Crutches (From the Vault, June 2009)

The Mom Weekly Volume 144: May 12, 2026 

You can read this, or any other previous Mom Weeklies, by going to the home page here. https://themomweekly.com/

Notes: 

Dad is in Canada this month, and that brought up this “From the Vault” that . Do you remember our whirlwind trip to Canada then? We drove something like 4,500 miles in two weeks. But was wonderful. I have so many great memories from that trip, including going to Prince Edward Island and seeing Anne of Green Gable sites, but this reflection captures some of how we made it a religious pilgrimage of sorts.

Remember how much I love you (and how much I love traveling with you!),

Mom

Crutches (From the. Vault, June 2009)

In both pilgrimage sites we visited in Canada, St. Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal, and the Shrine of St. Anne de Beaupre , outside Quebec City, crutches figured prominently.

I’m sure I snapped more than a couple dozen photos of the crutches left behind by those healed through the intercession of St. Joseph and St. Anne. Now I only have a few because I’ve been fairly ruthless editing the photos we took in Canada. And I experienced such involuntary and powerful emotions when seeing them. So I’ve put up a couple of the photos I took that remain.

At first, or at some point after seeing them I thought, could there really be this many people who are cured and no longer need their crutches? How many people really need crutches these days? I guess it was different many decades ago when these shrines were being constructed. But still, all these people healed?

And yet, you see the hundreds of well-used crutches and canes all over the place, and clearly people left them behind. Even with my skepticism, at least for me, I continued to have a very strong emotional reaction, my eyes tearing up, when I would catch sight of the crutches as we spent our time at the shrines. I think part of my intellectual reaction was from my mom, who was pretty practical about these kind of things, almost to a fault. But still the tears flowed.

An old friend from DC wrote on my Facebook (after I mentioned we were going to St. Joseph Oratory) that she had visited there years ago and, seeing the crutches, was inspired to pray for her own healing. And I didn’t see her note until after we had been there, but I had the same thought. I couldn’t even articulate at the time what I meant by that. It was just a wordless prayer for healing and grace.

Now, with some time away from the experience, and getting a chance to reflect on it, I recognized that what resonated with me was the common human struggle with brokenness. For some it is an obvious problem—a physical disability. Some are more open about their struggles with brokenness—I’m grateful for the blogs I can visit where people share their struggles and their faith journeys.

But even if we are more private about it, or it is not obvious, human life involves struggles and brokenness, even amid joy. What is important is to be loving and forgiving to each other as we recognize that. On our own, we don’t have that kind of love and forgiveness. That is why I’m so grateful for the grace and supernatural love given freely by Jesus, however imperfect I am at accepting that grace and love.

I was in confession last week with an African priest visiting our parish, and I have to “confess” I was a little concerned, because the last time I went to an African priest for confession (several years back), my penance was— an entire Rosary. I can laugh now, but in my shock, I had to ask him if that’s what he really meant. Now I know a Rosary isn’t terrible (Mary, Mother of God, please still love me for even writing that!). But for soft old American me, going to confession to very kind American priests, I’m used to one Hail Mary or at the most, two Hail Marys, and some good advice.

But this time during confession (with a penance far less than a Rosary, I might add), the priest at one point said, “dear daughter of the King,” and of course my eyes teared up. I am a daughter of the King—we are all children of the King— and His grace and healing is available to us. Let us be given the hearts to know that.

Interesting/Notable

Is it hiking or walking? REI blog

This article is very appropriate not just because I think city walking counts as hiking! And note this memory of city walking/hiking:

On that 2009 trip, Dad wanted to stay back in St. Joseph’s Oratory Church to look at some of the architecture, and I said I would take the kids for some outside time.

There is an outdoor, life-size stations of the cross on the grounds, and I VIVIDLY remember running (yes, actually running, and at a pretty good pace) the stations of the cross with an extremely active six-year-old boy and his equally active older sisters.

I remember thinking, “I think this is still reverent, even though we are running!” And we did burn up some energy.