The Healing Journey

May 12, 2024

Somewhere back in time – about 60 years ago when change was in the air and many of us were eager to throw out the old and ring in the new – a church removed its collection of vintage statues of St. Therese, St. Anthony, St. Anne and St. Joseph, and deposited them in a dumpster.

However, a woman and her son came along and spotted this menagerie of sacred plaster about to be discarded and immediately launched a rescue mission to save them from destruction.

For many years, she stored the statues in a shed in her backyard. Paint was peeling, plaster was chipping and fingers were missing, but she was committed to preserving them — until the day came when she had to move to a retirement community. Since she couldn’t take them with her, she called her relatives and friends, hoping they might adopt these abandoned saints and save them from the fate to which they had been condemned.

By the time Sandy arrived, most of them had been claimed. Two were left, and it was obvious she was meant to have them. One was a 4-foot-tall statue of St. Jude, and the other was a life-sized statue of St. Anne with her daughter, the Virgin Mary. Sandy was born on St. Jude’s feast day, and the woman who adopted her as an infant, the woman who raised her and loved her, the woman her cared for her as a mother was named Anne.

When she saw them, she knew immediately it was more than a mere coincidence and her adoptive mother had to be responsible.

The statue of St. Anne needed repair and needed paint, but then almost miraculously, Sandy was directed to a man who restored icons and after several months, St. Anne looked brand new and took a place of honor in Sandy’s home as a reminder of her own mother.

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