The Relic of Bl. Michael McGivney - Story 6

I want to catalog some of the stories surrounding this relic which has become such a touchstone of grace in our life and the lives of others.

 

This one is very recent:

Deacon Frank just passed away two days ago. He was diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer over a year ago. He was already a cancer survivor in his 80s. He repeatedly told us his time with Fr.McGivney gave him more strength and comfort than we'd ever know.

The Relic of Bl. Michael McGivney - Story 5

 

I want to catalog some of the stories surrounding this relic which has become such a touchstone of grace in our life and the lives of others.

Here's another one about a little boy who was blessed by this relic:

Baby Hayes was born with a rare auto-inflamatory disease that severely compromised his immune system. Every time he came into contact with a normal childhood illness it put him in a life threatening situation (he was hospitalized 3 times before the age of 1). He caught strep throat on his first birthday last year and he went into cardiac arrest. After 7 minutes Doctors were able to restart his heart but his body had developed many many blood clots throughout all his limbs in addition to sepsis. All four limbs were purple and turning black. The family was told they didn't think they could save him, but if they could it would be by amputating all 4 of his limbs. His uncle borrowed the relic from us, drove down overnight to _______ where they live, and met a priest at the hospital to bless Hayes with the relic of Michael McGivney. (Hayes parents had mixed feelings about this they were very scared to have other people around that could expose Hayes to more germs/illness and kill him. They had told family not to visit yet). The priest blessed Hayes with the relic and he immediately began improving. Ultimately it was God's will Hayes would lose one leg from the knee down and a few fingers, but it was far far more than any of the doctors had hoped for. That over a year ago, Hayes is now 2 and walking with a leg replacement (I can't think of what they're called my brain is asleep lol). That incident was the last time he was hospitalized.

 

The Relic of Bl. Michael McGivney - Story 4

 

I want to catalog some of the stories surrounding this relic which has become such a touchstone of grace in our life and the lives of others.

 

The relic's custodian told me this story too. They don't all have a storybook happy ending, at least in this world.  I'm going to be real honest, I couldn't make it through the family's Caring Bridge entries.  I'm quite certain that it is a grace filled story of redemptive suffering, but I'm not far enough removed from our own to be able to handle reading it.

 She wrote:

Baby Regina was blessed with the relic while still in utero last year. She was diagnosed with hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS) and a genetic diagnosis of Trisomy 18 as well. She was not expected to live very long after birth, if she made it that far. She was born four months after the first blessing and blessed with the relic a second time shortly thereafter. Although she had many struggles, she exceeded doctor's expectations and didn't just live for hours or days, she was able to come home from the hospital with her family and spent 4 beautiful months with them before she passed and was a testimony to God's grace everyday she lived. 

Last fall, Regina's family wrote: 

Regina is in the loving arms of God!
 
Regina peacefully entered into eternal life last night at 1245 am in the loving arms of her mother and surrounded by her siblings. We thank God for four glorious, joy filled months with our Regina! Everyone that met her left with a smile. We will miss her tremendously but look forward to being with her again in eternity.
 
We are very grateful to everyone for your prayers and support. We will post on Caringbridge the funeral arrangements when we know them.
 
Regina Marigold, Pray For Us!

The Relic of Bl. Michael McGivney - Story 3

I want to catalog some of the stories surrounding this relic which has become such a touchstone of grace in our life and the lives of others.

 

On June 15, 2022, the relic's custodian told us about a little boy named Patrick who was in desperate need of prayers. He was 4 years old and undergoing some intense internal bleeding that required emergency surgery. The last words of his poor mother to him as they wheeled him to the OR were, "if you need to, go with Jesus". We still had the relic at that time after Zelie's blessing. She wrote:

Patrick is out of surgery but they can't find the source of the bleed.  They've told his parents to make a list of family members who need to see him.  At this point they're praying for a miracle.  Jason, I hate to ask, but when you get a chance we'd like to offer for Patrick to be blessed with Father McGivney's relic too.  Besides Zelie he was the other special intention we had brought to Blessed McGivney's tomb on our pilgrimage.

Today (7/18/2024) she wrote to me with an update:

