Modern Miracles

In Philadelphia

There is a Shrine to Saint John Newman, a Philadelphia Priest. One of the miracles cited at his canonisation was that of a Philadelphia Northeast man who at age 41 had a severely debilitating heart attack about thirty years ago when the surgical techniques were not as refined as now and he lost 85% of his heart's functionality . He and his pious Catholic wife had six kids under the age of ten at the time and he was the sole breadwinner. His wife had all his children praying as well as the local clergy. Someone gave her a sliver of a relic of bone of John Newman, not yet a saint, which she held to the chest over the heart of her husband daily saying the rosary over him. That woman might some day be a saint. The father lived. Not only did he live, he lived until around age 50 even with only a small capacity of heart functional with restrictions and then qualified for a total heart transplant. He died just last year- of liver cancer well into his 70s.

One of their children is the spitting image of his father. He now lives in a Maryland suburb within the Washington Archdiocese. He was likely his father's favorite but don't tell the other kids. Later he adopted an african child and his father (papa) took the child as part of the family as if it was born to them in a time when Northeast Philadelphia was still rampantly racist and we didn't have a black President.

The son is Gay. He is effectively married (had an official civil union in Vermont to someone he has been with for longer than many heterosexual marriages I know). He is the father of a seven year old African American.

The Washington DC Archdiocese spent a small fortune (how many homeless do we have?) feeding potomac feverish lawyers to fight the DC Human Rights Act and civil rights protections for gay people in the gay bashing litigation on legal 'marriage' then took spousal health coverage away from every single person, heterosexual or not who worked for the Archdiocese Catholic Charities after refusing to facilitate any gay adoptions. (Because why? the kids are better off being aborted or wharehoused in sequential foster care instability?).

Saint Matthews Cathedral in DC is apparently bucking the systemic bigotry anyway- they have a ministry called "Always Our Children" - alwaysourchildren [at]verizon.net (contact Monsignor Jameson at 202-347-3215) and also have an HIV/AIDS ministry. There will be a Mass for World AIDS Day on Dec. 1. Contact Fr. Evelio at Emenjivar [at] stmatthewscathedral.org (sub. the @ for [at])

Jesus healed anyone and everyone who came to him with Faith.