The Shadow of Your Smile

30

On Thursday afternoon, Monsignor Joseph Kelly and Monsignor David Fell completed interviewing two more witnesses in the beatification hearings concerning Sister Catherine Mary Kurner. After the Notary had left they sat together in Kelly’s office, discussing the process.

They agreed that the witnesses they had just interviewed had all given compelling stories about their encounters with Sister Catherine. One of them, Eleanor Niven, had been a volunteer in the hospital in Philadelphia founded by Sister Catherine. She had said that at that time Sister Catherine was obviously ill and rumored to be dying.

“She had the most beautiful face and serene manner,” Niven recalled. “When she entered the room the atmosphere changed. We all knew we were in the presence of a very special person.” Eleanor Niven had gone on to testify that she had accompanied Catherine as she made the rounds visiting the patients.

“There was an eight-year-old girl who had had heart surgery and was in very grave condition. The mother, a young widow, was sitting by the bed crying. Sister Catherine embraced her and said, ‘Remember, Christ heard the cry of a father whose son was dying. He is going to hear your cry as well.’ Then Sister Catherine knelt by the bed and prayed. By the next morning the child had begun to turn the corner, and within a few weeks she was able to go home.”

“It’s a story I knew,” Monsignor Kelly said to Fell. “When I was a young priest, I visited that hospital. I never met that child, but I can certainly understand when these witnesses keep testifying to their awareness of Sister’s presence. She had an aura about her. And certainly when she picked up a sick child and cradled it in her arms, it was magical the way the most fretful little one quieted down and accepted the treatment it had been fighting.”

“Our star witness yesterday was pretty interesting, wasn’t she?” Monsignor Fell asked.

“Dr. Farrell? You bet she was. She certainly is pivotal in this process. Emily O’Keefe, Michael’s mother, not only had faith that he would live, but also virtually stopped taking him to doctors.”

“Dr. Farrell mentioned her colleague, Dr. Ryan Jenner,” Fell continued. “I looked him up. He’s made quite a reputation for himself as a neurosurgeon. Dr. Farrell volunteered that on the basis of all the MRIs and CAT scans, Jenner told her that Michael O’Keefe was terminal and should have died. It would be interesting to ask him to testify to that as another qualified witness. I’d really like to question him.”

Monsignor Kelly nodded. “I was thinking the same thing. It would be one more highly respected medical observation to further the cause.”

Then for a long minute, both men were silent, each knowing the thought process of the other. “I am still so frustrated that we can’t learn the circumstances around the fact that Catherine had given birth,” Fell said.

“I know,” Kelly agreed. “We knew she was only seventeen when she entered the convent. It must have happened shortly before that, which would explain why her Mother Superior sent her to Ireland a few months after she became a novice. It suggests that she only realized she was pregnant after she joined the community.

“And no one would have known about it, if that hospital aide who tended to her when she was dying hadn’t noticed Catherine had had a caesarean. And if the aide hadn’t sold the story to one of the gossip rags all these years later when the beatification process began. We never would have found one of the doctors who took care of her in her last illness, the one who verified the story when we questioned him. The fact that he couldn’t in good conscience issue a denial to the press threw gasoline on the flames for the sensationalists, of course…” Monsignor Kelly sighed.

Monsignor Fell replied, “We can’t ignore the fact that we have no information as to her state of mind about the pregnancy. Was the liaison consensual? The early pictures we have show that she was an extraordinarily beautiful young woman. It would not be surprising if she had admirers. Did she give birth to a live child, and if so what became of it? Did she ever talk to anyone about it? These are the questions I have to ask.”

Monsignor Fell realized he was asking these questions without expecting an answer. “It is my job to make sure that miracles are really miracles, and that only people of extraordinary virtue, not extraordinary beauty may someday be listed on the Calendar of Saints,” he said.

Monsignor Kelly nodded and did not choose to mention that ever since yesterday’s meeting with Dr. Monica Farrell his memories of Sister Catherine kept playing through his mind. Maybe it’s because I saw the pain in that lovely young doctor’s face when she talked about breaking the news to the O’Keefes that Michael was terminal.

She had that same look that I remember seeing on Sister Catherine when she shared the heartbreak of parents whose children were dangerously ill.