Quinquagesima Sunday, February 15th, 2026.
My mom was recently diagnosed with stage three myeloma blood cancer, sometime after Christmas, 2025 and by sheer “providence” my friend Steve from the East Coast supplied her with three month’s worth, totally free of charge, of ivermectin and mebendazole. Mel Gibson recently shared his experience of four different people he knew, all 3 or 4 staged cancer WHO WERE TOTALLY CURED through these very “drugs”. The CDC doesn’t recommend these “cures” because they are cheap, and… work.
Then a good friend of mine named Kevin was able to obtain through his dear friend Marleny holy relic oil, for my mom, from Lebanon from Saint Charbel, the hermit. This below story is simply tear jerking, and hope filled. I recall God striking Miriam with leprosy as a punishment for her murmuring against Moses, but also curing her at Moses’ request. The same Divine Hand that strikes, is also the same Hand that heals the wound. Sometimes He cures instantly and other times, He likes the process and delays the healing, but that doesn’t mean the cure won’t come. His timing is not our timing, and it’s mysterious!
A Woman Was Miraculously Blessed by Saint Charbel—and the Moment Was Captured on Camera.
According to this remarkable account, an Italian woman suffering from advanced cancer, with little hope of survival, traveled with her son to pray at the tomb of Saint Charbel. When they arrived, the monastery was closed, and they were preparing to leave.
At that moment, a Maronite priest approached and asked if she needed help. She shared her illness and explained that she had hoped to pray at Saint Charbel’s tomb and receive a priestly blessing. The priest agreed to bless her, and she asked her son to take a photo during the blessing.
Later, while reviewing the images with a Lebanese friend, they were stunned to realize that the priest in the photo appeared to be Saint Charbel himself. Upon inquiring at the monastery, they were told that no priest living there resembled the man in the picture.
After returning home, the woman underwent further medical examinations—and her cancer was found to have completely disappeared.
When you pray for the same thing year after year after year… and nothing worsens and nothing grows, this below snippet is an absolute must. It was written by Saint Margaret Mary’s Spiritual Director. Many do not know, but indeed when “nothing worsens and nothing grows”, that is a sign that one is oddly enough on the right track. Father James Mawdsley once wrote, “when you don’t know what to do, sometimes it’s enough to know what NOT to do.” Aflavia and I read the below paragraphs together and were overcome by tears of wonder! “WE DO NOT ASK ENOUGH.”
Last year we visited a property for discernment to see if we were called to live there as hermits, and it did not work out. On our way home, we had a delayed flight at the airport and not surprisingly so… people were annoyed. The lady working the desk to our airline went on the intercom and so memorably said, “UPDATE… there is no update.” People grumbled, but we just laughed and laughed, because it’s so Our Lord? If you’re in a state of having prayed year after year after year for the same thing, the way Monica prayed for Augustine and it feels like all of heaven is ignoring you, read below. This one is for you!
Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence
Part II. St. Claude de la Colombiere, Exercise of Conformity to Divine Providence
We do not ask enough
It is clear then that we do not receive anything because we do not ask enough. God could not give us little, He could not restrict His liberality to small things without doing us grave harm. Do not misunderstand me. I am not saying that we offend God if we ask for temporal benefits or to be freed from misfortune. Obviously prayers of this kind can rightly be addressed to Him by making the condition that they are not contrary to His glory or our eternal salvation. But as it is hardly likely that it would redound to His glory for Him to answer them, or to our advantage to have them answered if our wishes end there, it must be repeated that as long as we are content with little we run the risk of obtaining nothing.
Let me show you a good way to ask for happiness even in this world. It is a way that will oblige God to listen to you. Say to him earnestly: Either give me so much money that my heart will be satisfied, or inspire me with such contempt for it that I no longer want it. Either free me from poverty, or make it so pleasant for me that I would not exchange it for all the wealth in the world. Either take away my suffering, or — which would be to your greater glory — change it into delight for me, and instead of causing me affliction, let it become a source of joy. You can take away the burden of my cross, or you can leave it with me without my feeling its weight. You can extinguish the fire that burns me, or you can let it burn in such a way that it refreshes me as it did the three youths in the fiery furnace.
I ask you for either one thing or the other. What does it matter in what way I am happy? If I am happy through the possession of worldly goods, it is you I have to thank. If I am happy when deprived of them, it gives you greater glory and my thanks are all the greater. This is the kind of prayer worthy of being offered to God by a true Christian. When you pray in this way, do you know what the effect of your prayers will be?
