Healing at Lourdes of British World War I soldier declared ‘miraculous’

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 10, 2024 / 09:30 am (CNA).

The healing of a British World War I soldier at the Marian shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in France has been proclaimed as the 71st miracle attributed to the pilgrimage site.

Archbishop Malcolm McMahon of Liverpool in England declared the miraculous healing of John Traynor, a soldier of the British Royal Navy, on Dec. 8, the feast of the Immaculate Conception and the 81st anniversary of his death.

The Church has not recognized a miraculous event at Lourdes since 2018.

The news comes after the president of the Lourdes Office of Medical Observations, Dr. Alessandro de Franciscis, commissioned a review of Traynor’s case last year, which was undertaken by an English doctor and member of the International Medical Committee at Lourdes, Kieran Moriarty.

Moriarty’s investigations uncovered numerous files in the archives at Lourdes that included the testimonies of the three doctors who examined Traynor before and after his cure, along with other supporting evidence.

McMahon concluded during a canonical commission that based on the evidence assembled by Moriarty, Traynor’s healing was indeed miraculous.

“Given the weight of medical evidence, the testimony to the faith of John Traynor and his devotion to Our Blessed Lady, it is with great joy that I declare that the cure of John Traynor, from multiple serious medical conditions, is to be recognized as a miracle wrought by the power of God through the intercession of Our Lady of Lourdes,” the archbishop stated.

“I hope that in February 2025, during the jubilee year, we will have a fitting celebration at the metropolitan cathedral to mark this significant moment in the history of our archdiocese, helping us all to respond to the Jubilee call to be ‘Pilgrims of Hope,’” McMahon added.

Traynor was born in Liverpool, England in 1883. Though his Irish mother passed away when he was young, Traynor’s personal testimony featured on the shrine’s website states that “her devotion to Mass and holy Communion and her trust in the Blessed Mother stayed with him as a memory and fruitful example.” Traynor described his mother in the testimony as a “daily Communicant when few people were.”

A member of the Royal Navy Reserve, Traynor was mobilized at the outset of the war in 1914. During the battle at Antwerp, he was hit in the head by shrapnel while attempting to carry an officer off the field. He quickly recovered and returned to service.

On April 25, 1915, Traynor took part in an amphibious landing on the shores of Gallipoli as a part of an unsuccessful attempt by British and French troops to capture the peninsula in the Ottoman-occupied Turkey. Traynor was one of the few soldiers to reach the shore during that first day, having prevailed through the onslaught of machine-gun fire by the Turkish forces who were poised atop the steep banks of the beach.

For over a week, Traynor remained unscathed as he attempted to lead the small coalition that survived the landing up the sandhill.

However, on May 8, Traynor caught a spray of machine gun bullets to the head, chest, and arm during a bayonet charge. The wounds he sustained from the battle left him paralyzed in his right arm and regularly susceptible to epileptic attacks. Doctors attempted numerous surgeries to repair the damaged nerves in his arm and to treat the head wounds believed to have been the source of his epilepsy, but to no avail.

Eight years after the battle that left him “completely and incurably incapacitated,” Traynor was slated to be admitted to a hospital for incurables. Instead he went to Lourdes.

A long journey to Lourdes

Against the pleas of his wife, doctors, and several priests, Traynor insisted upon joining a parish-led pilgrimage to Lourdes from Liverpool from July 22–27, 1923.

Traynor wrote in his testimony that he “succeeded in being bathed nine times in the water from the grotto spring,” despite being desperately ill in the first three days of the trip and facing much resistance from his caretakers.

On the second day of the trip, Traynor recalled suffering a severe epileptic fit while being wheeled to the baths. “Blood flowed from my mouth and the doctors were very much alarmed,” he said. When the doctors attempted to bring him back to his lodgings, Traynor refused, pulling the brakes on his wheelchair with his good hand.

“They took me into the bath and bathed me in the usual way. I never had an epileptic fit after that,” he said in his testimony.

The next day, Traynor went again to the baths — while he was bathing, he recalled his legs becoming “violently agitated” and feeling as though he had regained use of them. Since he was due to return for a Eucharistic procession, Traynor’s caretakers — who believed he was having another fit — rushed him to Rosary Church.

When the archbishop of Rheims passed him by with the Blessed Sacrament, Traynor’s arm too became “violently agitated,” and he broke through his bandages and made the sign of the cross for the first time in eight years.

The next morning, Traynor leapt from his bed and ran to the Grotto. 

“My mother had always taught me that when you ask a favor from Our Lady or wish to show her some special veneration you should make a sacrifice,” Traynor recalled. “I had no money to offer, as I had spent my last few shillings on rosaries and medals for my wife and children, but kneeling there before the Blessed Mother, I made the only sacrifice I could think of: I resolved to give up cigarettes.” 

On the morning of July 27, Traynor was examined by three doctors who found he had regained his ability to walk perfectly, as well as full use and function of his right arm and legs. The sores on his body had healed completely and his fits had ceased. Remarkably, an opening in his skull that was created during one of his surgeries had also “diminished considerably.” 

One of the official reports issued by the Medical Bureau at Lourdes on Oct. 2, 1926 — later discovered by Moriarty — states that Traynor’s “extraordinary cure is absolutely beyond and above the powers of nature.” 

Traynor went on to have three children after receiving his cure, one of whom is called Bernadette. He is believed to be the first British Catholic to be cured at Lourdes, according to the shrine’s website.