Healing of Henriette Bressolles
Lourdes, France · 20th Century
What Was Truly Miraculous
A military nurse admitted in October 1918 with "Pott's disease of the spine due to Military Service." She spent years in hospital with a plaster collar and corset, paralysis of the right leg, intestine, and bladder. She had a 125% military pension for "total paraplegia and double incontinence." She arrived at Lourdes on 3 July 1924. That afternoon, after a sensation of a very painful crack, she felt cured and could sit up for the first time in six years. The Bishop of Nice officially recognized the cure as miraculous on 4 June 1957.
Why It Can't Be Dismissed
The Lourdes Medical Bureau gathered documentation; the International Medical Committee (C.M.I.L.) affirmed the cure was inexplicable in the current state of medical knowledge. The Bishop of Nice recognized it on 4 June 1957. Permanent paralysis does not spontaneously reverse. Sudden restoration of function is medically unexplained.