Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

Alexis Carrel was born into a Catholic family in a small town in France in 1873. He attended Mass regularly and went to Catholic schools run by Jesuits. Unfortunately, by the time he went to college he was an agnostic. He completely rejected the Catholic faith and wasn’t even sure if there was a God.

However, he wouldn’t stay that way. And an extraordinary miracle from Lourdes helped lead him back.

[See also: The Night Charles Dickens Was Haunted By the Spirit of… the Virgin Mary?]

[See also: The Amazing Deathbed Conversion of Oscar Wilde]

As an agnostic, Carrel studied biology and medicine and went on to become a world famous scientist. He developed a way to allow organs to live outside the body, a huge step toward organ transplants, and he developed new techniques for cleaning wounds. Most importantly, though, he invented techniques for suturing large blood vessels, which earned him a Nobel Prize in 1912.

This is why his opinion about alleged miracles at Lourdes mattered so much.

Although the original apparitions at Lourdes had occurred in 1858, people in the early 20th century (as they are today) were still claiming to be cured by the water there. Despite the large number of alleged cures, the French medical establishment was firmly against the possibility that anything supernatural was happening.

Carrel himself was also a strong skeptic. That is, until he met a girl named Marie Bailly.

He was on a train to Lourdes with a doctor friend to see the hysteria for himself in 1902 when he came across Bailly, who apparently had something called tuberculous peritonitis. It was a fatal disease. She was only half-conscious and had a swelled belly. Trying to help, Carrel gave her morphine, but said he didn’t think she’d even survive the rest of the trip to Lourdes. Other doctors on the train came to the same conclusion.

When they arrived, her friends carried her to the grotto, and three pitchers of water from Lourdes was poured on her. With each pour, she said felt a searing pain throughout her body. To the amazement of the doctors present, her belly started to flatten back to a normal size almost immediately and her pulse returned to a normal rate.

By that evening, she was well enough to eat a normal dinner.

The scientist in Carrel didn’t know what to make of it all. He had to admit that everything he knew about medicine made it seem like her cure was indeed miraculous. But he knew that publicly claiming to have witnessed a miracle would ruin his career. So he just stayed quiet about it all. He didn’t even want people to know he had gone to Lourdes.

However, Bailly’s cure quickly became national news. News outlets reported that Carrel had been present, but that he didn’t think there was anything miraculous about what happened. This wasn’t exactly accurate, so he was forced to publish a public reply. In it, he scolded religious believers for generally being too quick to claim something unusual was miraculous, but he also criticized the medical establishment for ruling out the possibility of miracles, saying that Bailly may indeed have been cured miraculously.

This was a public scandal! How could someone so steeped in science and so accomplished in medicine say that Bailly’s cure might have been miraculous? His career in France was over. Unable to work in hospitals any longer, he moved to Canada, and eventually the United States. He joined the Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research in New York and spent the rest of his career there. (Marie Bailly, for her part, joined a convent.)

So he had been convinced the woman’s cure could have been miraculous – what did that mean for him spiritually?

He didn’t know what to do with it exactly, since fully admitting to himself that he had witnessed a true miracle at Lourdes would require him to rethink his religious beliefs (or lack thereof).

It took him 25 years of working it out in his heart and mind, but finally, in 1939, he decided to meet with a Catholic priest in order to seriously consider returning to the Church. They became friends, and three years later he announced, “I believe in the existence of God, in the immortality of the soul, in Revelation and in all the Catholic Church teaches.”

And just two years after that, he died. But not without receiving Last Rites on his deathbed.

God had brought him back just in time.
Pray for Alexis Carrel, may he rest in peace!

[See also: The Miracle that Led “Obi-Wan Kenobi” to Convert to Catholicism]

[See also: The Little-Known Story of John Wayne’s Deathbed Conversion to Catholicism]https://churchpop.com/2015/12/25/agnostic-scientist-converted-miracle-lourdes/

https://churchpop.com/2015/12/25/agnostic-scientist-converted-miracle-lourdes/

The Supernatural Virgin Birth of Jesus as described by a mystic, and also another account by an exorcist

The webmaster would like to gratefully thank Mrs. Angelica Avcikurt for translating from the original Italian the inspiring and informative passages below. May God reward her for her efforts.

It is a dogma of faith that the Virgin Mary remained a virgin after giving birth to the child Jesus. Some believe she gave birth like any other woman. However, if she conceived in a supernatural way by the power of the Holy Spirit, and if she was preserved from sin from the moment of conception, then the birth of Jesus, true God and true man, must have been entirely unique.

The supernatural nature of Jesus’ birth has been confirmed by several mystics throughout the centuries, such as Venerable Mary of Agreda whose account of the supernatural birth of Jesus can be read here, Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich whose account can be read here, and also in the visions of Maria Valtorta whose account can be read here, just to name but a few.

In addition to these, more recently the supernatural Virgin birth of Jesus is confirmed by the mystic Sister Maria Chiara Scarabelli, an Italian mystic who died in 1994, and also by some recent exorcisms performed by Fr. Francesco Bamonte, the current president of the International Association of Exorcists, both of which we will investigate a bit below.

A Vision of the Birth of Jesus

This is the vision that the mystic Sister Chiara Scarabelli (1912-1994) had of the birth of Jesus, taken from the book, “I Tesori della Trinita nel Cuori della Madre” (The Treasures of the Trinity in the Heart of the Mother):

“It was Christmas Eve, in the evening, I was in the choir praying, when I found myself in Bethlehem (I don’t know if I was there with my body or not).

I found myself in front of Mary and Joseph who were looking for a place to spend the night, but everyone refused them, there was no place for them. Having exhausted all possibilities, Mary turned to Joseph saying, “What should we do? I feel that the moment to give birth to Jesus is approaching.”

