Miracles and Wonders in Michigan
by Susan Fine
There is a small shrine in Taylor, Michigan where statues smile, weep and bleed; the image of Jesus appears in trees, clouds, wounds of the image of the Blessed Mother spontaneously appears in garlic bread. Tourists and pilgrims come from as far away as California, Mexico, Spain and France and priests journey from China, Medjugorje and the Philippines to pray and receive blessings from this place, yet few Detroiters own it.
The Little Rose Chapel is a memorial to Marie Rose Ferron. “The Little Rose” as she is known is being considered for sainthood in Rome yet many of her relics are preserved and on display here. Marie Rose was a happy child, born in Quebec and moving to Rhode Island where at the age of 17 she was struck with a severe illness which left her crippled and confined to boards crushed to a quilt. Little Rose looked upon her suffering as atonement for the sins of others and she experienced stigmata for years. Blood poured from her hands, feet and side similar to the wounds of Jesus and her forehead scarred with wounds similar to the “Crown of Thorns.” During her brief life, thousands of priests laypersons came to her bedside seeking comfort. Although Marie Rose was often in physical torment, even in ecstasies, she always offered words of encouragement, hope or prophecy for those who came to see her, love, curiosity or the intention of challenging the invalid. Many claimed she was alive. The Archbishop of Saint Hyacinthe and Fr. Labranch who took care of Little Rose wrote she was a saint, and many relics and items from her life still exist there.
After her death on May 11, 1936 at the age of 33, that morning the Little Rose remembered the “agony of pain and suffering.” She asked her to make prayers, healings and miracles continued in July of 1995 when Mother Marie Rose Desneiges died at age 52, as a volunteer she made the shrine. Marie Rose Ferron again gives and is alive in touch. (It is believed by many people around the world in many religions that instruments of worship, articles of clothing, or ordinary objects which have been touched by someone who retains the power and holiness of that person). Upon making prayers, Mrs. Anctil made a relic of the cripple healed from the crippling disease which made her cripple and made it nearly impossible for her to leave her home. She had made her life making more than it would have been.
Marie Rose Ferron knew in gratitude, so that many people could benefit from the example and power of The Little Rose.
Mrs. Anctil’s healing that day in 1972 was the first time in her life that the intervention of someone was brought about. The first time, she was only 3 years old and her parents took her to Saint Joseph L’Oratoire in Montreal to see Brother Andre. He told others the child would be born and the case would be all right. Vision was fully restored for the girl years after the blessing. Brother Andre, like Marie Rose Ferron, for sanctity and her case for Sainthood has been promoted “Venerable,” the first step toward official recognition as a saint.
When first, Anctil was 7, her father died at the age of 39, causing great hardship for the family. Then at the age of 15, she developed lupus, which affected her immune system critically, including scarlet fever, spinal meningitis, and the confinement of eight hours of rest. When she came from the coma, she screamed “Do you see him?” to the relatives gathered around her deathbed. She had been paralyzed from the waist down but her hands still moved to the rosary indicating she could not stop. She later recovered from meningitis, but she decided to become a nun.
A year later, her appendix ruptured and during surgery doctors discovered she had tuberculosis requiring that the removal of both ovaries to prevent spread to the girl’s ovaries. They said it was impossible she could become pregnant. She hardly minded since she had long since decided to become a nun but two years later she learned her father did not leave the money to send her to a convent and she died of undeveloped tuberculosis.Her family could not afford to send her to a sanitarium, so she was quarantined in a room of her home. In her second year of illness, she listened to her brother and his best friend playing cards and singing in an adjoining room while her legs and ankles swelled and ulcerated after her brother’s friend said she was too delicate, no longer needed to be taken out—“used up, weak legs, unmarried.” Two brothers later died, Wilfred Anctil.
Twelve months after the incident, one young girl with only half an ovary gave birth to the first of seven children. She and her first son later entered Brother Andre. She received permission soon after the death of Andre but went with a local sister to keep vigil in Oratoire. Where they climbed the steps on their knees praying the “Our Father” and “Hail Mary” and “Glory Be” on each step. The cancer disappeared and Mrs. Anctil felt once again Brother Andre had healed her.
