MORE RESURRECTION MIRACLES
St. Bernard of Abbeville, St. Stanislaus of Cracow, St. James of Tarentaise, St. Cyril of Constantinople, St. Peregrine, St. Philip Benizi, Bl. Peter Armengol, Bl. Eustachio, St. Gerard Majella, St. Charbel Makhlouf, Padre Pio
"And when they had heard of the resurrection of the dead, some indeed mocked . . . "
—Acts 17:32
This chapter might be considered a rather "mixed bag" of miracle accounts given in roughly chronological order. A few of the saints presented here are well-known. Some who might seem to belong here have been excluded because the records of their miracles seem to have confused less trustworthy accounts with fact. Many in this somewhat questionable category are nevertheless included in an appendix, lest some saints or friends of God (and God!) be robbed of a glory due them.
St. Bernard of Abbeville (1046-1117)—not the great Bernard of Clairvaux—was called to an infirmary where a young nun, actually a novice, lay dead. It was harvest time and she had been knocked down by a very heavy cart drawn by ten bullocks. The wheels had run over her and she had been terribly crushed. Bernard laid his hands on her and bade her arise. She did—and without the least trace of the accident. This story is reported from a life written (1137-1148) by Geoffroy le Gros, one of Bernard's disciples.
St. Stanislaus, Bishop of Cracow and martyr (July 26, 1030—May 8, 1079) is surely one of the greatest—if not the greatest—of the patrons of Poland. Born Stanislaus Sazepanouski in Sezepanou, in what was then the diocese of Cracow (lately the archdiocese of Cardinal Wojtyla, to become Pope John Paul II), he had great difficulties with Duke Boleslaw, who had become the cruel King Boleslaw II of Poland. He prayed for the king and pleaded tearfully with him to better his life—but to no avail.
It is generally conceded that there were disputes with the king over property claimed by the Church. Boleslaw was also hostile to the saint because of his preaching and holiness. The king conspired with the heirs of one Peter Miles, who had been dead for three years. Before he died he had sold a certain piece of property to the Church. But the conspirators claimed that Stanislaus possessed it for the Church by fraud, and they brought the saint to court on this false charge.
St. Stanislaus asked the judge for a three-day delay, after which he would produce the dead man himself as a witness to the right of the Church to possess the property. His request was granted, although the saint was laughed to scorn by some, particularly his enemies. St. Stanislaus then prayed and fasted for three days (and it is likely others may have done the same along with their holy bishop).
On the third day the court reconvened. After Mass Stanislaus led a procession to the graveside of Peter Miles. Stanislaus prayed before the grave. Then he had the grave opened; there before them lay nothing but the bones of Peter Miles, deceased three years.
Stanislaus then touched the bones of Peter with his episcopal crozier, and in the Name of Christ, ordered the dead man to rise. Before the awed clergy and crowd the bones suddenly reunited, became covered with flesh, and Peter Miles came forth from the grave.
Peter took the hand of Stanislaus and they proceeded to the trial. There Boleslaw waited with his "witnesses" in expectation of securing "restitution" of the property, and disgracing the holy bishop. In amazement and consternation king and plotters watched as the Bishop and Peter Miles entered the court, followed by a reverent but excited crowd.
"Behold Peter!" spoke the saintly Bishop. "He comes to give testimony before you. Interrogate him. He will answer you."
Amidst the stupefaction, awe and—one suspects—the frightened consciences of king and conspirators, Peter affirmed before the court that he had been paid for the contested property. He then turned to his terrified relatives and reproached them for their evil plans, exhorting them to do penance. St. Stanislaus was acquitted.
Then occurred something that has happened more than once in similar raisings from the dead. St. Stanislaus, no doubt inspired by the Lord to impart a good lesson to the crowd, offered Peter the opportunity to remain alive a few more years if he so desired. But Peter replied that he would rather return to Purgatory and to the surety of eternal salvation—but he did ask for prayers.
Then Stanislaus and a vast crowd (no doubt with more added from the court scene) accompanied Peter Miles back to the place of burial. There he lay down in his grave and composed himself. His body fell to pieces and his bones lay there exactly as they had been when the grave was opened.
There are those who may find such a miracle hard to believe. But there have been others similar to it: St. Anthony was transported to Lisbon to have a dead man clear his accused father, St. Francis Xavier raised a man long dead to confound his hard-hearted listeners, and St. Vincent Ferrer raised someone to proclaim him (Vincent) as the "Angel of the Apocalypse."
