Dear Family and Friends,
I can’t believe it has already been six weeks since I last posted. Truthfully, I have been overwhelmed and brain dead. I’m pretty particular when it comes to my writing and I just haven’t felt like I had it in me to put something eloquent down. I realize this is a pretty prideful way to approach a blog that is meant to update people about my daughter and specifically, with this post, to ask for prayers. I’m sure you wouldn’t care what I wrote as long as it was coherent and you knew what was going on with Lucy. So, here I am, writing…
Since I last wrote we have applied for our passports and are anxiously waiting their arrival. Lucy was quite nervous when we went to the courthouse. She thought we were going to the hospital. Her passport photo looks like a mugshot of a three year old about to get a twenty minute timeout. I have also sent off all of the necessary information to the clinic that would be doing the stem cell injections. I am waiting on the passports before I try contacting the clinic for more details. If they contact me in the meantime no big deal, I just don’t want to contact them saying “when can we schedule Lucy…Oh wait we don’t have our passports we can’t come then.”
A couple of months ago my mother attended a funeral mass at her church. To her surprise, when her priest spoke about the woman during his homily he brought up St. Charbel. This woman was of Lebanese decent and had given Father a relic of St. Charbel. It is a part of Catholic tradition to venerate relics of the Saints. I know I wrote about relics in my post about Mother Teresa but I thought I would try to explain them better with a quote from catholic.com:
Keep in mind what the Church says about relics. It doesn’t say there is some magical power in them. There is nothing in the relic itself, whether a bone of the apostle Peter or water from Lourdes, that has any curative ability. The Church just says that relics may be the occasion of God’s miracles, and in this the Church follows Scripture.
If these aren’t examples of the use of relics, what are? In the case of Elisha, a Lazarus-like return from the dead was brought about through the prophet’s bones. In the New Testament cases, physical things (the cloak, the shadow, handkerchiefs and aprons) were used to effect cures. There is a perfect congruity between present-day Catholic practice and ancient practice. If you reject all Catholic relics today as frauds, you should also reject these biblical accounts as frauds.
The use of the bones of Elisha brought a dead man to life: “So Elisha died, and they buried him. Now bands of Moabites used to invade the land in the spring of the year. And as a man was being buried, lo, a marauding band was seen and the man was cast into the grave of Elisha; and as soon as the man touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood on his feet” (2 Kgs. 13:20-21). This is an unequivocal biblical example of a miracle being performed by God through contact with the relics of a saint!
Similar are the cases of the woman cured of a hemorrhage by touching the hem of Christ’s cloak (Matt. 9:20-22) and the sick who were healed when Peter’s shadow passed over them (Acts 5:14-16). “And God did extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that handkerchiefs or aprons were carried away from his body to the sick, and diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them” (Acts 19:11-12).
So with this tradition in mind we asked Father if Lucy could come and be blessed with this relic. A few weeks ago we finally had our appointment and Father graciously offered to administer the Sacrament of the Sick to Lucy as well. In case you are unfamiliar you can read about this Sacrament here and here. The following day Lucy’s broken tooth abscessed horribly. I was able to get it under control using essential oils that day and was hoping for a miraculous cure and regrowth of the broken part but this was not part of Gods plan. The next day I spoke to my father-in-law, our dentist, it seemed clear that the tooth must come out. I had wanted to be able to keep this tooth healthy and intact until the normal time it would fall out so she wouldn’t have a big hole in her mouth but after this ordeal I am ready to let it go. Who knows how much pain it has been causing her and we know how hard it could be for the body to heal when the person is in constant pain. I know her jaw already bothers her so anything we can do to lessen her pain right now the better. As well as, I am constantly being reminded of some of the words Father recited several times in the prayers for the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick. To paraphrase it was something like this. Lord, we ask that you make Lucy whole, through the healing power of this Sacrament heal her body and soul and make them whole again. I know she didn’t have a miraculous regrowth of her broken tooth but I am confident that the timing of the abscess was not an coincidence. God wants this tooth out for whatever reason and I can accept that even if I don’t know exactly why.
The tooth extraction is scheduled for December 2nd, tomorrow morning at 8:30 am. I ask that you please keep this in your prayers. It has been some time since Lucy had to submit to something that could be painful. I’m not sure what her reactions are going to be to the whole process. It took us a lot of persistence and patience to resolve her fear and anxiety at doctors offices. The experience at the passport office proves that this is not completely gone. Please keep Lucy, myself, the Dr. and staff that will be working with her tomorrow in your prayers. I’m sure all will go well and I will be able to update tomorrow with the outcome. Again, I can’t thank you enough for lifting us up in your prayers.
In Christ’s Peace,
Katie Guy
