Angelus News | July 29, 2022 | Vol. 7 No. 15
On the cover: A pilgrim walks on his knees outside the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in 2019. For our special pilgrimage issue, on Page 10 Mike Aquilina writes on how the urge to leave everything and travel afar is as old as Christianity itself. On Page 14, Elise Ureneck recounts the unexpected graces of her last pilgrimage with her late mother, and on Page 16, California historian Stephen Binz points the way to the pilgrim path in our own backyard. On Page 20, Pasadena native Jenny Gorman Patton tells of finding the healing she needed, rather than the one she wanted, at the Marian shrine of Lourdes, France.
On the cover: A pilgrim walks on his knees outside the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in 2019. For our special pilgrimage issue, on Page 10 Mike Aquilina writes on how the urge to leave everything and travel afar is as old as Christianity itself. On Page 14, Elise Ureneck recounts the unexpected graces of her last pilgrimage with her late mother, and on Page 16, California historian Stephen Binz points the way to the pilgrim path in our own backyard. On Page 20, Pasadena native Jenny Gorman Patton tells of finding the healing she needed, rather than the one she wanted, at the Marian shrine of Lourdes, France.
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
The Votive Chapel at St. Joseph’s Oratory of Mount Royal. | SHUTTERSTOCK<br />
Waiting on a miracle<br />
A dying mother’s pilgrimage doesn’t provide the healing<br />
she needed, but a spiritual nourishment.<br />
BY ELISE ITALIANO URENECK<br />
I<br />
think it was the picture of the<br />
crutches stacked against the wall<br />
that made her want to make the<br />
pilgrimage. It was May of 2018, and<br />
my mom asked me out of the blue to<br />
drive her to the Oratory of St. Joseph<br />
in Montreal, Canada. She was a year<br />
and three months into a terminal<br />
diagnosis of ALS and was beginning<br />
to lose the use of her legs. Doctors<br />
estimated that she had about two or<br />
three years left to live.<br />
My brother, father, and I were busy<br />
with practical tasks to stay ahead of<br />
her successive needs, like customizing<br />
a power wheelchair, researching how<br />
to thicken liquids, and getting the advanced<br />
health care directive in order.<br />
My mom didn’t want to talk much<br />
about those things. She vacillated between<br />
fear, anger, and a firm resolve<br />
not to focus on tomorrow’s troubles<br />
when today’s were sufficient.<br />
She was also intent on getting a<br />
miracle.<br />
My mom was convinced, until the<br />
end, that God could heal her. “When<br />
I get my legs back,” she would begin a<br />
sentence, detailing the hopes she had<br />
for her future.<br />
My father had already accompanied<br />
her to Lourdes and Fátima. She returned<br />
in the same state as when she<br />
went. Later, she and I flew down to<br />
Arlington, Virginia, to a women’s conference<br />
so that she could meet Sister<br />
Briege McKenna, an Irish religious<br />
sister with the gift of healing. She left<br />
that event without a cure.<br />
And then she asked me to make the<br />
10-hour drive to Canada from New<br />
Jersey. I was starting to worry about<br />
her faith turning into desperation,<br />
but I didn’t have the heart to put the<br />
brakes on the idea. Plus, the clock<br />
14 • ANGELUS • <strong>July</strong> <strong>29</strong>, <strong>2022</strong>
Change language