Et pourtant, tous ces cas ont été authentifiés par des témoins, des scientifiques, des historiens, des instruments de contrôle. Mais relèvent-ils de l'intervention divine ou des capacités secrètes de l'être humain ? À l'heure où la foi paraît s'incliner devant la peur, Didier van Cauwelaert nous offre, avec cet ouvrage hautement documenté à l'humour percutant, une profonde réflexion et un formidable message d'espoir.

However the doctors said there was still a slight possibility to perform surgery on a later date to replace the obstructed arteries with new plastic arteries. Therefore the doctors advised Nohad to go to Hotel Dieu Hospital in three months for new X-rays and tests to determine what the next steps should be to cure Nohad from hemiplegia.

For the next 9 days Nohad stayed in hospital under the watchful eyes of the doctors and nurses to see if her health stabilised or deteriorated. During this time, Nohad’s eldest son, Saad, immediately went to the St Peter and St Paul hermitage in Annaya, Mount Lebanon to get help from St Charbel. This hermitage in Annaya was the place where St Charbel used to pray, meditate, fast, work and sleep. Saad prayed very hard to St Charbel for his mum’s healing at the hermitage and brought back for his mum consecrated oil and soil from the tomb of St Charbel. Nohad’s daughter applied the consecrated oil and soil on Nohad’s body in the hospital and immediately Nohad felt tingles in her hand and feet.

When Nohad finally returned home from hospital, she was taken straight to her bed to relax and sleep. The pain was so bad that Nohad could not leave her bed and her husband had to help her go to the bathroom and her children had to give her food and water through a straw. Nohad spent the next three days in her bed in agony and pain after leaving the hospital.

While Nohad was sleeping at home, she saw in her dream that she was walking up the stairs at the St Peter and St Paul hermitage in Annaya, Mount Lebanon and then she attended a mass service in the presence of several monks. During this mass service, St Charbel gave Nohad the Holy Communion.

On the night of the 22nd January 1993, Nohad saw in her dream two maronite monks standing next to her bed. One of the monks put his hands on her neck and started operating on her while the other monk relieved her from her pain by holding a pillow behind her back. When Nohad woke up from the dream, she discovered two long surgical wounds on each side of her neck. Nohad also noticed she could move her arms and walk on her legs as normal. Nohad was completely healed from hemiplegia.

The next night, Nohad saw St Charbel in her dream and he said to her, “I did the surgery to let people see and return to their faith. I ask you to visit my hermitage in Annaya on the 22nd of every month and attend Mass regularly for the rest of your life”. The second Maronite monk that was present in the operation of Nohad was St Maroun.

Since St Charbel appeared to Nohad in her dream on the 22nd January 1993, hundreds and thousands of people from Lebanon and all over the world gather on the 22nd of each month to pray and celebrate Mass in Annaya, Mount Lebanon.

Source: https://saintcharbel.net.au/miracles/st-charbel-heals-nohad-el-shami-from-hemiplegia/

Souls in purgatory appear to Italian mystic "Mamma Natuzza" (d. 2009)

A beloved and popular mystic from Calabria, Italy, Natuzza Evolo was a Catholic mother of five who has been declared a Servant of God.  Natuzza never got a chance to receive an education. She came from a very poor background, was often shut in at home, and was hired as a maid at the age of 12. She was known as "Mamma Natuzza" and was nicknamed "Madre Pia" in reference to Padre Pio, because of the similarity of mystical phenomena in her life (bilocations, visions, stigmata, demonic attacks, etc). The deceased also appeared to Natuzza to pass on messages and warnings to the living. Her mystical life was exceptionally intense. 30,000 people from Italy and abroad attended her funeral in 2009, including 5 bishops and nearly 1,000 priests.

• Several of Natuzza Evolo's bilocations are documented. The first one happened when she was only 11: she "visited" her father who had emigrated to Argentina before she was born to look for work, and had never returned. Natuzza was able to describe her father's apartment perfectly, although she had never been there before. Her father sent the family a puzzled letter, saying that he had seen Natuzza at his home and wondering if she had died.

• Natuzza had no attraction for the occult. Her 'communications' with the dead were not intentional as do mediums. Instead, they illustrate the truth of the Communion of saints taught by the Catholic Church. Many living persons recognized the authors of those messages as being close friends or deceased family members, and some even spoke through the mouth of Natuzza in their own voice.

