My Life is a Miracle

16 My Life Is a Miracle most: it was while there that I learned of the death of Pope Pius XII. I returned for a third time in 1970 with my little sister before she died, and then again in 1985 with my family. The last time I went, it wasn’t my superi- or or my spiritual director who encouraged me to return, but my general practitioner, Dr. Christophe Fumery. Ah, without him, none of this would have happened. I would go to see him every month to renew my prescription for that cursed morphine. This layman, a commit- ted Christian but a doctor before all else, had for forty years accompanied the white train of the sick of the diocese of Beauvais. It was he who suggested I return to Lourdes. “You’re not coming on the pilgrimage to Lourdes with the sick of the diocese?” “Oh, Doctor,” I laughed, “I gave up hope of a miracle ages ago!” I just can’t help it. How like me to speak too soon, without thinking. As I left his office, I felt ashamed for answering him like that. There I was, a nun for almost fifty years, with the faith anchored in my very being, and I retorted that I didn’t believe in miracles any more! I can’t get over it now, but how could I have imagined that such a grace would fall into my lap? If anyone was to be healed during that pilgrimage, it surely