My healing at Lourdes – at the heart of Coping

I have never told this story publicly, despite having had many, many opportunities to do so.

When I was just sixteen years old, around the time I began journeying to Lourdes, I was diagnosed with severe chronic asthma. My lung capacity would eventually shrink to just below 53 per cent. I was underweight and when I took a deep breath, I had to stretch my head back (as if to stretch my body to allow more air in). My head would shake and the lungs could scarcely take in what was needed. I sweated a lot and found walking difficult, any physical activity was a real journey for me, more often than not failing in what I wanted to do, a simple task of walking a short journey, for instance. 

I often coughed up blood, and knew the journey to the emergency room very well, when I became particularly bad; the doctors and nurses would put a mask on my face, and this helped. I was on so much medication including steroids which really knocked me out. I was dying on my feet and didn't even know it. It was awful not being able to take a breath, I lived this way for 11 years, that is until 16 June, 2007. That fateful day was the Feast of the Immaculate Heart. I was in Lourdes that evening.

I attended a Mass celebrated by a Jesuit (whom I will not name, but he was from India.) The mass began and I in all honesty was more concerned about going out that evening. I say this to show, I was not the holiest of guys, just a simple Irish Catholic who was easily distracted. 

The Mass came to the Eucharist and upon receiving the Eucharist, I focused on the five wounds of the Christ, hands, feet, and side wound. I sat down and prayed, and the Mass ended. 

Then, unbeknown to me, people began lining up for a blessing, then some fell. I wasn’t into amateur dramatics and mass and honestly thought this whole performance was a bit disrespectful, making this about them and not Jesus. I was encouraged to go up by a man, I declined and yet, he insisted. I gave in and approached the priest.

“Say praise the Lord….” the priest said; I looked at him befuddled, I associated such words with Baptist Churches, singing and dancing and that wasn’t me. Besides I wasn’t able to even if I wanted to. “Say praise the Lord” he insisted, I remember his dark brown eyes and I mumbled hesitantly, almost embarrassed. Though what happened next was quite amazing, it was as if he drew me deeper into the prayer, and my embarrassment and hesitancy turned into denial, “I will not fall…” I remember uttering to myself continuing internally, “My knees will be like the Pharaoh of the Old Testament, his heart, like rocks.” And then, deep within me, I could hear, quietly, “Give my Son a thimbleful of my Immaculate ‘Yes’”, this led to a metanoia, and as soon as I did, I was gone.

Laying on the floor, the last thing I heard was “he has bad lungs, get him water”. I tried to tell them to not do this, (fearing they would throw it on my face, or force me to drink, thus bringing me back from where I was) because I knew at this moment I was with Jesus and the Most Holy Spirit. I describe the feeling thus, if love was water, I was drowning. I had no awareness of time because love is endless and thus no need to be measured or rationed, especially His, Jesus. I felt warm and protected, as if by a blanket of love, curled up in the fetal position, and yet I was physically stretched out as if on a stretcher with arms stretching out each side. I could see nothing around me, just beautiful colours and different shapes, and yet my eyes (I was subsequently told) never shut throughout the experience. The whole event lasted about four to five minutes and then I saw the bottom of an alb standing over me, guarding me, protecting me, and then the priest, and I felt physically as light as air itself, like I could float away.

“Don’t touch him” the priest advised, I regained my composure and managed to find my way to a seat. I burst out crying. “Why am I crying,” I asked the priest, “didn’t Peter cry?” It took me a moment, but it was as if, I, a block of ice, were placed within the ardent fires of the love of Jesus with the warmth of the fires of the Holy Spirit. I walked outside and took my first deep breath… perfect! No strain, no ache, no head shake, no sweat, no gasping for air, no wheezing, no medication or inhalers, nothing, just fresh air. “Fluke,” I thought, I did it again, and the same thing happened. I was realising but afraid to say, “Was I just healed?”

“I knew there would be a powerful healing today because I saw my mentor,” the Jesuit priest said (who by now was eating his evening meal.) “Who out of 20 women, a family and a biker could possibly be this priest’s mentor?” I wondered. And then, “he died 10 years ago… [continuing] when I saw him, I knew there would be a powerful healing.” He ate his sausages as if he was describing the weather forecast, grateful for the warmth. “Within the next four years, there will be another healing,” the Jesuit priest then said. Perplexed, “Unless I sprout wings, what possibly could be healed for me,” I thought. I now had internally accepted what had happened, afraid to sin in case God would bring back the illness (this worry was allayed that evening in confession.)

This healing occurred on 16 June, 2007. Almost four years later, recollecting the Jesuit priest’s words (“within the next four years...”), on 19 May 2011, (the evening of my father’s birthday) I found out the true identity of my biological father. Knowing the truth released a pain that had likely led to all the physical ailments that I had suffered with for so long.

After my healing, in 2010, to thank our Blessed Mother for her intercessory role in my healing, I decided to walk with 10 men to Lourdes, France from Longford in Ireland. We called it “the Big Walk”. We raised £26,000 for the Irish Pilgrimage Trust, a charity that assists pilgrims go to Lourdes annually. 

We left on the walk on 4 June, 2011, having planned it for over a year. I was privately aware of the healing, though I never spoke of it to anyone, I just said, “This is something I want to do for Lourdes, it’s a great place.” I knew that some people might would jump on the healing and it didn’t seem appropriate or at the right time. Two weeks before I left on foot for France, I found out. The healing was psychological following the physical healing. Only God could pull off such a marvel.

Without going into it too much, the land of confusion and psychological turmoil I lived in from conception to 28 years later, nearly destroyed me. I knew the man presented as “dad” (a very nice man) wasn’t and I internally knew the priest was my dad, but couldn’t say it. In short, I was pulled apart inside, and being a child, had neither the words nor wisdom to describe what was happening. Four years after the death of this priest whom I loved, not allowed to grieve as a child should, I got sick. Five years after my lung diagnosis I was bound for keyhole surgery in Dublin. The pressure caved in upon me, and for this clericalist culture, the blood of which is silence, that suffocates children of the ordained everywhere, I now attempt to dismantle it, so nobody else will suffer like I did, and so many like me.

In 2013, I met with the Apostolic Nuncio, having navigated the church hierarchy and on 4 June 2014 (the anniversary of my father’s death, 4 June 1995, which was Pentecost Sunday) I met him again, a Jesuit, who gave his blessing. Coping was born to help others. Now the Vatican agrees that I, and others like me are recognised within the context of safeguarding as “Vulnerable Persons” not to be dismissed or silenced.

Coping International has been accessed by more than 200,000 people globally. It has proved to be historically ground-breaking.

I can never thank God enough, and Our Blessed Mother, for giving me health and preparing me for this mission. But I will try.

Ave Maria.