With God all things are possible. Why limit the Creator of all the marvels of this vast universe? This Creator seems especially pleased to work great miracles through His saints for the good of the faithful, for the conversion of pagans and sinners, for the confounding of His enemies, and for the glory of His saints, the glory of His Church, and His own glory.
When some of Boleslaw's minions refused to kill Stanislaus, he dispatched the saint with his own hand as Stanislaus was saying Mass, offering the Holy Sacrifice in the chapel of St. Michael in a suburb of Cracow. The saint is often depicted with a sword, and is invoked in battle. King Boleslaw was forced to flee, and reportedly spent his last days as a penitent in a Benedictine abbey at Osiak, Hungary.
The story of St. James of Tarentaise accents the beauty of Christian friendship and the humanity of the saints. St. James had been on a missionary tour when he returned to find that a very dear friend of his had died. He went to the grave where his friend had been buried while he was away. There he shed such tears that the friend came back to life. This story was recorded by Pope Callixtus II (d. 1124), who wrote the life of St. James before he (Callixtus) became pope. The pope was the fifth son of Count William of Burgundy; thus Tarentaise, in the Department of Savoie (Savoy), was not a great distance away from his ancestral home.
There are two accounts of the dead being raised which seem to apply to the same St. Cyril (1191-c.l235) who was Superior General of the Carmelites and had been prior at Mt. Carmel. Information is vague about St. Cyril, who has also been styled "of Constantinople."
On one occasion, when St. Cyril once gave a blind man a coin, the man realized that the giver was Cyril of holy reputation and applied the coin to his blind eyes. His sight returned. Inspired to live a better life, he went immediately to a monastery, where he was refused admittance because the prior was away. Perhaps heart-broken at the refusal, the man died of an illness a few days later. He was brought back to life by the prayers of St. Cyril.
After Cyril had passed away, a young man coming from Cyprus to the Holy Land died aboard ship. The pilot of the vessel asked the nearby monks, the Carmelites, in charity to bury the body. They laid it out on the tomb of their late superior, Cyril, until a suitable grave could be dug for the dead voyager (a pilgrim, one assumes). But as the body touched the tomb of the saint, it immediately came to life, and the young man cried out: "Cyril has restored me to life and reserved me for a better!" He joined the Carmelites and lived for another 12 years. Perhaps it was all a reward for seeking the Holy Land.
St. Peregrine Laziosi (1265-1345) is known as "The Cancer Saint." He suffered from cancer in his right leg for several years. When the doctor recommended amputation, Peregrine spent the night before the scheduled operation praying before a picture of the crucifix. He saw Our Lord, in a vision, descend from the cross with an outstretched hand. The next morning he was perfectly cured; there was no trace of cancer! St. Peregrine is also reported to have raised the dead on more than one occasion.
St. Philip Benizi (1223-1285) died at 52, after 18 years as the fifth General of the Servite Order. He was so highly regarded for his holiness and ability that in 1268, on the death of Pope Clement IV, he was proposed as a candidate for the papacy. Philip fled and hid in a cave until a new pope was elected. Angels sang at his death, a fragrance spread through the house of his death, and for six days in the August heat amid the press of crowds his body remained incorrupt.
Some saw a light, a brightness about his dead countenance. His funeral was delayed when miracles began occurring near his body, which was laid out in the Church of St. Mark. Twenty-eight miracles were recorded in the process drawn up on the spot. It began when the daughter of a notary in Todi (where he died) was carried in on a litter and placed by St. Philip's body. She had lost the use of both her feet and her right hand.
The girl simply touched the body of Philip, and then she immediately stood up with full use of both feet and hands. After that, the authorities (as has happened with many other deceased saints) simply had to delay the funeral for about a week. After the girl's miracle, a stooped Servite religious took heart and was cured in a similar manner. A man born blind in the neighborhood of Todi gained his sight by kissing the saint's feet. And a madwoman, who had been falling into all sorts of frenzies, was cured.
Along with these and other miracles as Philip's body lay in the church, a woman from Todi came in with a dead child, mangled and gnawed. The child had been left alone in her cottage home; she went outdoors by herself, and was attacked by a wolf. The wolf had already devoured part of her body when the mother returned. Courageously and with fierce emotion, she snatched the body away from the rapacious wolf.
This woman possessed not only courage, but also great faith; she carried the bleeding trunk of the little girl to the church and placed the partially devoured corpse close by the side of Philip's incorrupt body. The girl was not only restored to life, but came to life again with all her members intact.