Her husband responded sweetly, “Don’t be afraid, Mary. God knows everything and sees everything. I am sure He will provide.”

The headed towards the fields and found a shepherd. Joseph stopped him and asked him if he knew where they could spend the night. The shepherd, looking at Mary asked, “Is she you wife?”  Joseph answered yes and the shepherd said, “What an angel she is. Follow me. I think we will find an empty cave.”

After a long way, he sees a cave. He said, “I am going to see. I hope it is empty.” He ran ahead, then he turned saying, “It is empty,” and he took them inside asking, “Do you need anything? I would willingly stay but I have to take care of the sheep.”

There was a small entrance and then a small cave, I think it was where animals took shelter. St. Joseph prepared a stack of hay, a type of bed, and he put his cloak over it.  Then he told his wife, “Mary, you are tired, rest. It will do you good.”

-“Thank, you Joseph, for your tenderness. What about you?”

-“I will be at the door to guard it.”  He then lit a small fire to warm the air and sat down. After a while, he came to see if his wife was resting but he found her kneeling, and asked her, “Aren’t you sleeping?”

She answered, “No, Joseph, I have to pray.”

He left her alone and went to pray. After a while, I don’t know exactly how long, a bright light came through the ceiling which illuminated everything, and then there appeared a white cloud that enveloped the Immaculate Virgin, it was so beautiful that I don’t have words to describe it. Her eyes were fixed ahead and a ray of light was shining on her face, I don’t know how to explain.

She looked and smiled. It seemed like a conversation with an invisible being from whom the light was coming.

Sr. Maria Chiara Scarabelli

St. Joseph, upon seeing this splendor and his wife who appeared to be in Heaven, prostrated himself with his face on the ground, feeling confused. I don’t know how long the conversation with the invisible being lasted, when I saw Mary extending her arms and receiving the small child Jesus….What happiness!…What joy!….I can’t explain, not even the expression of the Celestial Mother towards the Son of God…human words are not enough…I let those who are more intelligent than me try to explain it. The light that was shining on her face disappeared. Now her gaze was fixed upon her Son. It seemed like and ecstasy of love.”

Thus we can see how the vision of Sr Maria Chiara Scarabelli is very similar to the visions of the birth of Jesus by Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich, Venerable Mary of Agreda and also Maria Valtorta.

Sr. Maria Chiara Scarabelli wrote this vision because her spiritual director ordered her to do so and also she asked the Virgin Mary to explain what was unclear to her director and expressed her feelings of inadequacy for such a task. The following is part of her dialogue with the Virgin Mary:

“How is it possible, O Mamma, to speak about your celestial face when you were speaking to the Father? The light coming forth from that Divine Being was transfiguring you.

-“My daughter, you are too small; you cannot understand or support the joy that your Mamma experienced in giving birth to the Son of God. He came out of my womb like a ray of sun that pierces a glass, and immediately He was taken to heaven to be adored by the Celestial Court, which was fair. Then, He was given to me, who am His Mother. You saw a ray of my joy, but you could not understand everything.”

“But tell me, Mamma, you already know it, but tell it to this poor little one. Is it true that when you gave birth to Jesus you experienced pain like all the other creatures, like that priest told us?

• “No, my little one. You don’t believe that and you do well. Let certain priests say whatever they want. I am telling you that I was in an ecstasy of love, I have experienced the joy of Paradise. Believe me, whom am the all pure Immaculate Conception.” (Notebook #68)

An account by an Exorcist
The following is from the book “La Vergine Maria e il diavolo negli esorcismi”  (The Virgin Mary and the Devil in the Exorcisms) by Fr. Francesco Bamonte (2014):

“It was a few days before Christmas 2006 and there was a lot of discussion about the attitude of some theologians that disagreed with the teaching of the Church by denying the virginity of Mary. Besides, even though this has not been defined, they affirmed that the Virgin Mary suffered during childbirth. Right around those days when [during an exorcism] we were praying the third joyous mystery of the Rosary, meditating upon the mystery of the Birth of Jesus the devil suddenly said,
“When that One (Jesus) was born of that one (the Virgin), there was a light like when He was resurrected.”

A few days later, during the Octave of Christmas, “To the marvel of all creation, in a light that illumined and enveloped all inside that cave, a Child was born who did not damage the holy body of His Mother. It was a unique birth in the world and there will never be another like it again. And that Mother with a stupid gaze and tears of joy received Him with an indescribable love.”

A few days before Christmas 2007:
“You cannot imagine the amazement in those eyes with those tears falling from them, because She could not understand how it was possible that She had the Child in her arms. How did She do it? What amazement!…What love!…(Here the evil one started to cry out of pain because of the harm the memory of the coming of God on Earth caused him.) And She covered Him because it was cold, and She kissed Him.”

Then he added to our great surprise, this extraordinary declaration about the love of God for us by becoming man, and choosing to suffer and die for us:
“If only you understood how much love has moved everything, if you only understood, I would be destroyed! If only one man, a single man understood 1% of the love that moved That One to come to Earth, I would be destroyed, because it is so great, so great that you cannot imagine it.”

References:

Bamonte, Francesco. La Vergine Maria e il diavolo negli esorcismi. Milano: Paoline, 2014

Comitato Sr. Maria Chiara Scarabelli. Il Tesori della Trinita nel Cuore della Madre. Conegliano, Italy: Editrice Ancilla, 2009 – See more at: http://www.mysticsofthechurch.com/2015/12/the-supernatural-virgin-birth-of-jesus.html#sthash.G9FXR3pk.dpuf