Patrick - 4yrs old- Patrick was diagnosed with leukemia the same week Joe came home from the hospital (week of Feb 8 2022). He went through 2 rounds of chemo but it did so much damage they needed to stop, it destroyed his small and large intestines. Joe and I made a Thanksgiving Pilgrimage to the Michael McGivney shrine in Connecticut in May and brought the prayers of others with us (***most especially Zelie and Patrick** we prayed particular hard for these two cases). That weekend of our visit to the tomb of M.M.,  Patrick suddenly and unexpectedly went into remission. His cancer was gone and doctors couldn't explain it. However, over the course of the next two months after treatment, he kept bleeding internally and doctors kept having to find the bleeds and fix them. One day they couldn't find the source of the Internal bleeding and they told the family they needed to gather their family to say their goodbyes to Patrick. There was nothing more they could do. You all overnighted the relic to them, he was blessed the next day and the internal bleeding miraculously stopped. He made such a sudden drastic recovery afterwards doctors were at a loss of how to care for him. Not a single doctor on his care team at children's hospital in Philadelphia thought he was going to leave that hospital alive with the condition his body had deteriorated to after the chemo. Two weeks after his sudden improvement doctors felt the need to sit the family down and apologize for not having a care plan for his future and what markers would need to be met for his discharge to be possible, because they didn't think it was going to be possible so they were still working to figure out what that would look like. They kept expecting him to get bad again but it wasn't happening. They requested further testing to make sure the cancer wasn't hiding somewhere else in his body and when those all came back negative they wanted to run them again and look harder. Then those came back negative too. After a lot of rehab and relearning how to walk and be tube fed, Patrick has been home from the hospital for over a year and a half, is back at school making friends and thriving as a cancer free 6yr old.

I'd written the following the day I sent the relic on June 16, 2022:

Fr. McGivney will be there tomorrow. It was unexpectedly hard saying goodbye, kind of snuck up on me.

She responded:

I know! I did the same when the vice postulator came to get it from us.  He's a part of your family now.

The Relic of Bl. Michael McGivney - Story 1

I want to catalog some of the stories surrounding this relic which has become such a touchstone of grace in our life and the lives of others.

 

I wrote this on January 14, 2022:

I have an urgent prayer request, for which in your goodness, I'm asking your prayers.  A good friend of mine called yesterday asking for prayers for his niece’s husband, Joe. He went into the hospital a few days ago after having contracted COVID because his lips turned blue.  His wife, Megan, wasn't allowed in, but long story short he's in really bad shape. He has acute respiratory failure and if he makes it through, will eventually need a lung transplant.  He's 36 years old and was fighting fit when he got the disease. He's a good man. They have 6 small children, and that family needs a true miracle.  His wife says they are asking Fr. Michael McGivney to obtain one, if it be God's will that Joe survives. This is the prayer they'll be using if you could spread the word as best you can…

God, our Father, protector of the poor and defender of the widow and orphan, you called your priest, Father Michael J. McGivney, to be an apostle of Christian family life and to lead the young to the generous service of their neighbor. Through the example of his life and virtue may we follow your Son, Jesus Christ, more closely, fulfilling his commandment of charity and building up his Body which is the Church.

Let the inspiration of your servant prompt us to greater confidence in your love so that we may continue his work of caring for the needy and the outcast. We humbly ask that you glorify your venerable servant Father Michael J. McGivney on earth according to the design of your holy will. Through his intercession, grant the favor I now present for the full and complete healing of Joseph’s body so he may return home to his family. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Thank you.

-Jason Ferguson

 

She wrote this on February 9, 2022:

As some of you may have already heard, because the good news has begun circulating: Joe is home.

Before you’re tempted to think “well of course he is, he was young and healthy”, what we didn’t know is that he wasn’t. Joe was an undiagnosed diabetic and we found out too late. We have been provided with many miracles to get us here.

As I said before, my husband is a very private person, he typically prefers people to be given details privately rather than publicly, but in this case we both want to sing from the rooftops the goodness of God and the power of intercessory prayer from friends here on earth and in heaven. It was your prayers that got us to this point and we truly can’t thank you all enough. Your prayers saved my husband and brought him home to us. It is for the love of our friends that he was healed.

Joe went into the hospital on 1/8 and on the morning of 1/11, according to his nurse, he “began to crash” and they “almost lost him”. That night, another nurse explained to me that Joe had sustained “critical damage” to his lungs from covid pneumonia. His lungs had incurred “fiberatic changes to their tissue” and had become hard and stiff causing his body, and the ventilator, to have difficulty inflating them. I was told these changes were “irreversible” and that if he survived, the lives of people in his condition are forever changed, he could need oxygen support the rest of his life and potentially even a lung transplant. I was also informed that his doctors would be initiating calls the next day to inquire after the availability of ECMO machines in the area (a 2nd stage life support machine that would do all the work for Joe’s heart and lungs in hopes that it could give his body time to heal). I was told *if* there was one available and *if* he was accepted as a candidate for the machine, it would be “a long road to recovery with no guarantees”. I was told to prepare myself for “more bad days than good”, but that we just “hope to end on a good day”.

That next day, our family decided we needed to seek a miracle for Joe’s healing, with the help of someone on their way to being recognized as a Saint, and were led to Blessed Father Michael McGivney, a hardworking humble parish priest who was devoted to helping families in distress, particularly families with a missing father in the home. Before this day, I hadn’t known anything about him but would later find out he died of pneumonia from a potential coronavirus in the 1880’s and died on the feast day of St. Maximilian Kolbe, whom Joe and I named our youngest son for.

