A scheduled surgery that was complicated, a prayer asking for the intercession of an Italian religious, and an inexplicable healing: three moments of a story that today, ten years later, will take Vicenta María Poloni to the altars.
On January 27, Pope Francis approved the decree that recognizes a miracle attributed to the intercession of the Italian Beata Vicenta María Poloni, founder of the sisters of Mercy, who is attributed to the inexplicable healing of the Chilean Audelia Parra.
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At the end of 2013, at the Víctor Ríos Ruiz hospital in the city of Los Angeles, Chile, Mrs. Audelia Parra, 70, had to undergo surgery scheduled for the extraction of gallbladder calculations.
The damage was irreversible
It was a simple intervention, but it was complicated when, during one of the incisions, there was a fissure in the aorta artery, triggering a hemorrhagic shock that put his life at serious risk.
The chances of recovering the patient were practically nil. Interned in the intensive care unit with vital risk, the damage was irreversible and her life was turning off.
It was his grandson, Álvaro Martínez, who at that time was a seminarian in the Archdiocese of Concepción, who entrusted his grandmother’s life to the intercession of the Beata Vicenta María Poloni, founder of the sisters of the mercy of Verona, a religious congregation that He had a presence in Quilleco, the town of 5,000 inhabitants from where his family is from, located about 38 kilometers from Los Angeles.
In dialogue with ACI Press, the now priest Álvaro Martínez explains that the sisters of Verona’s mercy arrived in Quilleco in the mid -1990s and remained there for almost 18 years. During their stay, Mother Vicenta, one of the founders of the Congregation, used to be mentioned.
Prayer chains for a miracle
When his grandmother’s condition aggravated, Martínez recalled an episode of her adolescence: at that time, one of the religious of the community was in Italy receiving treatment for a serious disease. “One of the sisters told me: ‘Every day they take the image of the Beata to his room to ask for a miracle, and that miracle could serve for the cause of canonization,” he said.
As his grandmother’s health aggravated, the young man remembered that conversation, which had happened at 18. “I already said, we are going to pray to Blessed Vicenta María Poloni,” he thought, and sent his family a photograph and prayer to ask for his intercession.
“I started sending the photo to the family, and a message saying that we pray to Mother Vicenta María Poloni to give the miracle. And we made prayer chains, we offered the Eucharist, and the community also began to join, because my grandmother is known and well loved in Quilleco, ”he reviews.
The surgeon “knew that the patient was going to die”
“The panorama was lapidary,” says the priest. After several failed attempts to get a prosthesis in the closest sanatorium The prosthesis for Audelia.
“I knew the patient was going to die. Those textual words told me, ”recalls Audelia’s grandson.
Surgery lasted for several hours. The next morning, doctors asked the family the urgent donation of 50 units of blood. “We went there to the Blood Bank, and there was already the army donating blood. Because when these things happen, they call the army to give blood, ”says Martínez. “My grandmother almost shortages the Blood Bank.”
“My grandmother listens to me”: a gift from God at Christmas
The first surgery was on December 17. His grandson says that the first “sign of life” occurred on December 25. “On Christmas Day, I enter her, I speak to her, I pray and she threw a tear. And I said: my grandmother listens to me, and this was a gift from God at Christmas. ”
“From here my grandmother comes out,” was what his grandson thought that day. From there came his recovery.
“In two weeks they made him, according to the file, five surgeries. For me they were about seven, ”he details. “Almost day they were operating it.” There were several complications, including peritonitis, and Audelia was admitted to a total of two and a half months.
“I think this was a miracle”
In June, when Audelia had already returned home, Fr. Martínez wrote to Sister Gabriela, one of the sisters of Mercy of Verona, who now resides in Argentina and had been praying to Mother Vicenta for the recovery of her grandmother. “Sister, I think this was a miracle because … how did it come out of this? I don’t know, ”he said.
It was the religious who motivated him to write to the General Mother and present the cause. From the congregation they asked for a detailed letter with dates, and how the facts were given. Once sent, the case was taken by the postulator, formally starting the investigation process of the possible miracle.
Fr. Tiziano Bonomi, who accompanies the sisters of mercy in Verona, assumed the investigation of the alleged miracle. To do this, he traveled several times to Chile with the purpose of collecting information and testimonies.
“A god who wants to enter your story”
Álvaro Martínez is today a priest, and with his history he testifies to the presence of God among us: “God is still alive in us and pilgrimage in our midst. We believe and profess a close God, a God who comes to us. He is not a distant God, but a God who wants to enter your story. ”
In this story that he witnessed, he says that “his word is made alive, when he says: ‘ask and give them, seek and find’. Having asked, we have been given, ”he values.
“When we ask for a healing, we always have to welcome ourselves to the will of God, because if not, we cling to our love and not to a love of God,” says Fr. Martínez.
“Many times, when we pray our father, we say: ‘Your will, and actually I want my will to be done,” he warns. “When we pray, we are not afraid to go to the will of God and may our will be that of God,” he advises.
“If you work the miracle is for greater glory of it”
“If the Lord did this, this miracle – to the light of the Gospel of St. John at the weddings of Cana – is for his glory to manifest and to create in Him. It is not because we love us as a family, or because He has preference for some and not for another, ”he clarifies.
“It is not that he has a preferential affection for some or on the other, God loves us all equally. Sooner or later, we will die the same. But the important thing is that we learn to welcome the will of God and if you work the miracle is for greater glory, to show its power, which is alive in our midst and for us to create. ”
According to his grandson’s words, today Audelia Parra, at 81, “is super good, radiant like the sun, with a lot of energy, 2.0. He has enormous vitality, ”he continues to work his garden, he loves to plant or sow and then reap and give his children, his grandchildren. And he has a lot of devotion to sister Vicenta María Poloni, who is “very grateful.”
Grandma and Nieto yearn to be able to attend the religious canonization ceremony, whose date was not yet announced.
Julieta Villar
I am a journalist, a graduate in Communication from the National University of La Matanza in Argentina. I have work experience in non -governmental organizations. Since 2016 I dedicate myself to Catholic journalism, first in the Argentine Catholic Information Agency (AICA) and, since 2022, as a correspondent for ACI Press for Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Bolivia.