February 9, 2011
Ms. Lourdes Ferrer
The Guild for Dorothy Day
Archdiocese of New York
1011 First Avenue, 12th Floor
New York, New York 10022
Dear Ms. Ferrer,
In December 2009, I invoked the assistance of Dorothy Day, asking her to cure my friend Sarah Maple of a brain tumor that doctors told Sarah would kill her in two years. I did not think at the time to contact you or the Guild, but I wrote a letter to Mark and Louise Zwick, the founders of Casa Juan Diego, the Catholic Worker Hospitality House in Houston. I have known the Zwicks since around 2003 or so when I worked as a professor at the University of Houston. In this letter, I told Mark and Louise that I had invoked the intercession of Dorothy Day on Sarah Maple’s behalf.
Mark and Louise published my letter in the Houston Catholic Worker , which they edit and produce in Houston. I am enclosing a copy of the issue of the Houston Catholic Worker in which my letter concerning Sarah Maple appears.
I am writing to tell you that Sarah Maple has had a miraculous healing of her brain tumor. She had received good MRIs through the autumn of 2010, but in December she went for her regular visit to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, and the doctors told her that her brain tumor had disappeared. One member of Sarah’s medical team, who is Catholic, told Sarah that she had never seen anything like this and that she believed Sarah’s remarkable recovery is a miracle.
I too believe that the disappearance of Sarah’s brain tumor is a miracle that occurred through the intercession of Dorothy Day, whose assistance I sought just before I wrote the Zwicks in December 2009.
I have talked with Sarah Maple and her husband Jim, and I shared with them my letter to Mark and Louise Zwick. Sarah is willing to cooperate with the people who are seeking to have Dorothy Day canonized—that is, with your group. Her contact information is enclosed.
Sarah Maple is not Catholic, but she definitely believes that her recovery is a gift from God and is miraculous.
If there is anything I can do to help move the canonization of Dorothy Day forward, please let me know. I recall vividly that when I sought Dorothy Day’s intercession, I felt a deep sense that my call for assistance was heard. I have tried to remember to ask her daily to intercede on behalf of Sarah (I am sure I forgot to do that some days), and I also expressed my hope and prayer that Dorothy Day would be canonized for the consolation and inspiration of American Catholics who struggle to keep their faith in this “post-modern” world—this world that our Pope called a “culture of death.”
In closing, I add a few words about myself. I am an adult convert to Catholicism who is a professor of education law at the University of North Texas. Although my area of expertise is education law, I have co-authored a couple of articles about St. Katharine Drexel for Catholic Southwest , the scholarly journal of the Texas Catholic History Society. I am the new editor of that journal commencing with its 2011 issue. In addition, I am a Commissioner of the Texas Catholic Conference Accredi-tation Commission, which accredits the K-12 Catholic Schools in Texas.
Best wishes,
Richard Fossey
Professor and Mike Moses Endowed Chair in Educational Administration, University of North Texas
Houston Catholic Worker, Vol. XXXI, No. 2, March-April 2011.
