Miraculous Healings, Through Our Lady's Intercession, Documented in 1915

There has been a long history of Our Lady’s healing presence at this particular site in Rome City, IN. The first documentation of a miraculous healing attributed to Our Lady occurred more than 50 years before Our Lady of America appeared to Sr. Mildred Ephrem Neuzil in the Our Lady Mother of Mercy chapel at Kneipp Springs.

In this reported healing, made by Fr. Max Walz, Our Lady of Lourdes intercedes on the behalf of a young woman afflicted with paralysis of the limbs and hearing loss. Hers appeared to be a desperate case. However, Our Lady obviously had a different perspective as She used the faith of this young woman and this devoted priest to not only cure the young woman of her physical maladies, She also found a way to perform an instant spiritual healing in another woman. The second woman was healed after hearing, first-hand, the account of the events surrounding the physical healing from the first young woman. This proves Our Lady is not only very generous in her gifts; She is also very efficient in Her work!

The following is offered for your discernment:

Reprinted From Tabernacle Magazine, Dec. 1991

A Grain of Mustard Seed

At a coffee plantation in southern Brazil on January 23, 1892, was born Marie, the daughter of Jean and Marie Gautier, exiles of Brittany, France, and, more sadly still, self-exiled from the Church to which they owed a good moral training.

Marie's mother taught her prayers, but no catechism. All that the mother ventured to tell her child was that the world was made by a good God Who would one day take her to Heaven, provided she was a good girl. She did, however, learn that she had a heavenly Mother who would take care of her if anything happened to her earthly mother. A holy card bearing the image of Mary Immaculate, which came to her providentially, was the occasion of a true consecration of the child's whole being to her Immaculate Mother.

In 1902 they moved to New Orleans. Three years later they moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan. When the family moved to Grand Rapids it included a boy born in Brazil and the youngest, a girl, born in New Orleans. The mother's health was now succumbing to a fatal disease. Fourteen-year-old Marie had to care for her mother, the children, the house. One morning the family physician came to tell her that her father has fallen dead in the street and that her mother cannot live more than three months. The children were placed in the Dominican Orphanage and the mother in the hospital. Bishop Schrembs visited the lonely mother and gradually won her back to the faith she never quite ceased to believe. She died with Marie saying the Rosary beside her. Immediately thereafter the three orphans went to their mother's relatives in France.

In 1913, when Marie was 21 years old, she entered the Dominican Teaching Sisters in Grand Rapids, Michigan. But in 1914 she became so ill that she was sent to Kneipp Sanitarium, Rome City, Indiana. She suffered from paralysis of the lower limbs that soon extended to the hands and affected her hearing. On the Feast of the Annunciation, March 25, 1915 the chaplain, Fr. Max Walz C.P.P.S., blessed Sister with a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes and touched her with a rock from the Grotto at Lourdes. Immediately Sister was cured. She walked to the chapel and at the Lourdes Grotto vowed that Our Lady of Lourdes had cured her. Her cure was instantaneous and permanent. A few days after this miracle a lady who had repeatedly refused to go to confession went of her own accord after having spoken with Sister Reparata, Marie's religious name.

This statue of Our Lady of Lourdes stands waiting in the Our Lady Mother of Mercy Chapel in Rome City, IN. In this photo, taken February 23, 2006 during a private Holy Hour, there is a noticeable cloudy shroud to the statue's right.

Is this the actual spot where Our Lady of America first presented herself to Sr. Mildred Ephrem Neuzil on September 26, 1956?

While Sister Reparata was at the sanitarium Fr. Walz, a Precious Blood Father, became her friend and guide. Sister Reparata explained to Father Walz that Jesus was calling her to make a vow to share in His loneliness in the Blessed Sacrament. Sister made this vow and her spiritual life became that of a victim soul, sharing in the hiddenness and loneliness of Jesus.

To be continued….