Omaha daily bee., 1906-08-12
ST. ANNE HEALS A CRIPPLE
Sacred Relic Of Saint Makes Little Mary
Clements Whole.
MIRACLE WROUGHT IN NETWORK CHURCH
Child who Has been Paralysed for
Nearly Two Years Finds Her
Childhood Again on Last
Day of the NOvena.

Yesterday was the feast Of St. Anne at
the Church of st. Jean Baptiste. II was
the last day Of the novena, or nine days
worship of the sainted mother OF the Nir-
gin, the day upon which the hal owed
relies are removed from the reliquary I'm
the crypt Of the church and passed by the
priests over the afflicted parts OF the
manned and the crippled who come in
faith to seek cure through suppllcation.
Among the hundreds who came yesterday
to beseech the spirit of st. NAnne to enter
into them and make them whole was seven
year-old Mary Clements, for almost two
years o helpless paralytic. Her sponsors
say for her that st. Anne has showed her
healing mercy to the crippled girl and
made sound her twisted limbs.
The good ST. Anne mother of the Blessed
Virgin, did on her holy day work a mir
acle and bring surcease from suffering to
little Mary Clements. one of her afflicted
suppliants So say the fathers of the
Holy Sacrament at the Church OF st. Jean
Baptiste in East Seventy-sixth street and
SO testifies the mother of Mary Clements.
who lives in a two room fiat at 1877 East
Eighty-first street
Crippled for Many Months.
For a year and nine months Mary had
sat in a wheeled chair before the window
in her mothers room and watched the
children in the street at their play. Time
had been, and 1t was long, long ago to
Mary of the white face and the shrivelled,
nerveless hands, when she used to romp
on the pavement and juggle jackstones
with her playmates. One day she was run
over by an express wagon. That was
the last day of her childhood up to now.
Since that day she had been in bed or
propped up with pillows in chair before
the window. Doctors had said that she
could not walk again. Her arms and
her legs had been nerveless and beyond
her control.
In the alcove where the chld-woman had
sat day by, day for many months there
we're placed on brackets where the sun
could shine them three geranium pots.
yellow canary in his cage hung from a
hook just over the geraniums. Mary s
mother explains that the yellow canary
was Prince Flory and that each of the
geranium plants represented respectively
the king, the queen and the kings grand
mother, all members of Prince F1ory's
court. Each day that Mary's chair was
moved into the sunny ingle was a day in
the history of the court of Fairyland. For
over a year had the chronicles of the king
dom of Prince Flory been faithfully noted
and made a part Of the life of the child
whose hands could not be outstretched
even in obeisance to her llege and the
grandmother of her liege's royal father.
Yesterday afternoon. the day of st. Anne,
Mary's mother had her lifted downstairs
in her wheeled chair and she trundled the
I,rlo
church, where repose the holy relics of the
saint two wristbones, brought from the
Cathedral of st. Anne in Apt of Province,
France. Over thousand others-cripples,
blind paisied and paralytic-had passed
along the pavements thither and were still
crowdng the church steps when Mrs Glenn
ents and her invalid child reached there.
Mother Bears Child Forward.
One of the six policemen from the East
Sixty-seventh street station. who were de-
tailed to keep the throng of devotees in
order, helped lift the chair down the steps
into the crypt. Then the mother loosened
the straps about the girls waist and lifted
the light burden in her arms. She Joined
the solid ranks of worshippers that filled
the center aisle and moved step by step
down to the altar rail.
a
altar end, where burned scoyes of candles,
set in circular candelabra. Branching fila
ments of brass overhead supported each
its blood red cup OF oil. wherein a low burn
ing wick fiuttered. Beneath this radiance
from the altar the stream of worshipers
moving slowly down the main aisle and
the scattered congregation bent in prayer
over the benches on either side all showed
nd oh f,,IIx
persons in the narrow crypt at one time
The voice Of a priest at the altar chanted
at intervals in booming diapason.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is
with thee, blessed art thou among women"
Then would rise in unison the full re-
Spouse of the packed throng in the aisle.
made treble by the resounding walls.
Holy Mary, Mother of God. pray for us
sinners. now and at the hour of our death"
BY inches the woman with the dangling
burden in her arms drew nearer the altar.
AS she moved she chanted the responses
and the lips of the sick girl in her arms
formed the words haltingly.
Her Prayer and Answer.
They knelt at the altar. The mother
held her child out almost at arms length
as the priest passed down the line of dew
otees. He carried in his hand the sacred
relic, bound in gold. Some kissed this.
Some pointed to their eyes, others to their
back or their temples and the priest swiftly
touched each afflicted spot. He paused
before Mary Clements and passed the
shining orb down the whole length Of her
body, down her arms and across her shriv-
elled fingers.
"A miracle, good st. Anne" whispered
the child's mother as she bowed her head.
"a miracle. a miracle" she pleaded over
and over again as she wheeled the crippled
girl home. She moved Mary's chair up to
the window where Prince Flory hung and
where all the court of Fairyland was as
sembled.
The mother left the girl there before the
geraniums and went out on the street TO
get bread for the evening meal. She