Digital Marian Helper Winter_2016-2017

A ‘hound of Heaven’ What happened that caused you to become an intercessor with the Divine Mercy? In 1992, my daughter, Gerri, was 24 years old. She had just started attending college to study nursing, and she was dating a young man who wasn’t Catholic. She had asthma really bad. One night she couldn’t breathe and was rushed by ambulance to the hospital. She was put on life support. I called my family, her boyfriend, and our parish priest, and we gathered together around her bed while our priest administered the Anointing of the Sick. We spent the night repeatedly praying the Chaplet of Divine Mercy because I knew that this was the most powerful prayer to be said for those in need, especially for the dying. The following day, the doctor informed us that Gerri, who had slipped into a coma, had only a one percent chance of living. I broke down. Her boyfriend, John, broke down, too. I said to him, “John, you might say to Jesus that if He saves her, you’ll become a Catholic.” Every day we would pray the chap- let at her bedside. Then, on the ninth day of our prayers, she came out of her coma! She told us that while she was in the coma, she had seen Jesus. She had never felt so much love in her whole life. She said that she and Jesus spoke about a lot of things, but all she could remember was that He said, “The two most important things in life are love and knowledge.” After that, she knew she would never be afraid to die. Despite her not wanting to leave Him, she was brought back to life. She said Jesus appeared before her one last time, in her hospital room, and assured her everything would be OK. Her asthma has been under control since then! She returned to college, received her degree in nurs- ing and was inducted into the Nursing Honor Society. John became Catholic, and they married soon after. They now have four beautiful children. She has taught them the chaplet, and they pray it together as a family. Who have you prayed the chaplet for since then? My first husband, Joseph, was not like my husband now, Harry. Harry and I pray the chaplet together all M ARIAN H ELPERS IN A CTION T ime and time again, Patricia Cassidy of Dover Plains, New York, has been given heavenly assurance that Jesus keeps His promises to those who pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy — an intercessory prayer given to the world through St. Maria Faustina Kowalska in the 1930s. Patricia, a frequent visitor to the National Shrine of The Divine Mercy, shares her story with us: 4 C 7H?7D > ;BF;H Ǚš M ?DJ;H (&',#'- ǙšǙcWh_Wd$eh]