Doctor Récamier and the dying stubborn
Dr. Joseph Claude Anthelme Récamier, a famous Paris physician and an excellent Christian, reports the following case:
I was visiting a sick person, in my opinion irrevocably sentenced to death. One morning when I visited him, I was startled by the way he looked. I took his pulse, listened to him. I thought it wouldn’t last more than a few hours… I encouraged his wife and his mother, telling them to commend him to God. I offered to do it too…
I return in the afternoon, unannounced, and find him alive. The same the next day. His lungs don’t work, hypertrophy obstructs his entire chest, breathing is impossible, and his life seems like a miracle to me. He wears a medal around his neck and the Scapular of Carmen. Will the Virgin want to heal him? His wife takes advantage of the occasion:
-“Look, the doctor will tell you. Is it not true that the last sacraments have healed many sick people?
– “Leave me – he shouted – leave me all of you, who torment me and murder me”.
The doctor, out of prudence, made a sign for them to be silent, and, approaching the patient, said:
– “Come on, give me your hand and let’s be good friends. Don’t say another word.”
He took her hand and waved goodbye. On leaving she told the family:
-“Be confident; I have seen the Scapular on Federico’s chest, pray to the Virgin and wait”.
Despite it being night, he went to the Colegio del Sagrado Corazón and asked for prayers for a dying person, and then for a priest, to say the rosary. Dr. Recamierlo prayed at home with his family and, in the end, three Hail Marys for a dying man. Getting up, he leaned badly and broke the glass of the clock.
He got up at six in the morning and went to see his sick man. Her mother comes out on the stairs to thank him; her wife shakes his hand, full of gratitude.
-“Come on, doctor, come on, said the patient, now I am happy. I have reconciled myself to God; give me a hug”.
The sick man, without saying a word to anyone, had asked for a priest and quietly received all the sacraments. Shortly afterwards, Récamier being present, he died without the slightest agony.
To distract the pain of the family, the doctor asked: – “What time did Federico ask for the priest and the sacraments?”
-“At half past nine”. He takes out Récamier’s watch and finds it stopped at that hour.
-“Look, at half past nine we just finished praying the rosary and three Hail Marys for him, because when I got up that was when the clock stopped. Our Lady granted us what we all wanted: the health of her soul”.
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