Cures

These are the cures, recorded in historical documents, which have remained in the memory of the people as extraordinary events that have
occurred on the occasion of pilgrimages at Lac Ste Anne. Of course, it is up to the Church to judge whether or not they are supernatural interventions
on the part of God.

In 1889, a person by the name of Paquet is cured of a lung ailment which has lasted for fifteen months and which has reduced him to utter weakness.
Rose Whelan, forever sickly, now is much stronger and improving daily.
Mrs. Theophile Lamoureux, much relieved of constant pain.
John Perreault, 8 years old, son of Adolphe Perrault, suddenly recalled from what seemed to be the very threshold of death.
A small Latulipe girl cured.
Marie Courtepatte whose hand, for long, has been lifeless and dried up, sees it suddenly restored to normalcy.
A twelve-year-old daughter of Mr. Majeau perfectly healed.
A child of Augustin Gouin also cured.
Mrs. Bill Cust greatly relieved of pain to a paralyzed wrist. For decades after this event, her husband never missed a single pilgrimage.
This is what we read in the Codex Historicus many years later:
“William Cust, a fervent Irishman, never misses a pilgrimage although he is more than sixty and he has to travel some 44 miles. Someone meeting him at Ste Anne told him he had heard Bill was not present this year. “Go tell this man,” rejoined William, “that nothing will ever prevent me from coming except some serious sickness. The evening of the twenty-fourth I had a severe headache coupled with a high fever. I said to Ste Anne, ‘tomorrow I absolutely want to visit you. If your intention is identical to mine, you will straighten up things.’ Yesterday morning my temperature had returned to normalcy but my headache persisted. I came, as you can see; I am perfectly well now.”
Janvier l’Hirondelle is cured of an advanced case of deteriorating eye sight. Ninety paces away he could not distinguish people.
Mrs. Albert Cunningham cured of a sickness which has brought her to extremity.
Mrs. Baptiste Courtepatte whose serious and long-standing limp disappears.
Mary Finley, widow of Thomas Calliot is suddenly rid of great pain in one foot which has lasted for four years.
On July 26, 1891, Fr. Victorin Gabillon O.M.I, Hobbema missioner, speaks in French, Cree and English to the people present at the end of his six o’clock morning Mass, narrating how, the previous year, on arriving at Lac Ste Anne he felt so ill from a chest ailment which doctors had declared incurable that he had to go to bed. With great efforts, the next morning, he had gotten up and followed the exercises of the pilgrimage. That very evening he felt very great relief, and over the week that followed his strength and energy rapidly returned. He now felt no ill-effects whatever and he was there to thank Ste Anne.
Jean-Baptiste Nipissing, a man from the Mountains, who has been carried into the church because he cannot go three steps without excessive pain even if he uses a cane, leaves this stick as an ex-voto after the Mass he attends. He walks out on his own power and with a firm step.
Mrs. Magloire Belcourt, bedridden during the former six months and who is unable to walk, is also carried into church. She too gets up, and walks out on her own.
Victoire Calliot, sick during 19 months, although not totally cured on the spot, has very little pain left in her left side and legs. She is perfectly sure St. Anne will obtain complete restoration to health in time.
A woman, bedridden during numerous years, falls out of the vehicle driven by her sister towards Lac Ste Anne. Her pains are thereby greatly increased. She returns home perfectly cured (Aug. 26, 1891).
A seventeen-year-old boy, paralyzed from the neck down since many years, is brought into the church, attends Mass on a wheelchair in which he has to be held by a priest, receives Holy Communion. He is said to have totally recovered (August 26, 1894).
In 1898, a twenty-year-old girl by the name of Albertine Roy of Stony Plain, is cured of a leg ailment which has made her suffer terribly since the age of four. Her parents have been reduced to poverty because of the innumerable doctors consulted, prescriptions filled and trips undertaken. One leg is definitely much smaller and shorter than the other one and running sores have plagued her since 1882. In 1897, her parents, making a last desperate effort send her to Ste-Anne-de-Beaupré near Quebec. Results are nil. In 1898 they cannot even scrape up enough money to send her thirty miles to Lac Ste Anne. Charitable neighbours, the Mageau family, has consented to bring her. During this trip her open sores have run very plentifully. At Communion time she goes up very painfully with the use of a crutch and a cane, kneels down with great precaution, receives the Holy Eucharist, gets up gingerly and walks back to her seat forgetting the crutch and the cane at the Communion Rail. Five ladies are asked by the priest to examine Albertine’s leg. They report to him that there remains no trace whatever of the open sores; the flesh appears to be perfectly healthy; she feels no pain when her leg is pressed with fingers. Their names are known since they signed the report; they are: Josephine Phaneuf (Mrs. Charles Paradis); Mathilda Beauchamp (Mrs. Télesphore Meunier); Rosalie Rocque (Mrs. Joseph Gravelle).
A thirteen-year-old son of Gabriel Lafleur the previous Winter is stricken with a knee ailment, common enough in those parts, accompanied with a very high fever. Eventually the latter disappears but his knee remains swollen and very painful-till this thirteenth day of 1899. At eleven o’clock in the evening, Fr. Végreville is notified that the boy has thrown away his crutches, is still walking with a slight limp, probably through a long habit. The priest goes to the father’s tent, summons the boy out and brings him to church. The youth runs up the stairs, stops, and straightens out his leg completely, rests all his weight upon it. Father introduces a hand on his pants leg up to the knee, grasps it and applies considerable pressure. The boy says “it does not hurt me at all.”
At the very moment the former boy pronounces those words, a Mr. Gauthier from Stony Plain, comes up to the priest, claiming that for the last three weeks he too has had a most painful knee which had progressively been getting worse, to his great consternation. During the prayers of that day made over the sick, his knee becomes perfectly normal and painless.
A Rivière-Qui-Barre young person expectorates great quantities of blood because of a very advanced case of tuberculosis. The doctors have notified the family that the end is rather near. The girl is totally made whole during the day.
A family man by the name of Gadois arrives from Saddle Lake for the 1899 pilgrimage. During the last three years he has been denied the privilege of accomplishing any kind of work as a result of what is known as the trembling fever, a sickness quite prevalent west of the Rockies at the time, but rarely-experienced east of them. The man suffers general debility and frequent uncontrollable trembling accompanied by cold shivers. During the prayers over the sick he feels transformed, gets up, walks out and goes to fetch his horses, something he has not been able to do for so long. “My body”, he joyfully exclaims “is not the same anymore. Now I feel perfectly well.”
Amable Belcourt, wife of Joseph Gladu, is suddenly delivered of her asthma which, during many years previous, has forced her to walk ever so slowly and to stop every twenty steps to recover her breath.
At rather later dates, — 1926 and 1927 —, in the Codex Historicus of the Mission, it is claimed that two Guenette brothers, Adrien and Paul, both condemned to the use of a pair of crutches as the consequence of a fall, are relieved of their ailments and pains. They both leave their crutches in the shrine as ex-votos.

All these events are to be found in Codex Historicus, Vol. 1, Extracts from p. 17 on. The first 17 took place between 1889 and 1891.