Understand the miracle that will make Card. John Henry Newman a saint with 7 keys
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Melissa Villalobos, lawyer and mother in Chicago, is the protagonist in the miracle that will allow Card. Newman to be canonized. We spoke with her and a doctor who proved her cure was scientifically unexplainable.
WHY DID SHE HAVE A DEVOTION TO CARD. NEWMAN?
MELISSA VILLALOBOS
Lawyer and Mother
“I did not start my personal devotion until 2011. My husband brought home two holy cards with his image on them. I put one up in our family room and the other one up in our bedroom, and I would pass his image throughout the day, and I would start to talk to him and I think thought he had such a loving and Holy Face. And I was very captivated by him. And I prayed to him for things for needs for my family or for others. I also just talked to him as a regular person.”
WHEN DID YOU BEGIN TO FEEL SICK DURING YOUR PREGNANCY?
MELISSA VILLALOBOS
Lawyer and Mother
“I had been losing blood for a couple of weeks. Because I was in the first trimester. So it was early in the pregnancy. I started bleeding at the end of April, and I was cured on May 15. In fact, I had been in the emergency room on May 10, five days before I was cured, and they did an ultrasound and saw the damage. And that's when the doctor said with a heavy heart that you will probably have a miscarriage, that this placenta will not be able to hold up and make it to the end of the pregnancy.”
WHAT DID DOCTORS RECOMMEND?
MELISSA VILLALOBOS
Lawyer and Mother
“I was told to observe strict bed rest, I was told to do no exercise, no heavy lifting to not walk unless it was absolutely necessary. I couldn't do laundry or housework or cooking. So I was basically told to stay in bed as much as possible, which was an impossible order because I had four children at the time who were 6, 5, 3 and one. So I wanted to follow the order of strict bed rest, but I couldn't and my husband and I had no family nearby. So it was a real challenge and was very sad to find out that I couldn't do what I needed to do to get well, but even when I did rest during those weeks when my placenta was bleeding, it would not really slow down so strict bed rest was the solution I was given but it wasn't working.”
HOW DID THE DAY OF HEALING OCCUR?
MELISSA VILLALOBOS
Lawyer and Mother
“Yes, when I woke up the day that I was scared, I was in a pool of blood in bed and my husband was already in an airplane going to Atlanta for a business trip that he had to take. So when I woke up, of course, I was scared and sad and worried. And I thought I need to get the kids set up for breakfast and then I need to rest the rest of the day. My husband wasn't scheduled to come back until that Friday, which was two days later. So I had to, you know, try to hold up for those days he was out of town and I got the kids set up for breakfast and then I wanted to go and rest and try to slow the bleeding down.”
WHY DIDN'T YOU CALL THE EMERGENCY ROOM AT THE TIME?
MELISSA VILLALOBOS
Lawyer and Mother
“By the time I got to the bathroom, I fell on the floor. I was losing a lot of blood at that time. I realized while laying on the floor in the bathroom that I needed to call for medical help. It was an emergency at that point. And so I decided I would do that. And I realized at that point that I did not have my cell phone in the bathroom. I couldn't believe it. I wasn't carrying it around. Probably because my husband David was in an airplane and I wouldn't be able to call him. So I figured maybe I didn't need to have it with me. But I was on the bathroom floor and I didn't have the phone. So I thought, well, then maybe I should scream. And I could get one of the kids to come up and get the phone, so I could call 911. But I couldn't scream because the amount of force that I would have to exert to get my voice heard through the doors would have been tremendous.”
HOW DID THE HEALING TAKE PLACE?
MELISSA VILLALOBOS
Lawyer and Mother
“Nobody was coming up and I couldn't get off the bathroom floor. And I was losing a ton of blood. That's when I said please Cardinal Newman. Make the blood stop. And just then immediately, as soon as I finished the words, the bleeding came to a sudden stop. And it actually never returned. So I stood up, and I said, Cardinal Newman, did you just make the bleeding stop? I know he did. And then I smell this intense burst of roses that filled the bathroom air. And I just inhale the roses. And I said, Thank you, Cardinal Newman, did you just make these roses, and then he made a second burst of roses up there. And I knew I was healed. I knew that Gemma was okay. And then it was safe to go downstairs. So I hustled downstairs to check on the kids and they were all in the kitchen just as I had asked him, and I was so happy to see they were okay because it was so quiet. And when I got into the kitchen, you know, I sat down at the table and I said, Thank you, Cardinal Newman, and then there was a third and the final blast of roses that filled the air.”
WHY DO YOU THINK CARD. NEWMAN HELPED YOU?
MELISSA VILLALOBOS
Lawyer and Mother
“I think he knows that I love him with my whole heart. And my love for him is unconditional. I would love him just the same if I wasn't cured, you know, if it wasn't in God's will to heal me. And I have such faith in Him, Cardinal Newman and God that he would bring my prayers to God and so I think maybe It's the fact that I love him so much with a deep, intense love. And then I have faith that he is close to God and can bring my prayers to him. And I'm just very blessed.”
HOW WAS THE CASE MEDICALLY CERTIFIED?
GERALD M. CASEY
Medical Doctor, Chicago
“My main role as the medical expert was to appoint two ‘ob’ inspection physicians who were experts in maternal fetal medicine, to evaluate the medical records and the materials that had been brought to the United States and to Chicago by the postulator, Dr. Ambrozy and then to examine Melissa take a very detailed history. And then after examination and the detailed history, be deposed by the tribunal as to what they felt were the possibilities of this having a medical explanation or not having a medical explanation. We also deposed her treating physician. All of those physicians felt very strongly that there could be no explanation medically for this instantaneous and spontaneous cessation of bleeding that occurred upon the intonation of only the words: ‘Cardinal Newman, please stop my bleeding’. The fact that that could occur at that moment and time, we felt could not be established by any medical intervention, etc.”
IS THERE EVIDENCE TO PROVE THE MIRACLE?
GERALD M. CASEY
Medical Doctor, Chicago
“It was the second ultrasound at Delnor Hospital in the emergency room after the bleeding had started to increase somewhat. And that was done on 5/10/13 that showed the sub-chorionic hematoma. That sub-chorionic hematoma then was a further risk factor. Now, it seems oxymoronic, but the fact that she was at five weeks and had five to six weeks and had heart tones, and had the sub-chorionic hematoma was an added risk factor based on obstetrical history. So it was all of those things together that constituted the high-risk state. But what really constituted the high-risk state was the progression of the bleeding. It's not the sub chorionic hematoma as much as the constellation of the risk factors involved.”