• Natuzza was never able to go to school. She never learned to read or write, and spoke only the Calabrian dialect. Yet she had an incredible mastery of theology, and sometimes transmitted messages in foreign languages (unknown to her).

• When her body dripped blood and she wiped it with a handkerchief, the wiped blood left miraculous markings or drawings (hemographies) of a spiritual nature (for example, psalms in different languages). These phenomena were seen by hundreds of people: "I then saw that the blood was moving, shaking like mercury [...].I saw a host being formed with the letters IHS and then a whole monstrance. I was stunned..."

• Although she was graced with so many extraordinary phenomena and her popularity spread in Italy, Natuzza remained humble. She knew that the mystical events she experienced were a small, incidental part of Christian life.

• All the inexplicable phenomena Natuzza experienced centered on Jesus, the Gospel or Scriptures. They are clearly a sign of Christ's presence throughout her often hidden life. In fact, Natuzza's life was entirely oriented towards God, whom she met in every person she encountered.

• Despite her popularity and great material poverty, Natuzza never accepted any money or gift, which proves the selflessness of her actions.

• The bishop of her diocese, Domenico Tarcisio Cortese, expressed his positive opinion of Natuzza in public on several occasions: "She is patient, of great faith, obedient to the Church and has never allowed herself to be tempted by money, which could have made her a millionaire, with the crowds who turned to her. [...] I believe that most people leave her house with a serenity of spirit that is rare to find in spiritual directors, so she is a person to be greatly respected."

Summary:

Fortunata Evolo, whose diminutive name was Natuzza, was born on August 23, 1924, in Paravati, Calabria (Italy). By then, her father had already emigrated to Argentina, like thousands of Italians at the time, fleeing poverty and rampant unemployment. To support the family, her mother took on all sorts of work to feed her numerous family. Once, she was arrested for stealing chickens and taken to prison, and as the oldest, Natuzza had to shoulder the burden of being a mother to her younger siblings.  

In 1932, she had her first visionary experience. One night, in a dream, she saw a figure dressed like a religious, whom she would not recognize until years later when looking at holy images: it was Saint Francis of Paula. This apparition remained engraved deep in her memory. Being unhappy with her life, she inwardly asked this vision to help her leave this depressing environment. Then she heard the answer: "In three days, your prayer will be heard!" Indeed, three days later, she was placed as a servant in the home of Silvio Colloca, a lawyer. She was only eight years old at the time, and had only been to school for a few months.

Around the age of eleven, she had her first experience of bilocation. In her own words, she found herself in a flash in her father's house in Argentina. She stood before him, and startled, her father asked her if she had died. She replied that she didn't know how she had gotten there. The many precise details she gave those around her about the furnishings, decorations, layout and size of the rooms proved that this first bilocation did in fact happen. At first it was believed that she had made it all up, but soon afterwards a letter arrived from Natuzza's father, in which he reported seeing his daughter up close. Family members familiar with the Argentinian home confirmed Natuzza's description point by point.

In June 1939, something new happened. She communicated with the dead, who appeared to her in a visible way, dressed as the living, night or day. People became worried that she was possessed ("infested with spirits") or the victim of uncontrollable parapsychological phenomena. However, Natuzza's spiritual life and family life were not affected, and were in fact strengthened. These apparitions of the dead were followed, most of the time, by those of Jesus and Mary. Without any taste for the occult, she had no control over these supernatural experiences.  

One of the first apparitions shows that it was not a product of an overactive imagination. One day, while working at the Colloca's house where she was employed, she saw three people sitting on the beds in the children's room. Amazed, she rubbed her eyes, but the vision remained. Gathering her courage, she asked the unknown "visitors" to go into the living room. One of the three people told her that they were deceased. Frightened, the girl ran to tell her lmistress that she has just seen three dead people in the room! Mrs Colloca, thinking it was an illusion, started laughing. Mr. Colloca said to Natuzza: "If they're dead, why don't you ask them their names?" She went straight back to the children's room and, without waiting, asked them their names. She returned to the living room and announced: "Their names are Nannina, Raffaele and Concettal". The notary suddenly froze: three members of his family with these names had died.

