Mother Teresa’s ‘miracle’ doesn’t feel special, just loved

Vatican City, Sep 2 (AP) The Brazilian man whose"miraculous" cure from a brain infection paved the way forMother Teresa’s canonisation this weekend said he is gratefulfor his life but doesn’t feel particularly chosen by God. Rather, Marcilio Haddad Andrino told a Vatican pressconference today he is just one example of God’s ample mercyand love. "The merciful Lord looks at us all without distinction,"Andrino said. "Maybe it was me this time but maybe tomorrow itwill be someone else. The merciful mother looks aftereveryone. I don’t feel special." Pope Francis in December decreed that Andrino’s cure wasa miracle after Vatican doctors and theologians determinedthat it was medically inexplicable, instantaneous, lasting anddue to the intercession of Mother Teresa, who died in 1997. Itwas the final step needed to canonise the nun who cared forthe poorest of the poor. Vatican spokesman Greg Burke said all 100,000 tickets hadbeen distributed for Sunday’s Mass but that the crowd wouldlikely be far greater, spilling into the main streets aroundSt Peter’s Square. So far, 15 official delegations haveconfirmed their presence, 13 of them led by heads of state orgovernment, and 600 journalists have been accredited. Andrino’s wife, Fermanda Nascimento Rocha, recalled thatshe and her family began fervently praying for Mother Teresa’sintercession after receiving a relic of the nun on September5, 2008, after Andrino began suffering from the effects of aviral brain infection. By December of that year, despite powerful antibiotics,the brain abscesses and fluid had built up so much thatAndrino was suffering debilitating headaches. According to theofficial story, doctors decided the only chance was tooperate, but on the day surgery was scheduled, they couldn’tintubate him. "When the doctor left the OR saying he couldn’t do theoperation and that the medicine wasn’t working anymore Iprayed a lot," Nascimento Rocha said. "I asked Mother to cureMarcilio if this is God’s will, and if not, to take him by thehand and bring him to the house of the Father to feel hiscaress." She said she went to her mother’s home and prayed "withall the strength I had." When the surgeon returned to Andrino’s room, he wasawake, pain-free and asymptomatic, according to the priestspearheading Mother Teresa’s sainthood cause, the Rev. BrianKolodiejchuk. Within six months, Andrino said today, he had returned towork. Soon after, the couple conceived the first of their twochildren, though Andrino had been told that the powerful drugshe had taken had made him infertile. He calls his two children "the extension of thatmiracle." "We are very grateful to Mother Teresa for our family,"he said. (AP)AJR