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AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France, MARCH 30, 2007 (Zenit.org).- A smiling Sister Marie-Simon-Pierre told a group of journalists that she was cured of Parkinson's disease in an unexplainable way and thanks to the intercession of Pope John Paul II.
"All I can say is I was sick and now I am healed. Now it is up to the Church to pronounce itself and recognize if this is a miracle," the 46-year-old religious said today at a press conference.
Accompanied by Archbishop Claude Feidt of Aix-Arles-Embrun, she said she had no doubts about her cure: "I was healed, and this is the work of God through the intercession of John Paul II."
Sister Pierre, who belongs to the Congregation of Little Sisters of Catholic Motherhood, said that it was very hard to describe with words her experience.
"My body wasn't the same anymore and I was not the same anymore," she said, describing Parkinson's disease, with which John Paul II also suffered.
Completely transformed
"Since the death of our Holy Father John Paul II, the symptoms of the illness became more accentuated and more serious," she explained. On June 2, 2005, the two-month anniversary of his death, she asked to stop working in the Maternité de l'Étoile.
Sister Pierre's superior asked her to write the name of John Paul II, which she found to be almost impossible because of her condition. After writing some unrecognizable letters, she went to her room to rest.
She recounted: "And there, when I went into my room, I felt like writing, even if it was difficult for me. I had the impression of a voice telling me: 'Take the pen and write.' I wrote something" and then went to sleep, waking at 4:30 the next morning.
"I jumped out of bed, though getting out of bed had been something very difficult and hard for me to do," the woman religious continued. "I felt completely transformed, internally I was no longer the same.
"[It was] something I find very difficult to explain in words … It was too intense, too great. A mystery.
"Since that day I have stopped all therapy. … It was like a second birth for me, I felt I was rediscovering my body, rediscovering my arms and legs."
Thanksgiving
Sister Pierre recalled that she began that day, June 3, 2005, with a Mass in thanksgiving. She has since resumed work in a maternity ward in Paris.
"I work as a nurse with mothers and children in Saint-Félicité. And I can do all that my job requires," she said.
Her healing will be presented by the postulator of the cause of beatification, Monsignor Slawomir Oder, to the Congregation for Saints' Causes.
On Monday, the diocesan phase of John Paul II's beatification process will conclude. Sister Pierre will participate in this celebration.
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