By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer

A 50 year-old Italian woman afflicted with a fatal nerve disease claims that she has been able to ditch her wheelchair and walk ever since bathing in the healing waters at Lourdes earlier this month.

The Italian news agency ANSA is reporting that Antonia Raco, who is afflicted with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS – also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease), an incurable disease, claims that she been able to not only walk, but run, since her visit to the Grotto of Massabielle in Lourdes, France.

”Ever since I came back, I have been walking, doing everything normally, and I’ve even run,” she told ANSA on August 24.

Ms. Raco had been in a wheelchair for four years prior to her August 5 trip to Lourdes. She claims that while sitting in the baths at the Shrine, “I felt a voice encouraging me and a sharp pain in my legs.”

She will be examined by Adriano Cho, a specialist at Turin’s prestigious Molinette Hospital, who has been treating her since 2006.

“He’s the one who’ll be able to fully understand what has happened to me,” she said.

However, she’s not yet ready to say that a miracle has occurred.

“For the moment I’d rather talk about a gift, an act of mercy, rather than a miracle,” she said.

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