Dr. Alexis Carrel

Today, February 11, is the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes.

I was praying morning prayer, when a verse from the Canticle from the Book of Tobit struck me:

“When you turn back to him with all your heart, to do what is right before him, then he will turn back to you, and no longer hide his face from you.”

I have often shared with friends and others struggling with their faith that, no matter how far you run from God, if you want to come back to Him, all you need do is turn around. He is there for you. Why? Because, rather than your searching for God, God is searching for you. Like the Hound of Heaven, God is hunting you. He desires you more than you desire Him.

In 1902, Dr. Alexis Carrel, French surgeon and biologist who would later receive the 1912 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for pioneering vascular suturing, witnessed a miracle at Lourdes. He accompanied a young lady, Marie Bailly, who was dying from tubercular peritonitis, while her belly was washed three times with water from the Lourdes spring. Dr. Carrel witnessed before his eyes Marie’s belly change from bloated and firm to flat and soft. He examined her over the course of months until she was formally declared cured by her doctors. Marie joined the Sisters of Charity and dedicated her life to caring for the infirm.

Carrel at first did not accept that Marie’s cure was miraculous, but he continued to visit Lourdes to study the quick healings observed and recorded there. In 1910, Carrel witnessed another cure, this time of an 18 month old child who had been born blind. Still, Carrel refused to embrace the Catholic faith he had renounced years earlier.

In 1940, Dr. Carrel met a Trappist monk and priest named Fr. Alexis Presse. Fr. Presse was on a mission to rebuild ruined monasteries across France. The two became friends and the priest made a great impact on the doctor. In 1942, Carrel was able to profess, “I believe in the existence of God, in the immortality of the soul, in Revelation and in all the Catholic Church teaches.” In 1944, as Alexis Carrel lay on his deathbed, Fr. Presse was beckoned. The priest arrived in time to administer the sacraments to him. Though it took decades to sink in, the miracles he had witnessed at Lourdes finally moved Dr. Alexis Carrel to embrace the divine.

“When you turn back to him with all your heart, to do what is right before him, then he will turn back to you, and no longer hide his face from you.”

Our Lord was quick and eager to embrace Dr. Alexis Carrel, even after years of having renounced God and the Catholic faith. Our Lord is not a wicked, hateful God who is quick and eager to punish. No. He is quick and eager to forgive, to pour out His grace to us, to reconcile sinners to Himself. I firmly believe that Dr. Alexis Carrel is in the kingdom. Dr. Carrel did not have to walk back all those years of having renounced God and the Catholic faith. God was there waiting for him when he turned back to Him with all his heart.

Be Christ for all. Bring Christ to all. See Christ in all.