Traveling Missionary for Our Lady of Fatima
Pilgrimage Statue Shares A Powerful Story
Read the story below. The pictures are from a friend. Be sure to share with a friend. I love these pictures!
Salve Maria!
Since we are sharing stories on this line, I'd like to share one that happened a week leading to Holy Week.
There was three Italian ladies who I had visited many years ago. As visits go, this was one where you felt like it was a waste of time. People didn't seem to pay attention. All of them smoked like chimneys. It didn't seem like anyone took advantage of the visit.
At any rate, fast forward to March of 2012, one of these ladies was dying of cancer. She was diagnosed in the 4th stage. The cancer had metastasized and therefore all over her body. At this stage, I hear the person suffers a lot because generalized cancer gives the impression that all your cells are burning away. Her doctor gave her only weeks to live.
For a whole month or so, one of the other ladies (a sister-in-law) had been calling the Kansas office requesting for the statue to visit. She insisted so much sometimes, according to this lady's tale, she called several times during the day. But the schedule just didn't work out. This slave of Mary was still in Spring Grove and the schedule was full, the second week, being in Iowa and they lived in Chicago.
At one point, I noticed someone had suddenly canceled out. I found myself in the middle of Chicago trying to figure how to spend my next 4 free hours and decided to give the lady a call. At once she accepted and a few hours later I appeared at the home of the dying lady. The sister-in-law had called of the relatives in the area and all those who could, came to be there when the statue arrived.
Leading to this visit, it seems that at a certain point they asked her what else they could for her. Her only request was to see the statue of Our Lady of Fatima one last time. It was then that they started calling the Kansas office. Repeatedly, she asked when Our Lady was coming and again they were embarrassed to tell her they didn't know. Because of her repeated insistence, one of the sisters decided to buy her a 22 inch statue of Our Lady of Fatima. When the dying woman saw this, she just smiled at the sister and said; "Thank you. But if you don't mind, I'll wait for the other one."
When I came in, she was heavily medicated but they woke her. When she looked around she smiled at everybody but when her eyes fell upon Our Lady her gaze changed. I've never seen anyone look at Our Lady with such intensity something I can only compare to a few times I saw SDP gazing at a statue of Our Lady. She struggled in and out of consciousness because of the medication but every time she opened her eyes. She gazed at Our Lady in a way that only a dying woman could. What was clear was that she had accepted that she was dying and had let go of all of her attachments. It's impressive to see.
After the rosary--probably the only time the whole family prayed a rosary together--they asked me to come forward to say something to her. I just asked to offer her sufferings for the conversion of sinners. She nodded and asked if we could do this again (the short visit and rosary).
Well, two days later she died.
It's always edifying to take the statue of Our Lady to the sick and dying. There's more to the story but I'm pretty sure I've belabored it way too much already.
Asking everyone for their prayers,
In Domina, Rex
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