Even a pair of slippers can have the power of their owner. A pair of slippers had been given by St. Philip to a friend of his. They were later thrown into a conflagration in the home of the friend, and they extinguished the fire; not a mark was visible on the slippers. Philip was a missionary preacher who worked miracles throughout Europe; he was also noted as a peacemaker in Italy.
In the fourteenth century there was a miracle involving Bl. Peter Armengol (c.1238-1304), a converted robber captain. In his new life of charitable zeal, at one time he was attempting to arrange a ransom deal for 18 Christians held captive by the Moors; one account says he offered himself as hostage while waiting for the ransom money to arrive, Peter, in the new-found enthusiasm of his conversion, preached Christ to the Moors.
The Moors did not respond favorably to Peter's efforts. They hanged him. He had been hanging there for six days when his friend Florentin arrived with the ransom money. Florentin, in great shock and grief, was amazed to hear the body speak to him, saying that he, Peter, was alive through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In the presence of many witnesses Florentin cut Peter down, alive and well.
Bl. Giorcanni Tomaso Eustachio, Bishop of Larino (b. March 7, 1575), was a member of the Oratorian Fathers. The bishop not only predicted the birth of a child and the name he was to be given at birth, but also ended up saving the child when he was born.
Later, there was another prediction. A certain mother was without children for many years. Father Eustachio predicted that she would have a child, and that the child would be a boy and would be named "Charles." The mother said that name would never be given if she did have a child, because there was a prominent member of her family who would resent anyone else having the same name. Then that relative died, and a child was born. But at birth the child showed no signs of life; for upwards of an hour there was no breath, no movement.
They sent for Father Eustachio, who came in haste. He invoked the Names of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Father Eustachio called the infant by the prophesied name of "Charles," and the child came to life in perfect health. The bystanders were filled with astonishment and joy. Proofs of this miracle still exist in Naples and were part of the evidence in the beatification process of Blessed Eustachio.
Bishop Eustachio also predicted that Cardinal Matteo Barberini would soon become pope. The Cardinal replied that he was not mature enough—but soon afterward he was elected pope. Prophecies made and miracles worked often go together in the lives of the saints.
St. Gerard Majella (1726-1755) was a Redemptorist lay brother whose miracles reach into fairly recent times. He had powers of discernment of spirits, bilocation, control over nature, and was a regular wonder-worker.
Near Liege around 1896 an infant had died without Baptism. The physicians considered her dead. The mother prayed to the deceased St. Gerard, bargaining with him that if he brought the child back to life she would name it Gerard at Baptism. The child returned to life.
There was another case about the same time in which a nine-month-old baby drowned. The child remained blue and cold for an hour despite attempts to resuscitate it. The mother prayed to St. Gerard. The child opened its eyes and began to laugh.
St. Gerard is a special patron of mothers, particularly those in pregnancy, and of mothers of infants. The above miracles are only two of the many that occurred around the times of his beatification and canonization, in 1893 and 1904. Others considered by the Pontifical Commission included that of a young girl in her agony who was cured, and of a boy, 15, who was fatally ill.
Even more recently, the raising of the dead is attributed to St. Charbel (Sharbel) Makhlouf, the Lebanese Maronite rite Catholic monk (1828-1898). Somehow a baby two years old drowned. When the mother found it, the child was asphyxiated, purple-hued, obviously dead. She hastened with it to the tomb of St. Charbel, and there it was restored to life. St. Charbel is credited with hundreds of other miracles.
As late as the 20th century, Padre Pio (1887-1968) is now known the world over for the many extraordinary events in his life, including the stigmata, the wounds of Christ, which he bore for 50 years. A fellow Capuchin, Father John A. Schug, tells in his book (Padre Pio) of a young Spanish-speaking mother from Guayaquil, Ecuador, who spoke to him when he was preparing for Mass at San Giovanni Rotondo, where Padre Pio had died.
The lady told him how her son had been killed in an automobile accident. She claimed that Padre Pio had brought him back to life and that she had a dossier of proofs from doctors and the parish priest. Father Schug was unable to learn more; he had to offer Mass and he then became occupied with another Mass for a pilgrim group from Ireland. Later, he searched for the lady but could not find her. Such a miracle, however, would not be unexpected for Padre Pio, who had a great number of charismatic gifts including bilocation, prophecy, healing powers and the reading of hearts.