The Diocese of Lansing has released video testimony from a man who claims Blessed Solanus Casey (1870-1957) visited him twice in the hospital and miraculously cured him of COVID-19.
Blessed Solanus Casey was a Capuchin priest known for his service to the sick and his spiritual advice which he would dispense to any who sought it. Many attributed miraculous cures to their interactions with him. He was beatified in 2017, at the Detroit Lions’ stadium, with over 60,000 people in attendance.
Two visitations from Blessed Solanus Casey
Nolan Ostrowski, age 52, was admitted to Sparrow Hospital in Lansing, Michigan on July 25. The construction worker said that on the evening of July 30, the Feast of Blessed Solanus Casey, he saw a figure in brown robes appear in his hospital room.
“And then, one night, I was sitting there and I woke up and I felt like there was a lot of darkness around me, a lot of despair over me, and I noticed there was somebody sitting at the side of my headboard and I couldn't turn to see who it was – all I could see were their legs, and his brown robe and, at that time, I thought it was my guardian angel,” said Ostrowski, according to the report at the Diocese of Lansing website.
On the following night, the figure reappeared, said Ostrowski:
“He sat there and that's when I realized that this isn't just my guardian. This is a saint. This is someone special,” says Nolan who responded by vocally praying and then, he says, “to plead for my life” and to explain that he didn’t want his children raised without him.
“There was no response from him. It was like I was talking to a statue. Nothing. And then I said, ‘Well, if you save me, I'll never use God's name in vain again’. And he jumped up like he won the Lotto. I mean, it was kind of startling. And he ran around the side of my bed. And when he ran, it was like a skipping floating motion.”
“And he reached out and he touched my rib cage under my arm and then at the bottom of my rib cage, I remember kind of lifting my arm a little bit, but it was all very quick, and then he just stepped back a couple steps and I felt like there was this ease that came over me and I felt very relaxed and comfortable. I knew I was saved,” he testified.
Family had been praying to Solanus Casey
According to the Diocesan report, in the nights prior to the alleged visitations, Ostrowski’s family had been praying for the intervention of Blessed Solanus Casey. Ostrowski himself said he “didn't really know what he was about or what he had done.”
When Ostrowski’s wife showed her husband a picture of Casey, Ostsrowski recognized him as the man who appeared in his hospital room.
Days later, on August 3, Ostrowski was placed on a ventilator and put in a medically-induced coma. His condition deteriorated such that he was airlifted to Lutheran Hospital in Fort Wayne, Indiana where he was placed on an artificial lung.
“And the other doctors in the ICU, they said it was a miracle"
The Fort Wayne hospital, it turns out, is located only 20 miles away from where Solanus Casey spent most of the last 10 years of his life. A month later, Ostrowski had experienced what he believes was a miraculous recovery. He was able to walk again, and returned to his family on October 1.
“And the other doctors in the ICU, they said it was a miracle and they couldn't believe how well I was doing. They took me off the ventilator. I was able to breathe on my own, non-stop. They didn't have to put me back on it [during the day]. And they said that never happens,” said Nolan.
While Blessed Solanus’ cause for canonization requires one more miracle for him to be declared a saint, the Ostrowski family told the Diocese of Lansing that they have decided not to offer the visitations as proof of a miracle.
“They explain, however, that after consulting with their advisory physicians they won’t be pursuing Nolan’s recovery as an official miracle due to the fact that there may be some medical explanation for his recovery, as remote that that explanation may be,” reported the Diocese.
“They also stress, though, that their decision does not diminish from the great favor Nolan received, the grace of his encounter with Blessed Solanus and the wonder of his recovery. Nolan’s story will also be kept on file as part of the canonization process,” they said.
Watch the video (above) of Nolan Ostrowski testifying that he witnessed two visitations of Blessed Solanus Casey.
