Part II
(LifeSiteNews) — (Editor’s note: This is Part II of an essay arguing for the establishment of a shrine in Talkeetna, Alaska. To read Part I, please click here.)
Eric and Andrea Paul met in the Air Force. Andrea was a native of southern Michigan and grew up in a Catholic household. Eric was an Oklahoma Baptist, and as the arrows of attraction hit them, unique as they always are in every romance, they shared a common faith in Christ. It was a faith that led to a mixed marriage, one in which the hopes of spiritual unity were to be delayed. And often, through adversity, Grace comes to those who love the Lord, because above all, God reads hearts.
When their son Bruce was born, it was a difficult delivery. And as the pediatrician immediately discovered, their son had a heart murmur. They were told that this was not an immediate cause of concern, and that it would likely soon disappear.
But when it did not, the military pediatrician at the joint Army/Air Force base in Anchorage, Dr. Kirby, referred them to an off-base cardiac pediatrician, Dr. Christina Diller. Baby Bruce Paul had medications prescribed, but they were doing little or no good. He was oversleeping and losing weight. It was then discovered that Bruce had holes in his heart, some the size of a nickel. At five months old, he underwent cardiac surgery, which successfully closed the holes.
But the troubles would be continued: Bruce’s valves were not “matched up.” Try to imagine the swinging doors of a western saloon, only overlapping a few inches. The swinging valves permit the chambers of the heart to isolate the incoming from the outgoing blood that occurs with every heartbeat. But in baby Bruce, the “swinging doors” did not overlap; there was instead a gap which prevented the chambers from isolating the incoming “old” blood from the refreshed blood.
Andrea and Eric were told that the prognosis was not good. Bruce needed another surgery right away, and it would be dangerous.
At this stage, Andrea’s sister and brother-in-law Natalie and Dalton Neff enter the story, as does Fr. Madison Hayes of the Sacred Heart parish in Wasilla.
Like many devout evangelical Christians, Eric regarded alleged Catholic “superstitions” scornfully. On a visit to Fr. Madison, he said that he came with a long list of Catholic fallacies and would instruct the priest in Christian truth. But the good priest patiently met every challenge with explanations that were easily found in the Bible. But what caught Eric by surprise was the use of relics.
He was surprised to learn that Catholics share the same caution about relics, so that they do not become amulets or good luck charms. Instead, they have long been used, since apostolic times, to effect cures. No Christian believes that the woman suffering from a hemorrhage was cured by the tassel of Jesus. Rather, it was her faith, as Christ Himself told her [Mark 5: 21-34].
Nor did the mud placed upon the eyes of the man born blind cure him in John’s Gospel; or the shadow of Peter or the handkerchief of Paul in Acts 19:12. In the Old Testament, a Syrian general was cured by bathing seven times in the Jordan River [2 Kings 5:1-19]. Yet humans, living in the material world, need to use the tactile senses as an aid, and God does not despise His creation.
Eric’s intended triumph over Catholic “superstitions” evaporated due to Fr. Madison’s explanations, not only when it came to relics, but to other issues, too. In humility, he was ready to try anything that would cure his son’s life-threatening heart condition.
The venerated Arm of St. Jude, kept in a reliquary in Rome, was touring through over a hundred U.S. cities at this time, but an interior and prayerful feeling led that Paul family to believe they was not called to visit it.
Learning of this, Bruce’s Aunt Natalie began scouring the internet for relics found in Alaska. Through a 2015 article in the archdiocesan North Star Catholic, Natalie found that the statue of Our Lady of the Golden Heart was in nearby Talkeetna. Thus, the stage was set for the Paul and Neff families to make the 50-mile drive to Talkeetna in March 2024.
READ: June must be rededicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
The Neffs and Pauls, along with the family dogs Bear and Moose, arrived in Talkeetna in March 2024. It is a hopeful time of year in Alaska. Longer daylight begins the process of melting snow, but skiers and snow machiners operate well into April. Talkeetna’s excellent airport has long been a staging area for mountain climbers eager to challenge North America’s highest peak. The St. Bernard parish is adorned with symbols of mountaineering culture, as many climbers attend Mass before tackling North America’s highest peak. Ice axes adorn the wooden beams in the solidly built church and feature in a stained-glass window.
Alaska is blessed not to have snakes, skunks, wood ticks, or poison ivy. But it does have the aptly named “devil’s club”, which is so laden with thorns on its strong and stubborn stalks as to make them an annoyance the year round. In summer, its elephantine leaves have thorns hanging on its underside, like hellish icicles. It spreads across acres of meadows and forest glens, making a person ponder for long minutes as to the options: Go through, or go around? It is a perennial plant, ready to blossom anew in May, and its prickly stalks remain a problem even in winter, protruding well above the snow depth.
The shelter which held Our Lady of Beauraing and the Golden Heart was also crowded on its backside with not only devil’s club, but also wild rose stalks.
The two families came to the shelter and statue, ready for prayer. The sleeker of the two dogs, Bear, walked up, placed his paws on the stone foundation, and looked straight at the statue. Bear’s action, and his overall demeanor, was unusual, and Eric photographed it.
