Of all the invocations to our Lady, Gate of Heaven
is one of the most beautiful. This title gained a new meaning for me
when I arrived for a Fatima home visit at the house of Dominique McGuire
and found her in tears. Her mother, Marie Jeannine Michel, a native
from Haiti, had suffered a massive heart attack the day before and was
now dying. I was more than happy to take the statue to visit her at Rex
Hospital in Raleigh, North Carolina. It was painfully clear, when we
arrived in the Intensive Care Unit, that this poor soul was reaching the
end. Over the next couple of hours we prayed numerous rosaries,
litanies and the prayers for the dying by her bedside. We also struggled
to provide the dying women with all the spiritual assistance we could.
As we prayed, the attending nurse, who happened to be Catholic, kept
calling local Churches to find a priest who would administer last rites.
Whenever she entered the room to care for Mrs. Michel she would join in
the responses to the Hail Mary. Overwhelmed by the scene, she
exclaimed, “I hope when I am dying someone will bring the statue to visit me and pray the rosary.”
Moments before the priest arrived, Dominique asked me if I had an
extra scapular for her mother. I did not. As the priest administered the
last rites I scurried from the room in search of this precious
sacramental, only to find I was the only person wearing one. Mrs. Michel
was in much more need of it than me, so with the help of a doctor we
temporarily removed her oxygen mask and placed my scapular around the
dying woman’s neck. Dominique then took her Miraculous Medal and pinned
it on to the scapular.
The most moving part of this visit occurred when Mrs. Michel opened
her eyes and showed signs she wanted to speak. When they removed the
oxygen mask, Dominique told her mother, in their native tongue, that “Momma Mary”
was in the room. Since Mrs. Michel seemed to be already looking into
eternity, with a type of “fog of death” in her gaze, I carried the
statue over next to her bed. Surprisingly she reached up and took hold
of our Lady’s hands and held on for some moments. The oxygen mask was
then replaced as the nurse administered morphine to deaden the pain she
was experiencing. Mrs. Michel died at 6:00 AM the following morning with
Dominique praying beside her bed.
While the America Needs Fatima home visitation program is a very
rewarding apostolate, nothing on earth compares to the satisfaction of a
visit like this. A person going through such a moving ordeal, however,
could naturally ask, “Was there something more we could have done?”
In the case of Mrs. Michel, the answer is a resounding no. She received
the last rites of Holy Mother Church, was clothed in the brown
Scapular, and was almost continuously surrounded by the melodious sound
of the Angelic Salutation. Hours before she passed into eternity, Mrs.
Michel also had the grace to hold hands with She who truly is the Gate of Heaven.
By: Norman Fulkerson
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