Sailor is the first Briton to be recognized as healed by a MIRACLE in Lourdes after his epilepsy and paralyzed arm were treated ‘beyond and above the forces of nature’
A First World War sailor has been formally recognized as the first Briton to be miraculously healed at Lourdes, the Catholic holy site.
Liverpool sailor John Traynor suffered paralysis, epilepsy and spinal cord injury after suffering severe trauma during the First World War.
Born in 1883, Traynor served in the Merchant Navy before joining the Royal Navy in the First World War.
Just three months after the start of the war, he was wounded in Bruges in October 1914 and later hit by machine gun fire during the Gallipoli campaign in Turkey.
These horrific injuries left him suffering from epilepsy and paralyzing his right arm. A botched operation in 1920 worsened his condition and he became partially paralyzed from the legs down.
After suffering for years under his circumstances, he traveled to Lourdes, in southwestern France, in the hope that he would be healed.
The city became a holy place for the Catholic faith after a peasant girl named Bernadette Soubirous reportedly saw the Virgin Mary in visions, asking her to build a chapel and dig in the Pyrenees to release a spring.
This spring became a place of pilgrimage for the sick to pray and drink from the spring in the hope that their condition would be cured.
Liverpool sailor John Traynor (pictured) suffered paralysis, epilepsy and spinal cord injury after suffering severe trauma during the First World War
File image of pilgrims visiting the statue of Our Lady of Lourdes in the Grotto of Massabielle, Lourdes, France
Traynor is said to have bathed in the waters nine times during his pilgrimage.
It is claimed that he was ‘immediately and dramatically’ cured of his condition during his journey.
Malcolm McMahon, the Archbishop of Liverpool, told the faithful that Traynor’s healing was “absolutely beyond and above the forces of nature.”
McMahon said Traynor’s healing was never officially claimed by the Catholic Church.
“It was felt that there was insufficient contemporaneous evidence to establish that John Traynor’s recovery could not be attributed to medical interventions or explained according to medical science,” he said.
But after examining files in the Lourdes archives, a reference to Traynor’s healing was found in a 1926 report in the shrine diary by Dr. August Vallet, then president of the Lourdes Office of Medical Observations.
Vallet stated that “the process of this miraculous healing is absolutely beyond and above the forces of nature.”
As a result, McMahon said: “Given the weight of the medical evidence, the testimony of John Traynor’s faith and his devotion to Our Lady, I declare with great joy that the healing of John Traynor, from multiple serious medical problems , conditions, must be recognized as a miracle wrought by the power of God through the intercession of Our Lady of Lourdes.’
John started his own coal supply company after he recovered
In this file photo taken on August 15, 2018, Catholic pilgrims pose in front of the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary during the celebration of the Feast of the Assumption, in the French southwestern pilgrimage city of Lourdes
After Traynor returned to Liverpool, he started a coal supply business, which he ran until his death in 1943.
While an estimated 200 million people have visited Lourdes since 1860, the Catholic Church has officially recognized only 69 healings.
The process for official recognition is rigorous.
Of the estimated 35 claims submitted annually to the Lourdes Medical Office, the agency charged with investigating miracles in Lourdes, almost all are rejected.
Three to five are investigated more thoroughly, with the Bureau examining the patients, any case notes and any tests.
If a case has legs, it is brought to the attention of the International Lourdes Medical Bureau (ILMB), a panel of twenty experts who investigate the case and argue whether a cure is medically inexplicable.
Although the ILMB cannot say whether a healing was a miracle, it refers the statements to the bishop of the diocese where the healed person lives, who consults with the Vatican and decides whether a healing is a miracle.