Vancouver Man in the News

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A Vancouver man has recovered from advanced myositis and necrotizing fasciitis. An Irishman is to be thanked.

Peter Andersen was within hours of dying when he recovered under amazing circumstances from a septic state and organ failure brought on by the flesh-eating bacteria. The recovery is a mystery to his doctors.

After bags full of rotted flesh were surgically removed from his leg, Andersen was visited by his parish priest, Fr. John Horgan. The good Father arrived carrying with him a relic of the Irish-French Abbot Columba Marmion, O.S.B. -- a fragment of his habit.

The priest was gowned and masked and led into Andersen's intensive care unit. While praying that God would spare his friend's life for the sake of his wife and their two adopted children, he took the relic and placed it on Andersen's head, heart, and on the dressing covering his diseased leg.

"I asked Blessed Marmion to intercede with the Lord and bring healing," said Horgan.

At Mass the next day he asked the congregation to pray for a miracle for Andersen, "as this was his only hope."

Five days after he fell ill, Andersen's blood culture came back negative for the bacteria.

He spent the next four months in the hospital. Doctors said he would never walk again or drive a car and that he would likely be brain-damaged.

None of which happened. Although he needs a cane, Peter is walking and driving a car, and he has lost none of his mental faculties. He's also returned to work as the pastoral care director of Columbus Residence, a care facility for the elderly in south Vancouver.

Blessed Marmion

Blessed Marmion was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1858. He entered Maredsous Abbey in Belgium, where he became abbot in 1909. He wrote a number of books, including Christ, the Life of the Soul, that are considered spiritual classics.

From his writings:

"If Grace does not destroy nature, neither does it suppress our personality."

"If, while reading, you feel yourself moved to speak to God, stop for a moment and speak."

"I recommend that you pay great attention to the whispers of the Holy Spirit."

"The crucifix is the most vivid revelation of sin."

"Love is like the philospher's stone which turns all that it touches into gold."

"To abandon the least of our brethren, is to abandon Christ Himself."

"The life of union with God can only develop in a soul filled with peace and joy."

"I became a monk because God had revealed to me the beauty and greatness of obedience."

His motto was "Magis prodesse quam praesse" -- "To serve rather than to rule."