. There was no instant miracle that day, but in the years to come our daughter made spectacular progress.

 

Useful information 

The powerful intercession of the Holy Souls in Purgatory for their benefactors and ways to help them

 

Novena to St Philomena the Wonder Worker for the healing of autism