Healing of a Little Boy

by Ulises Pérez-Flores
(Los Angeles County, CA. USA)

Dear readers,

I come from Costa Rica. In the tropics, infections can easily get out of hand. So it was with me. According to my mother, Aurora Flores, I went in for a series of vaccinations when I was about a year old. Apparently, my immune system was quite weak and an opportunistic infection entered my system.

My mouth began to swell, my lips to bleed pus, and all this with powerful antibiotics! A nurse came to our home regularly, to drain & dress my lips and check up on my fever. She was pessimistic about my chances for recovery.

My mother, God rest her soul, was a single mother at a time & place when it was more difficult to so be. I am my mother's only child. She was quite alarmed by the situation.

My father, may he also rest in peace, had essentially abandoned us. So, there was no help forthcoming from him. It's just as well, since the doctors couldn't help me.

Costa Rica has a great filial affection for Mary, under the title "Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula" (the Queen of the Angels of Porciuncula). She is the patroness of our land & people. A great basilica is in Cartago, the colonial capital, where the river once separated the "Ciudad de los pardos" (Half-breed town) from the "ciudad de los españoles" (the Spaniard's Town). Great healing takes place there, such as it does at Lourdes, Fatima, & Knock.

In Faith, my mother took me to the Basilica. There, she washed my mouth out with the water which flows there. She prayed for Our Mother's intercession & we went home. That night, I got worse!

My poor mother tried her best. She finally collapsed asleep from exhaustion. She told me that I woke her up in the early hours of the morning. I was hungry. There was no trace of the infection nor the fever! When the nurse came to do the treatment, she was stunned. In her experience, nobody had ever healed so profoundly & quickly. It was a miracle!

It has been 40 years since this happened. Whenever I go back to visit, I make sure to pay my respects to Our Mother at her basilica in Cartago. I hope to meet her personally in paradise when I am called home.