March 15, 2017

Jack Traynor

Jack Traynor was a World War I veteran from Liverpool, England. He suffered injuries during the war that left his legs partially paralyzed and his right arm fully paralyzed. As a result of their disuse, the muscles in that arm atrophied and the arm itself had a skeleton-like appearance. In addition, he had taken shrapnel in his head, the surgery to remove which had left an inch-wide hole in his skill. The pulsations of his brain could be seen from such hole. It was covered with a silver plate. Lastly, he also suffered from epileptic fits, sometimes three such fits on a single day.

After living with such difficulties for almost 10 years, Traynor decided to take a trip to Lourdes in July of 1923. Although the barncardiers initially resisted, fearing he was not strong enough to survive that small activity, he was taken to the baths. It was there that he experienced some agitation in his legs.  Then he attended the Blessing of the Sick, a procession with the Blessed Sacrament among the sick who had come to Lourdes. It was then that he felt the same agitation in his arms and attempted to rise from his stretcher. For fear that he might create a scene, his attendants injected him with a sedative.

Awake the next morning, he pushed past two barncardiers and ran out in an ecstatic state over his cure.

Back in Liverpool, doctors concluded that new nerves and muscles must somehow have formed in his arm to account for its functionality and changed appearance. The right forearm was slightly smaller in size than his left, but other than this minor difference, it bore no resemblance to its former condition. His legs had been healed, his epileptic fits ceased and the hole in his skull had actually closed itself.

Traynor went to work in the coal and hauling business, which included lifting 200-lb. sacks of coal.

Source: Hebert, Fr. Albert J., S.M., Saints Who Raised the Dead (Charlotte, N.C., Tan Books, 2012) p. 224-225.

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