SAN JOSE, (Reuters) – Suffering a potentially fatal swelling in the brain, Costa Rican grandmother Floribeth Mora says a voice spoke to her through a photograph of the late Pope John Paul II, miraculously curing her and sealing the late pontiff’s sainthood.
The Vatican said yesterday Pope Francis had approved Mora’s cure as the requisite second miracle for the sainthood of John Paul II, who led the Roman Catholic Church from 1978 to 2005.
Mora says she was diagnosed with an aneurysm in a cerebral artery on April 14, 2011 and sent home from the hospital with the warning she could be dead within a month, although the surgeon who made the diagnosis denies he gave such a warning.
According to Mora, she drifted off to sleep in the early hours of May 1, 2011 after watching a mass on television to mark the beatification of John Paul II, who died in 2005.
She says she prayed to the late pope to heal her, and when she awoke, her eyes fell on a picture of him she had on top of the television.
“I woke up when I heard a voice that said ‘get up,’” Mora, now 50, said yesterday at the Roman Catholic Church’s administrative offices in San Jose, showing the clipping. “I was alone in my room, I only had this clipping that was published around those dates to commemorate John Paul II’s papacy.”
“I had it in front of me and I heard a voice again that said ‘get up’ and I looked at his photo and saw his open arms and I heard a voice that said ‘be not afraid’ and I said ‘Yes Lord,’” she added between tears, a golden rosary hanging around her neck.
