The miracle that persuaded the Vatican to make Pope John Paul II a saint: Woman looks back at the day she was ‘cured’ of brain aneurysm ahead of papal cannonisation
- Floribeth Mora claims her brain aneurysm was cured by looking at a picture of the late pope
- She will now be a guest of honour at ceremony recognising John Paul II as a saint
- The Costa Rican grandmother has become a celebrity because of the 'miracle' will people travelling from far and wide to meet her
- She has now dedicated her life to talking about the experience
A grandmother lying on her deathbed after suffering from a brain aneurysm claimed she was ‘cured’ when she looked at a photograph of the late pope.
Floribeth Mora said she saw an image of Pope John Paul II in a newspaper and it told her to ‘stand up’ and ‘don’t be afraid’.
Remarkably, Mora, her doctors and the Catholic Church said her aneurysm disappeared on the very same day in a ‘miracle’.
The 50-year-old Costa Rican said: ‘Everyone can think what they want. What I know is that I'm healthy.’
Mora was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm and sent home to rest and take medication in April 2011.
Doctors said the problem was inoperable and she returned home waiting to die.
But a few weeks later, on May 1, the day of John Paul’s beatification six years after his death, she spotted his photograph. Then, she said, it spoke to her.
She surprised her family by walking around, and, after her doctors declared her healed, word spread quickly to the local church, and from there to the Vatican.
Mora, from San Jose, said speaking about her experience has become her calling.
She said: ‘I’ve got so much to do that I’m going to dedicate myself above all to telling the world the story of God’s greatness and what it’s done for me.’
She said people have asked her whether the experience was somehow imagined, or the result of mental illness.
She said: ‘I have no reason to doubt what I am. I am healthy and that’s the most important thing.’
She said she ignores skeptics who doubt she was really healed.
The church-certified ‘miracle’ has made Mora a symbol of faith for thousands of Costa Ricans and Catholics around the world.
She said she has been greeting a stream of local and international visitors in her modest home in a middle-class neighbourhood outside the Costa Rican capital.
She accepts invitations to as many as four masses a day and she has been given so many letters to deliver to current pontiff Pope Francis that she has had to buy an extra suitcase.
Mora suspended her late-in-life law studies and much of her work for her family security business to dedicate herself full-time to her role as a symbol of faith.
She said: ‘With all of this going on I appreciate having my own business, because if I had a boss, they would have already fired me for missing so much work.’
Mora, a grandmother who lives with her husband, a retired police officer, has images of John Paul in nearly every room in her house.
Her 15-year-old son, the youngest of three, tells her off occasionally for attending so many masses but she said: ‘I have to be there’.
She said she is often overwhelmed by the petitions for prayer the faithful ask her to take to Francis.
She said: ‘I have to buy a special suitcase for those letters, because some of them are big packages Mora said she now feels great and has none of the symptoms that brought her to the brink of death three years ago and has no doubt her life is owed to John Paul.
She added: ‘It’s important for them to name him a saint, but for me he’s already a saint.
‘I never imagined I would become a part of all of this.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2608402/Costa-Rican-celebrity-certified-miracle.html#ixzz2zWLZdqnv
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