A story for every day...

Miss Magdalene D’Hugonou, about 14 years old, had been ill for two years with a continuous tremor in her right arm. She held her hand so tightly that it could only be opened by force, and as soon as she left it, the hand closed again as before, and so hard that the tips of the fingers made an impression in the hollow of her hand. At the same time she was paralyzed in her right thigh and leg, which had shrunk, so that she could only support it on the tip of her foot, without having any strength there; so that, although she was always supported on a crutch, a strong person had to support her to make her walk. Her illness increased greatly, and she spent two or three months in constant agitation of her whole body, to the point that two people were needed to support her on all sides: they were even on the point of tying her to her bed with sheets, which obliged her father to call Mr. Rouzet, a doctor from Figeac, who ordered several remedies, without the said Magdalene feeling any relief. Seeing that human remedies gave her no help, her mother promised to go and make her devotions at the holy chapel of Roc-Amadour, and to take her daughter there, as soon as she could bear the fatigue of the journey… As soon as Magdalene knew that her mother had finally made the vow, she was incessantly begging her to take her to Roc-Amadour; this was carried out, although with great difficulty, both because of the rigor of the weather and because of the pain that Magdalene suffered on the way. However, having arrived at Roc-Amadour on the fifteenth day of March, in the evening, before retiring, at the same hour that they had made their prayer, Magdalene cried out, “My mother! here, thank God, is my hand open!” And the next morning, this girl found herself completely cured of all the ailments with which she had been so greatly afflicted for about eleven months, and found herself in a condition to climb the steps leading to the chapel of Our Lady alone without experiencing any pain, and without the help of anyone. After her mother had given thanks to the Blessed Virgin and completed her devotions, Magdalene descended the same steps with the same ease as she had climbed them, and returned with her mother to Livernon, all happy and perfectly cured.

“Ten years later, this young and pious person, to show her gratitude to the Mother of God, entered the convent of Lundieu, under the name of Sister of the Angels. She edified this community by her examples, by her lessons, and sometimes even by her miracles, and died there in the odor of sanctity in the forty-ninth year of her age.”