Grave Complications (Maria Mauri)
Grave Complications
Reprinted with kind permission from GARABANDAL JOURNAL May-June 2004
Excerpted from LOS MILAGROS O FAVORES DE NUESTRA MADRE DE GARABANDAL and translated from Spanish by Dr. Edward Serrano
In February 1970, the surgical team of the Clinic Pugol Matabach of Barcelona, along with my brother-inlaw who is also a doctor, performed a relatively simple surgery on my sister Ana Maria. She had a gallstone. This operation ended up with grave complications.
The surgery began at 10:00 A.M. Around 3:30 in the afternoon my husband and I went to visit her. When I arrived at the reception desk to ask the room number, the receptionist asked one of the nurses, “Is that the one in the operating room?” When I heard that, I asked, “How can she still be in there if her surgery was this morning?” The receptionist told me there had been a minor complication but soon she would be taken to her room.
Marl Loll in ecstasy holds up rosaries for Our Lady to kiss. The Virgin said that her Son would perform prodigies through the objects she kissed.
My husband and I went up to the room and waited for her to be taken there. My mother had arrived and also my brother-in-law’s sister. None of us knew why Ana Maria was still in surgery. Half an hour later my husband had to leave and my mother went with him, as I encouraged her to go and get some refreshments and try not to worry about this delay. I said to her, “When you get back, everything will be fine.” But I was becoming more and more troubled as I heard the rumors.
After they left, my sister-in-law and I engaged in small talk, but we knew something was wrong.
At 5:00 P.M. my sister’s husband, visibly affected, came into the room and said, “It’s all over. There’s nothing else that can be done.” He could hardly talk. This was terrible news. Just a few hours ago she had been full of life, and now she was dying, and would leave her children orphans.
At that moment I remembered the Virgin of Mount Carmel of Garabandal and her desire to grant graces to those who would ask with confidence. I didn’t even think of calling the priest for the last rites; she had gone to confession and Communion before the surgery. Instead, I got down on my knees in front of a print of our Lady of Garabandal we had in the room and began to say the rosary. Father Laffineur had given me a Garabandal medal which contained a little piece of Mari Loli’s missal kissed by the Virgin at Garabandal. I kept kissing the medal and fervently begging our Lady to have pity on my sister and cure her so she could kept kissing the medal and fervently begging our Lady to have pity on my sister and cure her so she could care for her family and five children who needed her so badly at this young age.
When I ended the second Hail Mary of the third mystery the surgeon came into the room and said, “She is breathing now and is out of danger. Soon we’ll have her up here.”
After seven hours of being unable to wake up from anesthesia and breathe on her own, she had unexpectedly regained consciousness. Logically she should have continued going downhill but it is very clear that, through fervent prayer and faith, Our Lady of Garabandal intervened and restored her to her family who needed her so badly.
With great emotion and happiness I finished the rosary thanking Our Lady of Mount Carmel of Garabandal for the great grace she had granted us.
Signed: María Concepción Mauri
Barcelona, Spain
Reprinted with kind permission from GARABANDAL JOURNAL • MAY-JUNE 2004
