Letter 5

Posted January 13, 2022

Maputo – June 24, 2021

Dearest Father Gailhac

In loving remembrance, Father Founder

Today I decided to write to you to share a little bit of how I felt from your experiences, presence and testimony of life according to the challenges of your time in dealing with the most deprived in society, especially those physically and spiritually ill.

Reading the first volume of our history, written by our dearly Sr. Rosa do Carmo Sampaio, who lives in eternal glory, together with you – your choices between being a professor at the Seminary of Montpelier and the ministry as Chaplain at the Central Hospital of Béziers really touched me.

Yes Father, that was a wise choice – to opt for the poorest, the sick and the non-Christians, to be a bearer of comfort in faith, love and hope, trusting in God’s mercy. What a beautiful and wonderful mission! I believe, Father Gailhac, that your open heart makes you see and deal with the suffering faces. I can see it from our history, that since your childhood you have always helped other children in need and as a seminarian, in your free time, you visited the sick, the prisoners and helped on pastoral works. 

In addition to that, I also know that you were a very close father to your daughters in faith who were lucky enough to listen to you and witness your determination in times of difficulty and on the search for God’s will: “Once you have clarified God’s will, nothing can stop you’’. You also tried to give us guidelines so that we can walk in the search for our personal and common holiness, making the effort to heal our interior and exterior.

 It is with this feeling of healing that I share with you about the sudden illness that my niece Letina had to go through. 

It was in September of last year, that Letina got sick. Suddenly she became paralyzed, she couldn’t speak, she stopped walking and her whole body was stiff. My brother Tomas, seeing his daughter almost half dead, rushed to the Central Hospital of Beira, and she was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit. My sister-in-law was in tears unable to help her daughter in such pain. The whole family was disoriented and asked for prayers. I thought of you, Father and asked for your help to intercede for her. The first thing I did when I entered the Chapel at 9:00 p.m. was to look at your picture and cry, and then I prayed to God the prayer for your Beatification. This prayer became a common prayer among all the family and sisters for Létina’s healing during 9 days, and some sisters from outside the Area were united for the same cause as well. Father Gailhac, you heard our prayers. At the end of the 9th day, Létina Tomás opened her eyes, and after three days, she began to talk and cried because she wanted to go home, having back her consciousness. We thank you for your help and wonderful intercession.

We continued to pray with more confidence and her mother told her that we are praying with Father Gailhac and so, now she prays with us. 

After three weeks in the Intensive Care Unit, Létina went to a regular room with good signs of improvement, out of danger, but not walking yet, and the doctor found her to be an incredible child.

We started the novena again, but at this time she was the one who said: let’s pray for me to walk. At the end of the month, she was discharged and the doctor recommended that we should schedule physical therapy to begin in November. 

What we know Father, is that arriving in November there was no need for physical therapy anymore. So, I thank you, Father, because you heard us. Your intercession was valuable. And as the psalmist says: “the poor man cried out and the Lord heard him”. Today without any problem, Létina walks. She is healed! Blessed be You, Father and Founder. My blood family, and the “Galhacquinhas”, who accompanied me, now we say together: Thank you very much, Merci beaucoup, muchas gracias, Venerable Father Gailhac. 

Receive my best wishes,

your daughter Valeria Erneio, RSHM.

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