Brazilian Marcilio Haddad Andrino had eight brain abscesses, which made him suffer from intense headaches. He, however, found miraculous healing for his rare ailment, and he is certain who to thank for this miracle: the Blessed Teresa of Calcutta.
Andrino's healing paved the way for the Roman Catholic Church to announce the canonisation of Blessed Teresa this Sunday, Sept. 4.
Andrino could not be happier for Blessed Teresa's intercession. He feels that he and his wife, Fernanda, were just ordinary believers who experienced an extraordinary sign of God's mercy.
"From the beginning, the diagnoses weren't good and they seemed only worse. (But) from that moment, inside this great suffering, we understood that something had happened," Andrino said, as quoted by The Catholic News Agency.
"I was sure that it was Mother Teresa who healed me," he said.
Fernanda, for her part, recalled how her husband had been sick for two years, suffering in a seemingly hopeless case.
"It was a wait full of anguish because he was very sick for two years and we didn't know what was wrong," she said, adding that the first attempt to treat him "was unsuccessful. "So the doctor changed therapy, but Marcilio continued to deteriorate."
She said that throughout their ordeal, she always prayed to Mother Teresa.
"I put the relic on Marcilio's head, where he had the abscesses. I recited the prayer of beatification and also what came from my heart," she said, noting that "it wasn't easy, but this period enriched me a lot, it enriched our love, our faith ... today I can say it was worth it," she shared.
Andrino, for his part, said he believes that because of their prayers to Mother Teresa, his brain abscesses were reduced significantly, and he was eventually freed from the suffering he had long endured.
"My case was a very difficult one clinically," Marcilio said. But he and his wife were certain "that a miracle happened" through the soon-to-be-saint's intercession.
