Testimony of Jean Lafrance

PRAYER HEALS

After this operation, life continued. I had had to give up many activities, for I was singularly diminished, and I did not spend a day without suffering on one side or another, but little by little one gets used to everything, even to suffering. Fortunately, there was prayer. I had practically nothing else to do, and it constituted all my strength and my support. On several occasions, I even asked myself whether the Lord was not going to call me back to him.

But I preached two retreats, and each time the Lord gave me the necessary strength, showing me clearly that he still wanted me in this ministry. I again had this light, a month ago, at my last retreat. Then there was the second operation, on the 25th (Father Émilien Tardif / The healing prayer of Father Émilien Tardif) of last May. A thyroid goiter had already been detected before the lung operation, but since it did not bother me, they had waited. One fine day it touched the vocal cords, and my voice was affected, so the operation was decided.

Everything went well despite my fears. It's true. The operation was a success, but the inevitable analyses detected some unidentified cells, as the laboratories elegantly say. This prompted my surgeon to ask me for a small supplementary treatment of radiation. Which did not delight me at all.

The healing prayer of Father Émilien Tardif

Father Émilien Tardif

And it is there that a small miracle occurred, without mentioning all the others that had kept me alive until then. A friend told me that Father Tardif was coming for a day of recollection at Nouan-le-Fuzelier. So I went, near Orleans, a five-hour drive to go, and the same for the return, all in one day.

I took part in the rain in the prayer assembly and I did not think I would meet the Father, there were so many people (five thousand). And then at the beginning of the afternoon, I go toward the podium to wait for the second teaching on intercession, which strongly marked me, and I meet the Father. He had received a letter about me, and he knew what it was about. He welcomed me very fraternally and was very good to me. He already knew me a little through my books translated into Spanish in Saint-Domingue; he had liked The Power of Prayer.

He took me aside in the church and prayed for me, in a prayer of praise in tongues. I stood beside him for the teaching, and I concelebrated the Eucharist, where there was a great prayer of healing and many testimonies. I was not tired, and all my pains had as if disappeared. It is on the return that the miracle, I believe, took place! Several times, he had announced that at the next visit to the doctor, there would be a sign: the planned treatment would become unnecessary. The following week, I was to go see my radiologist to plan the radiation treatment.

After examining me, he declared to me that the radiation was not necessary, since I had already been irradiated, but he asked me for a few supplementary examinations. I was in joy and thanksgiving at that moment, for I touched with my hands the power of the Risen One. The prayer that rose to my lips was that of Jesus, regarding the resurrection of Lazarus, but I addressed it to Jesus: Lord Jesus, I give you thanks because you have heard me. I know well that you always hear me.

The Power of Prayer

Besides striking facts like that one, I must admit that I have often (not to say always) experienced the power of prayer in the relief of pain and suffering. In the moments when everything overwhelmed me, I would begin to pray (here again it is a grace) and I always came out of it pacified, the suffering had disappeared, as wiped away with the back of the hand. At the moment I write these lines, the funeral of my friend Jean-Pierre Leclercq (fifty-two years old) is taking place. A lung had been removed from him four or five months ago, and in June a brain tumor declared itself.

I had visited him recently, and with much modesty and discretion, he had not hidden his condition from me. This priest was a true man, full of humanity and friendship, and at the same time a man of God. I prayed for him yesterday evening and this morning, and I felt his presence and his intercession, in that he placed me back in my deep vocation by giving me the grace of prayer. Extract from the book: Day and Night, by Jean Lafrance, pp. 10-13, Médiaspaul and Éditions Paulines, 1992