It might have been forgotten, except for what happened when the prayers and devotions were completed. The families returned to their cars, but both dogs, Bear and Moose, ran back to the statue, as if they had been called to dinner. Then they split in opposite directions at its base and went to work grabbing devil’s club and wild rose stalks in their teeth and ripping them out of the ground. The adults were dumbfounded as this continued for about 5 minutes.
Eric, fearing his dogs would return with bloody mouths and tongues, tried to call them off, but to no avail. The especially obedient Bear ignored him.
But his sister-in-law Natalie’s reaction was similar to that of the Mother Superior in Beauraing of some 90 years earlier, when she witnessed her Belgian dogs: “Mary is here!”
Dogs are known to eat grass and various berries. But no dog would want to do what Bear and Moose did. And after they had cleared the area around the statue, they came to the car. Expecting to find blood and injury to their lips, tongues and palates, Eric saw that they had no apparent injuries, and no visible thorns in the soft flesh of their mouths.
Demons fear Mary. For the sake of their pride, they would rather be rebuked by Christ than by her. One wonders whether or not, had the devil’s club been named “thorn club” or “Alaskan thistle,” the dogs would have done what they did — at Mary’s call!
But the actions of the Paul family dogs was merely a harbinger, for at his next check-up, Bruce’s heart valves were properly aligned!
That April, Andrea flew to Michigan with Bruce, who was now gaining weight and growing. The valves were not perfect, but the echocardiogram and EKG showed that the valves were moving better and matched up to close the opening with each heartbeat, so surgery would no longer be necessary.
Examining the images, the pediatrician wondered how it might have happened. The doctor did not ask questions. The Pauls made no explanation, but a wave of emotion must have surged through them.
Predicting where lightning will strike is an impossibility, and the same goes for miracles. They are utterly amazing and inexplicable. When cures and manifestations occur, their news is spread more by word of mouth than by headlines. But after hearing this story back in Belgium, the parish priest in Beauraing sent two small hawthorn tree twigs to the Pauls, who keep them in a reliquary on a shelf in their home.
Spiritual miracles are more frequent, and more important. The recent movie Saving Mr. Banks told the beautiful story of how Walt Disney (played by Tom Hanks) brought the Mary Poppins stories to life. And as Disney told author P.L. Travers, who was reluctant to grant rights to the film: “You know as well as I do that this story is not at all about Mary Poppins or the kids. It’s about saving Mr. Banks.”
Eric Paul, once a die-hard Baptist, is now a Marian devotee and hopes to begin studies for the deaconate. He knows that he, indeed, has been saved — “born again.”
Jacques Herter, who still retains the leaf that was placed under his pillow, was an infant in the 1940s when he was saved from dehydration. Bruce Paul is still under three years old. And now another young Alaskan boy, suffering from cancer for years, has also been successfully treated. His diagnosis came after the family, which requested anonymity, visited Talkeetna.
When people are suffering from cancer, prayers constantly accompany the treatments for those with faith — from family, friends, and relatives. It is something that crosses denominational lines. For those who can beat this disease, it is impossible to claim a miracle due solely to prayers, but most will tell you that, without faith and without supplications to Heaven, it would not have happened.
Perhaps, in the mystery of life, most spiritual and healing miracles are meant to be this way. God’s miracles are not “magic”. As important as prayers and fasting are, we cannot buy miracles. There are no guarantees, and a physical cure is not as important as a spiritual conversion.
In the words of this boy’s mother: “[He] went up and sat by Our Lady alone for a bit. Then we had a picnic. When we went to Seattle for his next MRI later that month, his scans were clear of disease and his spinal tap had no cancer cells present, where there was some before. The doctors were pleasantly surprised, but this is not unheard of given the treatment he was on, and he had been doing pretty well prior to our visit.”
Later, the young man said, “I think Mary helped us.”
At shrines around the world, there are many testimonies of healings. They have not undergone scientific scrutiny, and neither the skeptical secular world, nor the recipients, feel called to do so. Mary allows the world to keep guessing, and the faithful whom she has assisted will no doubt be permanently transformed.
And there is one more coincidence. Fairbanks, located in the very center of Alaska, was founded by an Italian gold prospector named Felice Pedroni (Felix Pedro in American parlance). It lies about 250 miles to the north of Talkeetna. The tourists who pour into Talkeetna come through Fairbanks as often as they do Anchorage.
For many decades Fairbanks was Alaska’s largest city, being a gold mining center, river port, and railroad terminus.For all these reasons, it has always been affixed with an extremely appropriate nickname. Chicago is the “Windy City”, Denver the “Mile High City”, Paris the “City of Light” and Rome the “Eternal City”. And, although founded decades before the Beauraing miracle, Fairbanks is known as “The Golden Heart City”.
Perhaps Our Lady of the Golden Heart desires a shrine in her honor in a frontier state that is spiritually starved but can grow a new heart.
READ: Catholics kneel by riverbank as Blessed Sacrament arrives for Eucharistic pilgrimage
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