A Miracle of Mutual Love

Together we can overcome a lot. But it takes hard work, perseverance, grit and determination. It is not easy.

When the Franciscan Monks first came to came to France to increase the health of the people in France,they were stunned by what it would take. They had to drain the swamps and stop them from emitting toxic vapors and attracting toxic mosquitoes. They were used to prayer but this was something new so they adopted a new slogan. In Latin it was Ora et Labora or "Prayer and Work!"

As I read the following story I thought that this slogan is always the case in healing and growth. People do not change nor are the healed and whole without both prayer and work.

The Miracle in the Coal Mine

In what the news called "The Miracle at Quecreek," nine miners trapped for three days 240 feet underground in a water-filled mine shaft "decided early on they were either going to live or die as a group."

The 55 degree (Fahrenheit) water threatened to kill them slowly by hypothermia, so according to one news report "When one would get cold, the other eight would huddle around the person and warm that person, and when another person got cold, the favor was returned."

"Everybody had strong moments," miner Harry B. Mayhugh told reporters after being released from Somerset Hospital in Somerset. "But any certain time maybe one guy got down, and then the rest pulled together. And then that guy would get
back up, and maybe someone else would feel a little weaker, but it was a team effort. That's the only way it could have been."

They faced incredibly hostile conditions together and they all came out alive together.