Supporters Claim Miracle Led to Child's Survival

Faith helps Mexican girl battle life-threatening condition

The following excerpt is from The Compass News:

By Steve Wideman

APPLETON — As surgeons prepared to connect Alejandra Anacieto Gregorio to a maze of life-sustaining tubes and wires, one pair of gloved hands gently removed a child's rosary from around her neck, carefully avoiding a life-threatening lesion the size of a softball covering half the 14-year-old girl's face.

The rosary, its pink leather cord holding a brightly painted medallion of the Blessed Virgin, was then wrapped several times around Alejandra's wrist.

Over the next eight hours, as a medical team at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin in Milwaukee successfully removed the lesion from her face.

Alejandra, unaware the rosary was now on her wrist, would dream twice of meeting Jesus.

Leticia Santiago Geniesse of Appleton purchased the rosary for Alejandra months earlier during a visit to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe near Mexico City. The shrine marks the spot where the Virgin Mary appeared to peasant Juan Diego in 1531.

"Mexicans are very devoted to Our Lady of Guadalupe. And Alejandra is a girl of huge faith," Leticia said.
Leticia believes the visit to the basilica, and a Feb. 18, 2012, visit to the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help in Champion, Wisconsin, produced a medical miracle for Alejandra.

"There is no doubt in my mind God intervened when all the doors seemed closed to getting help for Alejandra. There is no doubt it was a miracle," Leticia said.

Alejandra, the lesion now all but invisible, expects to reunite in two weeks with her parents and nine siblings in their remote home in the Mexican village of Citlaltepec.

"Our Lady of Guadalupe helps everyone during the most difficult moments," Alejandra said six weeks after the surgery. Without the procedure, physicians had given her a year to live.

During her eight-plus hours on the operating table, Alejandra told Leticia she dreamed twice of seeing Jesus.

"In her first dream, Jesus was standing in front of her home under a tree. She heard birds singing and said everything looked so beautiful. She saw his image but didn't know who he was right away. He said 'Don't worry. Don't be afraid. I will take care of you,'" Leticia said. "As she told me of her dream her face was so beautiful. She was looking up like she wasn't really there. I don't know how to explain it."

In her second dream, Alejandra was joined by her siblings and parents inside her Citlaltepec home.

"She said everyone was very happy," Leticia said. "Alejandra was hiding behind her mom when her mom took her hand and said 'Alejandra. Come see this. This is the Almighty.' There was so much light behind the image, then he opened his arms and she wasn't afraid anymore."

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