The Vatican claims that a prayer to the 19th century German nun Maria Theresia Bonzel helped heal a seriously ill four-year-old boy.
18-year-old Luca Buji does not like to remember the events that happened to him 14 years ago. Instead of a boy, his mother tells the story of a miraculous healing.
“In 1998, four-year-old Luca returned from kindergarten and complained of abdominal pain,” recalls Jan Buji. - His condition began to deteriorate sharply, doctors suspected a gastrointestinal disorder, but could not make the correct diagnosis and prescribe treatment. For six months my child was in severe pain accompanied by diarrhea. These attacks were repeated eight to ten times a day. He was the sickest person I have ever seen."
Due to a mysterious pathology, Luca stopped growing and gaining weight. The confused doctors told the Buji spouses that they suspected a malignant neoplasm in the boy's rectum and were planning a biopsy.
But the collection of cells was not needed: on February 22, 1999, the disease disappeared as suddenly as it began.
Maria Teresa Bonzel
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“The affliction left Luka the same day that Sister Margaret and the late Sister Evangeline finished the prayers offered for nine days. The sisters asked Maria Teresa Bonzel, who died in 1905, to help Luca. I don't know how to explain what happened. Our family is not ultra-holy and we are ordinary people: I teach yoga, and my husband works as a mechanical engineer,”says Jan.
Such a quick recovery of a seriously ill patient confused the doctors, who, in response to questions from the boy's parents, only shrugged. Then representatives of the Vatican joined the investigation of the phenomenon.
The Buji family was interrogated, during which doctors and ambassadors from the Catholic Church tried to find out if the parents gave their four-year-old son a laxative to make him sick, or if a real miracle happened.
“They wanted to make sure we weren't crazy. Well, we didn't mind,”Luka’s mother says with a smile.
The investigation lasted 14 years and finally came to an end: Pope Francis upheld the version of the miracle and appointed nun Maria Teresa Bonzel for November 2013 beatification (canonization of the deceased).
Beatification is considered a stepping stone to canonization, and if another miracle is accomplished thanks to Bozel, it will be canonized.