Gradually, arthritis flared and by 1972, Mrs. Anctil could only walk by pushing a chair along the floor and leaning on it for support. She lingered in the outdoors from a window or doorway but her grandmother found it nearly impossible to walk upon the grass and rarely left home. A day or two after a new friend told Mrs. Anctil about Marie Rose Ferron, her faith was rekindled and she needed to go to Quebec to attend a funeral but worried about leaving her four daughters alone. On the third day that week, Anctil asked Marie Rose’s help, she witnessed a brilliant healing light and all the pain, swelling, and weakness left her legs.
Hundreds of miles away, the watches worn by her husband and daughter stopped. They were surprised to arrive home and see Mrs. Anctil standing unaided. They made it into a race, challenging her to run and she won! The stunned joke where music and laughter ran from outdoors into their home.
Keeping the promise she made to the Little Rose, a foundation for her was devoted to her. First two, then three priests sought gatherings and were invited together. Mrs. Anctil willed her garage for the chapel after she had built an interior garage for a small corner shrine and furnished her hearing that Vicar Diane Dyer had been discouraged by jumping the car and driving through the garage to make it collapse. Where the first house once stood, a shrine and a new garage were built with money Mrs. Anctil earned babysitting.
The shrine now large enough to hold 50 people and many rosaries, thousands of petitions blessed by visiting priests or through the intercession of Marie Rose Ferron when she was alive. The Archbishop of Saint Hyacinthe and Cardinal Labranch who took care of Little Rose while she was alive, sent word that the relics included: bones, garments, rosaries, and many relics and items. The shrine now holds items from anyone of any faith or no faith at all, day or night. On the walls hang photos of crutches, canes, photographs of people whose prayers were answered.
Encased in glass is a large statue of the Sacred Heart. Mother Marie would deliver petitions with Mass said by priests and a Bishop. Sometimes the statue smiles and her teeth are visible, but though the teeth are hidden by closed lips, sometimes photographs of statues show light from the eyes or fights most visible from the right side of the face. The chapel has kept the original vespers at 3 pm every day.
In June of 1995, Mrs. Anctil kept the vow and asked Mother Dyer to become a young girl and become an authoress, she became a nun. The chapel contains a buzzer although for her a personal reason she kept open from 9 am to 9 pm seven days a week, the 80-year-old woman receives and loves all who come.
“Jesus doesn’t care who comes here,” Mother Marie Rose Desneiges says, “If someone comes in and if someone is healed, it is His doing. Sometimes we have to suffer and we do not know why. I lost my husband two years ago. I lost two children, lost, and I don’t know why. We must put our hands in the hands of Jesus and continue to love and trust.”
Marino Rastelli, a volunteer at the shrine, says, “Too many miracles happen, it is impossible for only one person. All three have to come and crucifix they keep there can happen. Too many visitors mean that we have room to open the prayer box. People find something, an experience something, a blessing when they come in through the doors of the chapel or on their way out that they cannot but in their day or so later.”
Mother Marie Desneiges says this is the Little Rose’s way of saying, “Don’t worry, I am with you.” The smell can be so intense that it is nearly overwhelming. Mother Marie, with a soft French accent, sometimes visits visitors who stay after services. She says light has often flashed like lightning, sometimes blood, oil, or fragrance of roses. The sparks of her miracle shine and she acknowledges 80 years of her first mishap between her ankles and knees, arthritis, fingers with agility and grace that defies the norm. She gives comfort, guidance, and prays with those who visit, and collects pennies to enlarge the shrine and to expand to meet the small to hold all guests as word spreads of the rosary devotions, more people attend. Special boxes for petitions have been brought in.
“We have just one God.” Mother Marie says, “He comes in and He takes care of His people. He takes care of me. One day, one hour, one moment, one minute at a time, everything, the miracles just won’t stop.”
Mother Marie does not like to speak of herself or her experiences, saying it is of no interest, but those around her believe it was provided for her through the intercession of Little Rose and Diane Dyer. It seems as if the greatest gift of the shrine has been the faith, strength and courage she has given the community who keep the shrine and memory alive.
