Lourdes: six year old girl born deaf now hears us

Lourdes, Wednesday 11 May. It's 20,30. A six-year-old girl, deaf from birth, is playing with Giuseppe Secondi, the director of the pilgrimage of the Lombard Unitals who brought 225 pilgrims from the parishes of the Milan Southwest subsection to the city of the Marian apparitions. «When I tell the little girl that I can no longer play with her because a commitment awaits me, she comes back to her mother and I see her take off her hearing aids without which she is condemned to deafness - Giuseppe says -. To the mother's invitation to put them back, she replies: 'I feel good, I don't need them anymore' ».
The voice of the director of the pilgrimage, which we reached yesterday in Lourdes a few hours after the group's return to Italy, is full of joy, emotion, trepidation. Gratitude. «They are the sentiments of all pilgrims», testifies Joseph. Those same feelings, raised to the nth degree, inhabit the mother's voice and heart, who does not escape the request to tell, as she prepares to go to the plane that brought them home last night. "Yes, my daughter is practically deaf from birth - explains the woman -. She was born 26 weeks, on Christmas day of 2009. She was supposed to come to light in early April. It weighed 800 grams. He spent three months at Gaslini in Genoa. To save her, they gave her medicines which caused some brain bleeding and 'burned' her ear canals. Tests have shown that she has profound deafness in both ears. Hearing aids are needed. "
The woman came to Lourdes with the baby, who is the first-born, second-born and mother-in-law, "while our youngest boy, who is just 11 months old, stayed at home with my mother and husband, whom I work for. prevented you from coming. " They live in Liguria and joined the Lombard pilgrimage. «One morning I said to myself: I have to take my daughter to Lourdes. To thank the Madonna who protected her: she risked her life, she made it and she is a serene and happy child. But also to ask for support, to find the strength to face, she, me, all of us, this path of life so demanding ». So, here they are registered on the pilgrimage that began on May 8 and ended yesterday. «It is the first time that we have come to Lourdes. And it was a touching and beautiful experience, "confesses the woman.
Wednesday night, the unexpected. "I felt my heart beat faster when I saw her come towards me saying: 'I feel well, Mom, I don't need the appliances anymore.' And I really have the impression that you feel better, without it. Children don't lie. And my daughter would never have taken them off for no reason. ' The news immediately spread among the pilgrims, "we celebrated it and we never stop doing it - Giuseppe continues -. We see her laughing, joking, she looks like another girl ». The mother continues: «I believe, I have faith: otherwise I would not have come to Lourdes. But I want to be down to earth. I want proof of science. Why don't you joke about these things ». So yesterday, the little girl was taken to the Bureau des Constatations Médicales in Lourdes (which made no statements). “They want all the previous documentation, and they want new ones. Coincidentally, tomorrow (today for the reader, editor's note) we have an audiometry, programmed in the perspective - which seemed necessary - to give the little girl more powerful new devices. Here: I still can't name what happened. I just know it needs to be explored. And that is something beautiful ». Don Giovanni Frigerio, assistant of the Unitalsi Lombarda, also tries to give a name from Lourdes: «I call it healing. Which, how, why, others will explain it. I know that here come many people tried in body and spirit, who leave regenerated, to resume the path of life full of hope and grace ». «I have made thirty trips to Lourdes - Secondi takes his leave - and I have seen many things, both painful and moving. But so, never. This is truly the pilgrimage of mercy ».
Article from Avvenire.IT