Mother Teresa is known for having loved beggars, prostitutes and street children without discrimination or distinction. Marcilio Andrino is convinced she also loved him — and interceded with God to cure him of a viral brain infection when doctors had given him little chance of survival.
Andrino’s cure, declared a miracle by Pope Francis earlier this year, was the final step needed to declare Mother Teresa a saint. She will be canonized by Francis on Sunday in St. Peter’s Square in the highlight of his Holy Year of Mercy, a yearlong emphasis on the merciful side of the Catholic Church.
The Brazilian mechanical engineer and his wife, Fernanda, said Mother Teresa’s message, conveyed through a lifetime of working for the “poorest of the poor” in India’s slums, is that God’s mercy is for everyone.
“Fernanda and I are just normal people within God’s people,” Andrino said on the sidelines of a Catholic meeting before the canonization. “God didn’t choose who to send down his mercy to, just like Mother Theresa, who cared for everybody without any distinction.”
According to the official account, Andrino was in a coma and dying on Dec. 9, 2008 from a viral brain infection that had resulted in multiple abscesses and an accumulation of fluid around the brain.
Surgery was scheduled for 6:10 p.m. but the anesthesiologist couldn’t immediately intubate him. When the surgeon arrived a half-hour later, he “found the patient inexplicably awake and without pain,” according to the postulator of Mother Teresa’s cause, the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk.
“The patient asked the doctor, ‘What I am doing here?’ The next morning … the patient was fully awake and without any headache; he was asymptomatic with normal cognition,” Kolodiejchuk said in a statement earlier this year.
Kolodiejchuk said Fernanda had been praying for Mother Teresa’s intercession specifically during the half-hour when her husband was supposed to be in surgery.
“Marcilio was fine. He was sitting up. He was talking in intensive care (at the hospital) and I realized that he was cured, that Mother Teresa had interceded on our behalf and cured Marcilio,” Fernanda said. “This was confirmed by the exams which proved the reduction of the abscesses and the disappearance of the hydrocephaly, making us sure that operations and drainage were no longer needed.”
Andrino has since resumed working and is in good health — and despite tests showing he had become sterile, has had two children since.
“Every time I look at Marcilio and our children, I feel very grateful,” Fernanda said. “I am very grateful to God and Mother Teresa.”
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
God bless him. A very inspirational story.
God through intercession of the saints work miracles everyday. God Bless this family.
When you did it for the poorest of the poor,you did it for me – that is what Jesus Christ said and that is what Mother Theresa did all through her Life.I had the opportunity to meet her and hold her blessed Hand.
What about the thousands of other sickly people who have prayed to mother Teresa and still have died? Why no miracle there? Bodies heal themselves like animals have the ability to heal themselves without vets/doctors. It doesn’t mean it’s a miracle, it means we have the ability for our bodies to heal themselves even from cancer. There are even prisoners who don’t believe in God and have comited terrible crimes and even they have been cured of life threatening conditions without prayers, does that mean God, a saint or a Virgen cares more for a man who killed or raped than someone who has believed in God yet that man/woman who has been a good person and believes in God dies instead of a killer or rapist dies and the bad keep on living. It’s called coincidence folks, nothing more.
God has a plan for everyone and not all prayers are answered in a way that suits us.
Hector, my friend, Albert Einstein, a man who spelled better than you, is reputed to have said, “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is.” You seem to have reached that same conclusion on your own. Many religious people, like Pope Francis, believe there is a middle ground. Who knows? I have certainly appreciated the miracles I have seen.