First, you will be satisfied whatever happens; and what else do those who most desire this world’s goods want except to be satisfied? Secondly, you will not only obtain without fail one of the two things you have asked for but, as a rule, you will obtain both of them. God will give you the enjoyment of wealth, and so that you may possess it without the danger of becoming attached to it, He will inspire you at the same time with contempt for it. He will put an end to your sufferings and even more He will leave you with a desire for them which will give you all the merit of patience without having to suffer. In a word He will make you happy here and now, and lest your happiness should do you harm, He will let you know and feel the emptiness of it. Can one ask for anything better?
But if such a great blessing is well worth being asked for, remember that still more is it worth being asked for with insistence. For the reason why we obtain little is not only because we ask for little but still more because, whether we ask a little or we ask a lot, we do not ask often enough.
Perseverance in Prayer
If you want all your prayers to be answered without fail and oblige God to meet all your wishes, the first thing is never to stop praying. Those who get tired after praying for a time are lacking in either humility or confidence, and so do not deserve to be heard. You would think that they expected their requests to be obeyed at once as if they were orders. Surely we know that God resists the proud and shows His favors to the humble. Won’t our pride allow us to ask more than once for the same thing? It shows very little trust in God’s goodness to give up so soon and take a delay for an absolute refusal.
Once we have really understood just how far God’s goodness extends we can never believe that we have been refused or that He wishes to deprive us of hope.
Rather, the more He makes us keep on asking for something we want, the more confident we should feel that we shall eventually obtain it. We can begin to doubt that our prayer has been heard only when we notice we have stopped praying. If after a year we find that our prayer is as fervent as it was at the beginning, then we need not doubt about the success of our efforts, and instead of losing courage after so long a delay, we should rejoice because we can be certain that our desires will be all the more fully satisfied for the length of time we have prayed. If our first attempts had been quite useless we would not have repeated them so often and we would have lost hope; but as we have kept on in spite of this, there is good reason to believe we shall be liberally rewarded.
In fact it took St. Monica sixteen years to obtain the conversion of Augustine, but the conversion was entire and far beyond what she had prayed for. Her desire was that her son’s incontinence might be checked by marriage, and instead she had the joy of seeing him embrace a life of holy chastity. She had only wanted him to he baptized and become a Christian, and she saw him a bishop. She asked God to turn him aside from heresy, and God made him a pillar of the Church and its champion against heretics. Think what would have happened had she given up hope after a couple of years, after ten or twelve years, when her prayers appeared to obtain no result and her son grew worse instead of better, adding avarice and ambition to the wildness of his life and sinking further and further into error. She would have wronged her son, thrown away her own happiness, and deprived the world of one of the greatest Christian thinkers.
Obstinate Trust
As a final word I address myself to those faithful souls kneeling in prayer before the altar and asking God for the graces He is so pleased to hear us asking for. You who are happy that God has shown you the vanity of the world, you who groan under the yoke of your passions and beg to be delivered from them, you who burn with desire to love God and serve Him as He would be served, you who intercede with God for the sake of one who is dear to you, do not grow weary of asking, be steadfast and tireless in your demands. If you are refused today, tomorrow you will obtain everything; if this year brings nothing, the next will bring you abundance. Never think your efforts are wasted. Your every word is numbered and what you receive will be in the measure of the time you have spent asking. Your treasure is piling up and suddenly one day it will overflow to an extent beyond your dreams.
Consider the workings of Divine Providence and think that the refusal you meet with now is only God’s stratagem to increase your fervor. Remember how He acted towards the Canaanite woman, treating her harshly and refusing to see or listen to her. He seemed to be irritated by her importunity, but in reality He admired it and was delighted with her trust and humility, and for that reason He repulsed her. With what tenderness does He repulse those whom He most wishes to be indulgent to, hiding His clemency under the mask of cruelty! Take care not to be deceived by it. The more He seems to be unwilling, the more you must insist.
Do as the woman of Canaan, use against Him the very arguments He may have for refusing you. It is true that to hear me, you should say to Him, would be to give the bread of the children to dogs. I do not deserve the grace I ask, but I do not ask You to give me what I deserve; I ask it through the merits of my Redeemer. You ought to think more of Your promises than of my unworthiness, and You will be unjust to Yourself if You give me only what I deserve. If I were worthier of Your benefits it would be less to Your glory to give me them. It is unjust to grant favors to a sinner, but I do not appeal to Your justice but to Your mercy.
Do not lose courage when you have begun so well to struggle with God. Do not give Him a moment’s rest. He loves the violence of your attack and wants to be overcome by you. Make importunity your watchword, let persistence be a miracle in you. Compel God to throw off the mask and say to you with admiration ‘Great is thy faith, be it done as thou wishest. I can no longer resist you, you shall have what you desire, in this life and the next.’
AVE MARIA, CHRIST IS KING!
Carmelite Sister Martyrs 