Later on Jan. 12th , I got the call that Joe had been accepted as a candidate for ECMO in Baltimore. In a conference call with the hospitals in Frederick and Baltimore, they made sure I understood that Joe was in a fragile enough state that there was a real possibility he could die on the way to Baltimore but also if he stayed where he was, he wouldn’t survive either. We were left with little choice but to try to get him to Baltimore.

Our family sent out a message that evening, to everyone we knew to pray the intercessory prayer for Joe’s healing. An hour or two after that first conference call, at 12 or 1am, I received another phone call, informing me that while running preparatory tests for transportation in the morning, they discovered Joe’s blood oxygen gases had suddenly doubled from 57 to 112 and he was “no longer a candidate for ECMO”. This was our first miracle.

After that, Joe remained stable for days, not getting any better but not getting any worse. Until my sister-in-law Teresa and her husband Vince, made the impulsive decision to make a pilgrimage and drive up to Connecticut to pray at the tomb of Blessed Fr. McGivney for Joe’s healing. That day, there was the next small step of improvement. We took this as sign we were directing our prayers the way God wanted us to. As Catholics, we believe God likes to use his creation, including his Angels and Saints, to bring glory to himself. He sometimes wishes to draw attention to particular servants of His (in this case, Blessed Father Michael McGivney) in order to reveal His goodness through them.

On Teresa and Vince’s way to Connecticut, both my mom, and one of our loving priests, Father William K., began making phone calls to the Church they would visit, to see if there was any way to obtain a relic of Father McGivney, for Joe to be blessed with (2 Kings 13:20-21, Mark 5:25-29, Acts 19:11-12). Relics, particularly first class relics (bone fragments), are difficult to come by but we know they’re powerful tools for our use when available, so we had to try. Unbeknownst to each other, the day before the trip to Connecticut, both Teresa and Father Bill had stopped by the St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Shrine in Emmitsburg, MD to ask Mother Seton, who was gifted many relics when she as alive, to help us obtain a relic of Blessed McGivney... Well, “ask and ye shall receive”, we didn’t just get one relic but *two* first class relics that day. Simultaneously, our loving friends Courtney and David had been working their own connections to try to obtain a relic for us as well and had also been successful! As Fr.Bill said, "In one day we managed to single handedly corner the market in Blessed Fr. Michael McGivney relics!" lol. This was our second miracle

Teresa and Vince rushed back from Connecticut as quickly as they could so Fr. Bill could bless Joe with the relic, on the feast of Jesus’s first public miracle at the wedding of Cana, on 1/16. Unfortunately, when he arrived at the hospital the staff wouldn’t let Father in to bless Joe but they had reached a compromise and the charge nurse agreed to touch the relic to Joe’s hand and “say a little prayer”. The next day was the first day Joe was awake and lucid since he went into the hospital and the kids and I were able to facetime with him while he was ‘awake’.

However, I was still bothered that our priest hadn’t been allowed to formally bless him with the relic. Priests have God given supernatural authority over us, their blessings are powerful, I wanted to make use of that for my husband's benefit. Also, I couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that God wanted to use a priest to shine a spotlight on the life and good works to his other beloved priest, Blessed Michael McGivney. I called the hospital back, explained the situation, and was granted a “one-time visit” for Joe to be blessed by our parish priest.

That next day, 1/20, was Joe’s last “bad day”. Four days later he was taken off the ventilator, two days after that he was out of the ICU, and he made such strides in physical, occupational, and speech therapy that he’s now home without a need for oxygen and appears to have more “damage” from the ventilator than from covid... This is our third miracle.

Everything God puts in our path in life, whether good or seemingly bad, has the same purpose: to call us, and those around us, closer to Him. When we experience joy it’s easy to see or feel God’s love for us. When things are difficult it can be harder to see, but if you pay attention, His love is in those moments too…sometimes even more so. He wants us to know Him intimately, including His own agony in the garden and suffering on the cross, so He provides us with opportunities to know this suffering so that we might unite our suffering to His and know His love for us.

In my darkest days this past month I was granted a special grace of feeling God’s love for us, through you all, in those moments. We were so overwhelmed with the literal thousands of prayers and hundreds of masses being offered for Joe from every direction, it was clear as day that God had been building up a community around us for years to prepare us for just this moment. It no longer seemed like ‘bad luck’ but God’s loving plan for our family. Our biggest hope is that this experience hasn’t just called our family closer to God but other’s as well, that this suffering might not go to waste.

I thank you all for your patience in my lack of updates and inability to return many messages these last few weeks. I don’t anticipate that getting much better any time soon as we’re soaking in the quiet and the family time as much as possible.

Our family thanks all of you for your prayers and support these past few weeks. Your prayers gave me strength when I had none, they saved our family, and I don’t know where I’d be without you all.