Cures ("Un mondo di miracoli" in the original Italian) gathers together 18 extraordinary cures attributed to the intercession of Blessed Josemaria Escriva. The book, written by Fr. Flavio Capucci, the Postulator of the Cause of Canonization of Josemaria Escriva, was published in Italy by the publishing house Ares (Milan), and in English by Scepter Publishers (Princeton, New Jersey).
The day of the beatification
One of the inexplicable cures described in the book happened on May 17, 1992, during the beatification ceremony of Josemaria Escriva. That morning a seven-year-old boy who suffered frequent crises of high blood pressure, caused by the narrowing of a renal artery (which medical science considers irreversible), was on the beach in the north of Spain with his father. At the same time his mother, who was watching the beatification ceremony of Josemaria Escriva on television, began to pray with intensity for the cure of her son. Prompted by a maternal impulse she prayed: "Cure him now, this moment." And that is what happened; at that moment the child on the beach was shaken by an attack of shivering, and when he returned home it was discovered that he had been cured.
Recovery from lameness
Another of the cures in the book happened on the same day in a different place. The little town of Cerdanyola, in Catalonia, was the scene of the cure of Josep Mas, a retired man who had fractured his tibial plateau and been left irremediably lame. Ten years after the injury, on May 17, 1992, while watching the beatification ceremony of Josemaria Escriva on television, he prayed for his own cure. He stood up and realized that he was able to move with ease, as he had been doing until ten years earlier. In this case the direct witnesses of the cure are practically all the inhabitants of the town, who were well aware of his evident lameness. Such was the surprise of his fellow citizens that the town council awarded Josep Mas the title of "Man of the Year" in 1992.
After an accident
Also extraordinary is the cure of Alberto Castro, a Puerto Rican university student. On August 1, 1993, Alberto, who was then 24 years old, was traveling by car with a companion. The vehicle crashed into a telephone pole and Alberto was left seriously injured, suffering a fracture of the humerus that affected his radial nerve and consequently paralyzed his left hand. Seven months later, despite therapy and operations, his hand was still completely immobile: according to the doctors the radial nerve was definitively dead. Alberto began praying to Blessed Josemaria. Several nights later he felt some discomfort in his hand. In the morning he was completely cured and could move his hand normally again.
Disappearance of a cyst
Also without natural and scientific explanation is the disappearance of a uterine cyst that had developed in a pregnant woman. In the eighth month of pregnancy the cyst grew to a diameter of 14 centimeters. A surgical operation, involving the caesarean delivery of the child, was inevitable. Maria Grazia, the woman involved, had entrusted herself to Blessed Josemaria so that things should go as well as possible. On the eve of the operation, to the surprise of the doctors, an ultrasound scan contradicted all the earlier ones (the evident exactness of which nobody had ever doubted), and revealed the complete disappearance of the cyst, making the operation unnecessary.
He returned the greeting Cures also relates the story of Paulo, a 35-year-old Brazilian, the victim of a fulminating myocarditis that brought him to the verge of death in 1993. In 1974, during a journey of the founder of Opus Dei to Brazil, his mother had seen from afar that her son, who was then 16, had managed to gain access during a public meeting to where Josemaria Escriva was, and give him a kiss. Nearly twenty years after that meeting she began to implore him to intercede for the cure of her son, and thus to "return" the kiss to him. In 48 hours, to the astonishment of the specialists who had given him up for dead, Paulo recovered completely. Now he lives a normal life.
A helper in ordinary life
Blessed Josemaria is known as an apostle of ordinary life, of everyday work, of the person on the street; in short, of everything that is normal and commonplace. At the same time his reputation for sanctity has grown and spread throughout the world. Many thousands of people address themselves to him as a holy friend and effective intercessor before God.
