Delivered from Danger by the Power of Prayer

News story from CBN TV

A heart malfunction caused Steve DeMoss to go into a coma from which he miraculously awakened after being anointed with oil by his pastor.

Doctors told Sharon DeMoss that Steve needed to wake up from the coma within 5 days, or he would suffer major brain damage. On the fourth day, he was showing no signs of recovery. She called a local church for prayer. “They came over immediately and they spent a long time,” Sharon said. “We worshipped. We prayed together. We held hands. We prayed over him. They anointed him with oil.”

By the next morning, Steve was awake and had no signs of brain damage. “When I woke up, my wife says, ‘Do you realize what just happened?’ I had all these tubes in me and everything. Then my kids came to me, my daughter and one of my sons, we huddled and we realized that the worst had passed.”

“I remember just being able to breathe after that,” Sharon said. “Like, it was going to be okay.”

“That was a pretty joyful realization that God’s restored what we had almost lost,” Steve said.

That same afternoon, Steve was walking around the hospital, and he was released just days later. “When I woke up, I heard that people were praying all over the world,” Steve said. “I had friends in Senegal, Uganda. I really believe that the prayers of the people is what brought me back. It was extremely touching for me. It just made me feel like, ‘I am so glad I am a part of the body of Christ.’”

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"Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven."  (James 5:14-15)

Miracle Boy Meets Pope Francis

Photo by Andreas Solaro/AFP

News excerpt from Aleteia.org

Born in May 2002 in Milan, little Pietro is the fifth child of Walter and Adele. At his birth, the doctors found that he was suffering from a lung malformation. The infant was doomed. The parents then asked Father Antonio Sangalli, a Carmelite, to baptize him right away. At this critical moment, the priest slid over a picture of Thérèse de Lisieux's parents, the Martins, who had lost four of their own children.

Walter and Adele decided to trust in the Lord and confide in Louis and Zélie Martin. And the incredible happened. (Full story here.) Although the doctors predicted he had only a few hours to live, a month later the small Pietro began to show signs of improvement. After a few weeks, he was officially cured.

The Alençon Shrine is dedicated to the Martins. Every year on July 12, it organizes a pilgrimage around this exemplary couple. The family of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus lived in Orne until Zélie's death in 1877. It was then that Louis Martin decided to move to Lisieux with his daughters, near his beautiful family. In Alençon, for obvious reasons, people are interested in news related to the Martins and Thérèse.

And, after the healing of little Pietro Schilirò which made it possible to beatify the couple on October 19, 2008, this is another story that brought joy in recent weeks: Pietro's meeting with Pope Francis on March 29 at the Vatican, at the audience with the deaf and blind. (Pietro has been deaf since age 3.) And the meeting was not trivial. While we know about Francis' attachment to the saint of Lisieux, the meeting also overwhelmed the little boy who had received the miracle from Thérèse's parents.

Read more: Miracle Boy