Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Trip to visit Mama Mary in Carmel Lipa

At last my sister and I were finally able to visit Carmel Lipa yesterday after planning a trip to visit Our Lady, Mary Mediatrix of All Grace for a long time.

A friend gave me a sticker of the Lady Mediatrix photo which my sister placed above my bed when I was in the hospital for my operation. She would always pray the healing prayer that went with the photo, and one of the resident surgeons said his mother was a devotee of our Lady and believed in the power of prayer.

I was discharged from the hospital with a tube on my lungs since there were still liquid coming out from the drain, one of my onco-surgeon told us that I might go into chemo with the drain since my lungs would most likely continue to produce liquid as an effect of the cancer cells in my plerual. Whoa! That was bad news for me. I did not want to leave the hospital with a drain but each day stay means money so I knew I had to leave. The resident surgeon cleaned my drain and changed the bottle before I was discharged and I told him my onco-surgeon's comment and he said "don't worry, it will dry up!" he then pointed on Mama Mary's sticker and said "I believe in that!" And true enough no additional liquid flowed on my bottle when we got home on a Friday. Comes Monday, my amazed onco-surgeon removed the drain.

And now finally we went to Carmel Lipa accompanied by Nana Antang, a gracious old lady we picked up in the airbase nearby. Carmel Lipa is a lovely place, not just its chapel but the garden around the chapel and we got to talk with the nun who was in-charge of the garden, Sister Celine, I think. She is 82 but looks really young with good sense of humor. Turns out she too had stage IV ovarian cancer 40 years ago and was even given 4 months to live but look at her now! Not only that, she had a major vehicular accident in the US and broke 7 ribs and could not move for 3 months yet you don't see any sign of it when you look at her plus the insurance money she got from winning the case in that accident allowed them to improve the structures in Carmel and even put up a view deck so devotees and believers of the apparition of our lady will have an opportunity to view and meditate on the actual apparition site. She was very consoling when she told me that my sickness is a way of being one with the suffering of the Lord for humanity and that she is certain that I can handle my sickness. The Lord has really been good to me and I could feel His presence all throughout my operation and chemotherapy. I believe that He has given me a miracle by allowing me to be alive and not feeling the burden so many others with cancer had.

I should not be asking for anything more... oh well but I do! And during my prayer while meditating at the apparition site, I asked in an endearing way "Lord could I also have my own miracle petal?" I was hoping for a rose petal to fall on my feet there but none fell. Hahaha, I really did not expect a rose shower but I was just pushing my luck... in case :-)

So we left Carmel and went back to the airbase to bring back Nana Antang and have lunch before going back to Manila. I have just alighted from the car when I noticed something on the ground and picked it up. It was a small odd seed with a film collar around it like the garlic skin but finer and more transparent, I picked it up and looked more closely saw a heart inside that seed. Showed it also to my sister just to make sure that it is not just my imagination... and there is indeed a heart shape at the center. Then I saw some more and picked them up... they all had heart at the center. I asked people around to know from what plant it is but nobody knows.

Here is the front and back of my odd looking seed...


I had it scanned with a black carbon paper so it could be seen better.

Notice the heart in the middle? I know it is just from one of the plants around the area but for me to have come upon it was already a miracle considering its size. I may not have had a shower of rose petals but I did get a shower of my own special faux petal :-)

It is my miracle faux petal! It is God's reminder that He loves me and that I will always be special to Him!

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