FromoneAmerican.com
Sarah
This would be sad if it
were fiction, but it is not. It happened in Oregon about three and a
half years ago. A lady expecting her first child received a call at
work from the hospital where a test had been done. The hospital needed
to see her and advise her on what she should do. A test indicated she was
carrying a "Down's Syndrome" child. Another test to draw fluid to
confirm it, would be dangerous, so the healthcare professionals advised an
abortion.
The mother was shaken but she gathered strength from
her inner being, and said, "God gave me this child and I shall love it as a
normal child. It is my wish to leave it in His hands." For about
seven months she waited and she prayed, and many joined with her including
prayer groups. Then there was the worrisome news that the baby was
small. She and others continued to pray.
In due course a baby girl was born and they named her Sarah. She was born normal.
God would confound the healthcare professionals who really neither cared about the health of the child — they would've destroyed it — nor in the realm of true medical ethics were professional.
But the story doesn't end here.
One
day, when Sarah was about 18 months old, at a time of deep family crisis,
she saw a picture on the kitchen table where various members of the family
were seated. It was a picture of a fragmented Host in a display vessel—the Betania, Venezuela,
Eucharistic miracle which has ecclesiastical approval.
She looked at the picture and suddenly exclaimed: "It's God! It's God! He's broke. Kiss it! Kiss it!" Her family broke into wonder. While she'd gone up with her grandmother when she received the Eucharist, it was always a whole Host. At adoration of the Blessed Sacrament it would have been a whole Host again. The Holy Eucharist in the setting of this picture might not even to recognizable to grown ups of the faith (essential part of the picture of what Sarah saw to the right).
This was the child the medical people slated for death. A child of 1 1/2 years recognizing God in the Eucharist, a broken Eucharist at that. But even more than this, expressing feeling and a child's remedy: kiss the hurt.
As months went by, she began to go up to the Communion rail, kneel, bow her head in prayer and upon leaving , throw Jesus on the Cross a kiss. She has been observed — and photographed without her knowing it — climbing a chair to touch Jesus hanging on a large crucifix. While she could not stretch enough to touch His nailed feet, she was able to touch their footrest.
Her grandmother has a bust of the
suffering Christ in her bedroom. The child on one occasion asked to
stay by Him. On another occasion she told the suffering Jesus, "I'm
sorry, I'm so sorry." Then she got a comb, climbed a stool and combed
his scraggly hair to make Him beautiful.
She also expresses devotion to His mother. She will kneel before an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe whom she calls Guadalupe.
She is not yet three years of age, but
knows the Hail Mary, will remind family members of meal prayers and even
knows some of the Mass prayers by heart. (Above is a
picture of Sarah as a young child. Born in 1992, she had a
birthmark on her cheek, and she was told that's where Jesus kissed her.
In time the mark would disappear and then she asked why Jesus took the kiss
away).
The medical people thought they had the answer.
They didn't. In their misguided thinking, they sought to override
creation. Sarah is an example of what creation is all about.
We are created to know God, to love Him and serve Him in this world.
Sarah in her very young years is doing just that! She may have paid
more honor to Our Lord since her birth, than many have done in a whole
lifetime!
This is what abortion would've destroyed—not only a life but the fulfillment of God's purpose!
—John Riedell, May 30, 1995
This unpublished story , kept by her grandmother,
was typed with some paragraph changes, parenthetical
information added and minor editing.
August, 2009
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Today Sarah is 17 and will be entering her
Senior year in high school,
taking five college level courses
so she can earn scholarships. She tutors math, English and
Spanish; is a Eucharistic minister; is a member of the National Honor
Society; and is involved in other clubs and activities, including Mathletes,
Prayer Club and Leadership Seminars. She is pictured here (on the right) in a fairly
recent photo on an Oregon beach with her younger sister Shannah who has a
singing voice, described as beautiful, and who maintains high marks as well.
Sarah has put in service hours with her sister at
Providence Hospital's
Center for Medically Fragile Children,
working with children in
wheel chairs, with multiple illnesses.
—Aug. 27, 2009
_______________________________________________________________________________________
The following is a related story―related
in subject and in persons. A cousin of Sarah's mother lives in
California and more than 11 years ago she was with child after a miscarriage
and cancer. She said, "The doctors said the pregnancy was not viable
and I should abort but we had our faith in God and he blessed us with an
amazing child." That child was a girl and her name is Emily, a
delight to her mother. She loves to cook with her and is a 4.0
student. She placed 2nd in the State Fair Art Festival, 2nd out
of 1, 352 entrants, an impressive accomplishment. This is the
person the doctors said wasn't viable, which means "capable of living;
especially: having attained such form and development as to be normally
capable of surviving outside the mother's womb." She not only
survived; she excelled.
—JR
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Pictures from Betania
After the
incident about Sarah seeing God in the picture of the Eucharist at the
table, her grandmother had a chance to go to Betania, Venezuela, when someone paid her
way. While there on August 16th, 1994, she took some pictures, a few
of which are shown here (all cropped for this site). She was so moved,
she was in tears as she photographed.
(The picture to the right is from negative
no. 20, and the one directly below it is from negative no. 19.)
The
setting for the Host here is different from the setting in the picture
Sarah saw. Here it's in a tabernacle; the other was apparently in a
Monstrance.
We Catholics believe in what we call the Real
Presence of the Eucharist. While it outwardly appears as a wafer
of white bread, we believe that the bread once Consecrated is the Body of
Christ.
In Matthew 26:26-28, it says: And while they
were at supper, Jesus took bread, and blessed and broke, and gave it to his
disciples, and said, "take and eat; this is my body." and taking a
cup, he gave thanks and gave it to them, saying "All of you drink of this;
for this is my blood of the new covenant which is being shed for many
unto the forgiveness of sins. We
take Him at His word:
"this is my body ...this is my blood".
The
bleeding Host of Betania occurred on Dec. 8th, 1991, during a midnight Mass.
The celebrant had
Consecrated the the Host and broken it into four pieces. He took one
part to consume and placed the three other pieces on a plate. When he looked down
at the unconsumed Host,
he saw a red substance "spurting," as if from a wound.
Later it was put in a
monstrance where blood accumulated in the bottom. Bishop Ricardo of
Los Teques had it tested in Caracas, and was informed it was human blood.
This picture is from negative no.
16, taken before the photos above. Note
that there seems to be more Host filling the circle and what appears to be an eye in the
upper right. You might even have the impression that the eye is
sad as it looks out at the world.
This view is from negative no. 15, taken in sequence just before the picture from negative no. 16 above. The lady in the picture is weeping.
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Site Last Updated on 08/27/09