MEDICAL AND OTHER CURES AT KNOCK
Cures began taking place at Knock soon after the apparition, and Archdeacon Cavanagh kept a record of them. Here is his first account of the first recorded cure:
DELIA GORDON OF CLAREMORRIS
“On the 31st August 1879 (ten days after the apparition), a girl aged twelve years was cured while attending Mass at Knock. Her parents, Mr. and Mrs. P. J. Gordon of Claremorris, attested that Delia had suffered intensely all her life from deafness and violent pains in her left ear. Several times a week they had to get up in the night to try to relieve the awful pain by various remedies. They took her on a pilgrimage to Knock. While attending Mass there, the pain attacked Delia so badly that she began to cry, and Mrs. Gordon had to bring her outside where they knelt in prayer before the place where the apparition was seen. Mrs. Gordon picked out a piece of cement from the gable, made the Sign of the Cross over it and placed it in the afflicted ear. Almost immediately the pain completely disappeared never to return and no trace of deafness remained. Her general health improved rapidly and in a very short time she became the picture of health and strength.”
THOUSANDS OF CURES
There were thousands of such cures, but they were not scientifically investigated until 1936. In that year the Medical Bureau was established. This Bureau is modelled after the one at Lourdes. Now the world is offered scientific proof of the cures that take place at Knock. Doctors who have no religion at all have admitted that the Bureau is run in an impartial manner and that every case is investigated carefully.
– From: “The Woman Shall Conquer” by Don Sharkey, Prow Books/Franciscan Marytown Press, Libertyville, IL, 1954