Was there a miracle in Fatima during Pope’s visit?

“I opened my eyes and I could see perfectly,” says Jimena, a 16-year-old Spanish girl who reports that after receiving Communion in Fatima on the morning of August 5, the day of the Pope’s visit, she has been healed.

Jimena has lost most of her vision over the last two and a half years, she explained to the Spanish COPE radio station.

She had traveled to World Youth Day from Madrid with a group from Opus Dei. Her family and friends had organized a novena to ask Our Lady of the Snows for the gift of her healing. The last day was precisely the 5th of August, the feast day, but she says that she woke up that morning the same as the last many months, “with everything very blurry, seeing almost nothing.”

Anxious for relief from this suffering, and considering that it was the last day of the novena, the feast of Our Lady of the Snows, Jimena was in tears after Communion.

But then, she said, “I opened my eyes, and I could see perfectly.”

“I saw the altar, the tabernacle, my friends were there and I could see them perfectly.”

In fact, she could even read the prayer for the novena.

“The Virgin has given me a huge gift that I’ll never forget,” Jimena affirms.

Cardinal Juan José Omella, president of the Spanish bishops’ conference, spoke about the possible healing at a press conference concluding the WYD, saying he’d had a chance to speak with Jimena on a video call.

ACI Prensa reported that the cardinal referred to it as a “grace of God,” and noted how Jimena had been working to learn braille since her eye sight had failed her.

Jimena had told him of her prayer, and she was now able to read a prayer at Mass with a group from Madrid.

The cardinal reflected that later, doctors could evaluate the situation, but at the moment, for Jimena, this has been “an incredible event.”

“Let us say, a miracle. She didn’t see, and now she sees. Afterward, the doctors can speak to the rest, but she’s going back home able to see. Blessed be God.”