This is a story I heard
recently from an old Dominican priest I lived with. He spent 25
years in India and had many fascinating experiences of faith there.
He told me the following story about a young girl called Asha.
Asha, who was a Brahman
(high cast) and a Hindu, went to Mary Immaculate school. As
happens with many children there she got encephalitis, a disease
which causes the brain to swell. Apparently about 500 children
in India die from it each year. Asha got encephalitis in Nov
and had to be hospitalised. She quickly began to deteriorate.
In mid December she went into a coma and on the 23rd Dec
the doctors said she was not going to improve. She only a short
time to live.
On Christmas eve, her
mother who was staying in the hospital in a bed beside her, saw lots
of different coloured lights over her bed and a man standing with his
hands extended over her daughter. The next day, Christmas day,
Asha woke up at 7.30am for the first time. She asked her mother
for something to eat. Then she said, ‘What day is today?’
Her mother said it was the 25th of December. Asha
said, ‘Today is the day of the Christians. Can you turn on
the radio so I can hear some of the Christians’ songs.’ The
doctors were astonished and had no explanation for what had
happened. Asha was completely healed.
About a week later the
mother came to the convent school even though it was still closed for
Christmas and asked to see the head mistress. She said to her,
‘I think your Jesus healed my Asha.’ And she said, ‘Do
you have a picture of Jesus?’ The sister showed her a picture
on the wall but she said, ‘No that’s not him.’ 10 days
later Asha’s mother was back in the school for something and she
happened to see on the wall a picture of a man getting into a boat.
It was a picture of Jesus getting into a boat in Galilee. She
pointed up at the wall and said, ‘That’s him.’
‘The Word was made flesh
and lived among us and we saw his glory.’
Jesus, the Word of the
eternal Father, is still among us.
Happy Christmas to one and all.
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