Colorado Teen Can’t Shed His Diarrhea Past; Pope Declares it a Miracle
Miracles happen everywhere, if you only know where to look. Sometimes you have to look in diarrhea.
The Denver Post reports that a German nun is one step closer to being declared a saint, after helping a little boy's diarrhea go away in 1999, almost a century after her death.
The official Church version of the story is that the undiagnosed "severe gastrointestinal condition" (responsible for daily, constant diarrhea) that had plagued 4-year-old Luke Burgie for six months—since his first day of preschool—miraculously cleared up just as two nuns from Colorado Springs finished reciting nine days of prayers (a novena) to Mother Theresia Bonzel, their order's original founder.
This isn't miraculously like, "I thought I was going to miss the elevator but then, miraculously, I made it in before the doors closed." It's miraculously like, "people prayed for a miracle and then, oh my God, a miracle actually happened."
Just before Easter, Pope Francis declared that Bonzel was personally responsible for Luke Burgie's miraculous healing. She's scheduled for beatification in November. (Sainthood requires two miracles, so she's still one miracle shy for that.)
Luke's mom, Jan, who describes herself as a non-practicing Catholic yoga instructor, says her son—now a floppy-haired 18-year-old BMXer—has been self-conscious his whole life about the fact that a dead woman's miracle was needed to bring an end to his crippling diarrhea.
"He didn't like being singled out as the miracle boy."
Luke also professes not to remember ever being sick (or suddenly getting better), although you were, Luke, you were sick, sick with a lot of diarrhea, so much diarrhea that the doctors were worried you might poop yourself to death, so much diarrhea that a literal miracle, sent down from heaven, was the only thing that could stop it, all day and night you pooped and pooped and pooped until God looked down from heaven and said "Holy shit, Luke, what are you doing, stop it!"
Ask your mom, she'll tell you. Or ask the Denver Post reporter to whom she gave an interview about your diarrhea story. Or ask the Church's verification committee, who consulted medical records and conducted in-depth interviews with your family to make sure your diarrhea story was a miracle. Or ask the pope, who heard all about your diarrhea story and said "My God, that boy's diarrhea story is a miracle!" Or ask the old pope, who heard all about your diarrhea story and said "My God, that boy's diarrhea story might be a miracle!" (Pope Benedict XVI declared Bonzel "venerable"—the step before beatification—in 2010.)
There are so many people you could ask for information if you ever want to learn more about that diarrhea you had, that only ended through divine intervention.
Maybe you could pray to Mother Theresia Bonzel, the woman to whom so many prayed, fourteen years ago, on behalf of your diarrhea, for answers.
She needs one more miracle to become a saint, so maybe she'll respond with something big.
(Since you guys are already close.)
(Since she helped you with your diarrhea.)
