AMAZING MIRACLES OF ST ANDRE BESSETTE: CURES FROM CANCER

Beloved Andre Bessette was laid to rest in January 1937. And for those who could no longer go to the Notre Dame College and ask the tiny brother in his threadbare black habit for a cure, they started praying to him to intercede for a miracle. IF at least 10,000 miraculous cures were attributed to Brother Andre in his lifetime, it was only a short few years after his death that his intercession was credited with 100s of cures. 

When his religious order, the Holy Cross Congregation decided to pick a miracle that they would present to Rome and would open his cause for canonization they were spoiled for choice. So many people had been miraculously healed of so many ailments.  T'was a woman with a horrible cancer who had been inexplicably healed whose case was used as substantial evidence for Andre's powerful intercession. The woman gave sworn testimony and submitted all her medical records for analysis. Three doctors agreed that her condition had been deadly, and that her cure had been a miracle. Merely two days after the woman had been totally cured, she returned to the hospital and went through a battery of tests that established she was cancer-free. 

This was not a first for Andre Bessette.  Throughout his life, his intercession (which he always said was solely the intercession of St Joseph was credited with dramatic cures from cancer). Perhaps Andre was right to direct all praise to St Joseph, because in allowing himself to be the tool of St Joseph, Andre grew in the sanctity that led to his sainthood. 

One lady was riddled with cancer and was set to have an operation. She came to see Brother Andre, who told her that she was cured, and gave her his habitual instruction to thank St Joseph. But the lady's doctor had no confidence in Brother Andre, and he browbeat the woman into having the surgery. Low and behold, when he started the surgery, he found no cancer. 

In the winter of his life, Brother Andre was approached by a man who was sick with anxiety because his sister had a nasty case of breast cancer. She was about to go under the knife, but the doctors had told her it would not stop the cancer, but give her short-term relief.  Brother Andre knew that she could only help herself and avail of a miracle if she had faith. Through his mystical insight, he saw that the woman had faith and he instructed her brother, "Tell her not to be operated on. St Joseph will cure her." She refused the operation, and placed all her trust in St Joseph. For a handful of days, she was sicker than before and looked like she was about to die. But after a week had passed, her cancer had vanished. 

In the winter of his life, when Brother Andre was in his 80s, more and more doctors were certifying cures as being miracles worked by Brother Andre. Dr Campeau of Montreal, had a patient, Louis Bertrand whose arm was ravaged by cancer. Louis's arm had been cankered with cancer for some time, 'til he went to see Brother Andre, after which the cancer disappeared. 

If t'was a miraculous cure from cancer that opened his cause for canonization, it was another cure from cancer (that of Giuseppe Carlo Audino) that led to Andre Bessette's beatification, and finally it was a miraculous cure from leukemia that led to Andre's canonization. 

Professor Jacalyn Duffin is a hematologist, an imminent blood doctor, and she was the expert who decided on the final miracle that was used to declare Andre Bessette a saint. The miracle concerned a patient who had a very aggressive form of leukemia and had been in medical treatment but had swung in and out of remission, before getting worse. When Professor Duffin looked at the patient's tests, she presumed that she must be dead; so destructive was the leukemia. To her utter surprise, Professor Duffin learned that the patient was still alive and cured of her cancer. Dr Duffin has a rather succinct definition of a miracle: "What makes a miracle is when a patient has had the most up-to-date medicine possible, has defied the medicine and is dying or incurable according to physicians. And then has to have recovered against all expectations."

Now, Dr Duffin is an atheist, she has no dog in this fight so to speak, but she states that the case of the leukemia patient recovering against all odds (after they called on Andre Bessette) is a miracle. 

With the wealth of amazing miracles to cite to, you and I may have confidence in handing out pictures of Andre Bessette to people with grave cancer conditions and inviting them to pray to him. There is the powerful novena to St Andre, that needs to be more available to the sick. Imagine if you, yes you who are reading this, were to introduce someone you know who may be very ill to St Andre, and if they were to pray to him and receive a miracle. You would have been an all-important catalyst in their reception of a miracle. Perhaps cancer victims were never so in need of St Andre's help as they are now. The covid crisis  has led to added complications for cancer patients receiving treatment, and they have the added pain of isolation and enforced separation from loved ones and friends. The warmth of Andre's friendship will heal many a heart, and his intercession may mean that their cancer disappears completely. St Andre, pray for us! St Joseph, pray for us!

Murillo's Saint Joseph and the Christ Child

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You may like to see Professor Duffin's interview here. Books that have informed this post are Alden Hatch's The Miracle of the Mountain and Katharine Burton's Brother Andre of Mount Royal.