Did anyone post something like this already? What do you all think of it? (I counted about thirteen alleged John Paul II-related miracles in this article.):
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MIRACLES LINKED TO LATE POPE FOUND MORE EXTENSIVE THAN THOUGHT, OCCURRED WHILE ALIVE, INCLUDING GIFT OF PROPHECY
A new book has presented evidence of what appear to have been dramatic and in some cases stunning healings linked to the late John Paul II -- miracles far more extensive than previously reported and in many instances occurring while the pontiff was still alive.
The book, Miracles of John Paul II, by Pawel Zuchniewicz, a religious bestseller in Poland, now available in the U.S., clearly demonstrates that the Pope was more actively involved in mysticism than commonly portrayed and builds an all but ironclad case for his sainthood.
As Zuchniewicz, a Pole, quotes a fellow Vatican journalist, Michael Valpy, as saying, "There is much more to the story of John Paul II than what was publicized in the media during his pontificate. He's not a politician -- he's a mystic. It's his mysticism, his following John of the Cross, his mystical relationship with St. Stanislaus and his spiritual and national ties to Poland. I couldn't understand his constant prayer, those audiences with God. When I read more about his life, I began to understand more about his person, his inner being."
That inner being turned out to have been more focused on the supernatural than on his physical surroundings.
Closing his eyes, the late pontiff prayed with passion, recounted those who were there -- at times letting out short phrases like "My Lord, my God!" as he interceded for those who asked his help, and for the world.
"The Pope treated seriously those who wrote to him with personal prayer requests," says Zuchniewicz, who covered many of John Paul's pilgrimages as a Catholic reporter. There were hours of such prayer each day. And as Zuchniewicz, marshaling careful details, demonstrates, the prayers worked.
To wit: On July 1, 2004, John Paul II received sixteen-year-old Rafal of Lubaczow in a private audience. The boy had lymphoma -- but right after the meeting was healed of the "incurable" disease. As in other cases, the cure befuddled doctors.
In June of 2002, an Italian boy who had inflammation of the kidneys and intestines as a result of a seriously compromised immune system felt a sensation of unusual warmth when the Pope stroked his cheek during a private Mass. He too was completely and inexplicably cured.
During Youth Day in Toronto in 2002, another sixteen-year-old, Angela Baronni -- ill with devastating bone cancer -- was prayed over by the pontiff, who put his hands on her head and made the Sign of the Cross. Afterward, her body showed no trace of cancer.
In 1999, during a visit to Poland, John Paul became aware of a boy with a "hopeless" malignant brain tumor. The Pope prayed for the boy and soon after, writes Zuchniewicz, "tomograms indicated that the tumor was gone."
In one case, says Zuchniewicz, the parents of an extremely ill child sent a telegram imploring the Pope's prayer and the youngster was healed "at precisely that moment in which John Paul II prayed for him."
These are not rumors. These are not unverified. They are stories docuмented by a professional journalist. Intriguingly, a Jєωιѕн man who attended a Papal Mass at Castel Gandolfo and took Communion from the Pope without knowing that non-Catholics should not do so was nonetheless healed of a brain tumor.
In Canada, a Chinese woman who had suffered three consecutive miscarriages recounts how the Pope exhibited the gifts of both healing and prophecy. For many years this woman, Mrs. Lieo, who hails from Vancouver, had been unable to conceive, or suffered the abbreviated pregnancies when she did -- until she went on a pilgrimage to the Vatican. During the audience with the Holy Father, she happened to be sitting next to him and joined others who were telling John Paul II about their problems.
"I also said a few words about my problem in English. Then the Pope told me that I would have a son and he made the Sign of the Cross over my head. When we set out for Rome, I had no idea that I was pregnant. This time, all went well and I gave birth to a son, whom we named after the Holy Father (John Paul Lieo)."
As it turns out, Rome was the site of many healings, as was World Youth Day in Toronto. "Twenty-nine-year-old Emil Barbar of Australia was born with cerebral palsy," writes the journalist. "Doctors told his parents that he would always need a wheelchair. As he grew older, it was found that Emil mumbled and could not speak in clear phrases.
"In 1980, his mother Rosemary took him to Rome. On Easter Monday, they gathered together with a group of disabled people at St. Peter's Square. Seeing John Paul II, Emil began to shout: 'Holy Father, come this way! Come this way!'
"The Pope gave him a kiss on the head. His mother began to cry. The Holy Father asked her, 'Why are you crying?' 'My son can't walk,' she said. 'Take him to Lourdes,' was the reply. 'You will see that he will walk.'
"The Pope handed her a cross and rosary. Rosemary and Emil traveled to the French shrine. There, she immersed Emil in the pool that formed following a Marian apparition. Six weeks later, he stood up and got out of his wheelchair!"
The cases are fascinating -- never too many, no one the same, a splendid read and certainly an uplifting gift for those who need uplift. The healings were handled, writes the author, with a saintly humility. Said his long-time secretary: "I can only say that the Holy Father did not want to hear about it and always said, 'God performs miracles, I simply pray. Those are Divine mysteries.'"
When a woman was cured of cancer that had metastasized, the Pope's simple response: "Her faith healed her."
Multiple sclerosis. Epilepsy. Psychological difficulties. In yet another case, John Paul II sent a hopeless non-believer to the Divine Mercy devotion. "Entrust yourself to Him and pray to my Sister Faustina asking for her intercession," the Pope told the man -- who, it is recounted, then prayed before an image of Divine Mercy at an altar (in Trent), felt a twitch in his body, had a vision of Jesus, felt a warmth pass through his body, and suddenly realized he was standing out of the wheelchair to which he had been condemned for years!
During Youth Day in Toronto, the clouds parted in a most peculiar manner when the Pope began Mass and a woman named Paulina was healed of cancer. "As the Pope arrived, the dark clouds seemed to part and the sun shone down," said he father. "We felt at that moment as though something incredible was happening."
Mysterious it was how John Paul's own right index finger (photo above, left), badly wounded in the assassination attempt (when it deflected a bullet), rebounded so quickly and without treatment after the shooting -- as was the fact that the bullet missed all major arteries. Meanwhile, Ali Agca's gun jammed before he could get off more shots.
And the ambulance carrying the wounded pontiff reached Rome's Gemelli Clinic in eight minutes -- "even though it usually takes forty minutes given the traffic at that time of day," writes Zuchniewicz.
When Hurricane Emily threatened the town of Merida in the Yucatan, Mexico, a woman testified that she looked at a picture of Karol Wojtyla with his arms raised in a blessing. Feeling his clear presence, she invoked the Pope's intercession -- and though right in the storm's path, her town inexplicably escaped all of the storm's fury, in a way that even dumbfounded the governor. A satellite image "looked like an oil painting on which the artist's finger had been passed at the last moment so as to create a small path through the clouds of the hurricane."
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