During these visions, Natuzza received messages from the dead via her guardian angel, or directly, the voice of the deceased sometimes taking the place of her own voice. Some thought it was a kind of incorporation mediumship, however these visions were in line with Catholic doctrine as as Natuzza knew the spiritual state of the dead who appeared to her, i.e whether they were in heaven, purgatory or hell.

She mostly saw souls in purgatory. Mr. Colloca also heard the voice of an uncle who had died refusing the sacraments of the Church: "I heard the hoarse, painful voice of an old man: 'Dear nephew, I am your uncle. I'm suffering, there's no hope for me, I'm condemned to eternal fire, there's no hope for me; for me, these are atrocious, appalling sufferings." 

One day, a deceased man predicted that Natuzza would have a near-death experience. Shortly afterwards, she fell into a kind of lethargy and remained unconscious for 7 hours. Many believed she was dead, her body giving no sign of life. This type of phenomenon, as spectacular as it is, is not new in the annals of Christian mysticism: in her time, Saint Teresa of Avila experienced a similar phenomenon lasting four days.

The visions of the dead occurred daily (except Fridays and during Lent) until 1960, but were less frequent beginning in 1958. Natuzza made a point of writing down all the messages she received from the dead, sometimes repeating whole sentences in foreign languages she obviously did not know, to people who came to ask her questions.

At the same time, the number of bilocations increased, both when she was awake and when she was asleep. Her "double" manifested itself either close to home (and even in her own house) or, on the contrary, in a very distant place. She didn't feel that she was "traveling", but she would suddenly find herself in a different place, but always with her guardian angel. Above all, these bilocations always had a religious purpose, and were intended for a specific religious mission, whether it was assistance, relief, charity, etc.

On July 26, 1936, a new kind of phenomenon occurred several times: drops of blood appeared on her forehead, cheeks, hands, chest and knees. When a handkerchief, bandage or garment came in contact with the actively bleeding stigmatic wounds or bloody sweat, hemographic writings and symbols would imprint themselves on the cloths (hemographies) always of a religious nature: fragments of prayer, psalms, biblical passages, etc. They were written in several languages, both modern and dead: ancient Greek, Hebrew, English, German, Old French, etc. Natuzza was illiterate, however, and spoke only a southern Italian dialect.

These words and phrases were sometimes accompanied by drawings: crowns of thorns, bloody hearts, rosaries, crosses, spears, lilies, doves, figures kneeling near the cross wearing a halo, etc. An Italian doctor testified that he personally saw blood "running down a pillowcase forming an inscription faster than it could be written." Another person reported: "I noticed on her table a folded handkerchief stained with blood that Natuzza had just left there. [...] Then I saw that the blood was moving, shaking like mercury [...]. I saw a host with the letters IHS and then a whole monstrance. I was stunned...".

Natuzza also received the stigmata of Christ's Passion on Good Friday of 1958. The phenomenon reoccurred every year shortly before the start of Lent. On Ash Wednesday, small pink spots appeared on the tops of the hands and feet and on her left side. Observers were struck by the fact that her feet and hands that were not completely pierced. A few days before Good Friday, the wound caused by the crown of thorns appeared. Blood flowed throughout Lent, then the wounds closed on their own, giving way to small scabs that fell off in a few days.

Every Good Friday, Natuzza, like many mystics of the past, participated body and soul in the successive stages of the Passion, not as a spectator but as an involved participant. Each time she experienced this, she was observed by at least two priests from her parish, doctors and family members.

Her mystical life was at times subjected to terrible temptations and diabolical assaults. She regularly received inexplicable threats against herself, her children and her husband, Pasquale Nicolace. Inexplicable marks of blows were also observed on her body. These demonic "warnings" fitted in perfectly with her faith in the sacrament of marriage, which is a path to holiness if it is lived under God's gaze.

In 1944, Natuzza said the Virgin Mary told her to build a church called Immaculate Heart of Mary, Refuge of Souls, a youth center and a senior center to help the people in need. The complex opened 78 years after the alleged miraculous apparition. The church dedicated to the Virgin Mary and built in memory of Natuzza was finally consecrated and opened to the public on August 6, 2022. 

Servant of God Natuzza Evolo died in 2009, after a long life given to Jesus and devoted to all those who met her. Her cause for sainthood officially began on April 6, 2019.

Source: https://1000raisonsdecroire.com/en/souls-in-purgatory-appear-to-italian-mystic-mamma-natuzza-d-2009