Healing of Fr. Ronald Pytel

On the feast day of Blessed Faustina (October 5, 1995) he prayed for her intercession. His cardiac symptoms resolved and follow-up testing found no evidence of the arteriosclerotic disease previously documented. Bypass surgery was no longer required.

Father Ronald Pytel was a Polish-born priest serving in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1995 he was diagnosed with advanced arteriosclerotic heart disease — a condition in which the arterial walls thicken and harden due to the buildup of plaques, restricting blood flow to the heart. His condition had progressed to the point where he was experiencing severe angina and his cardiologist recommended coronary bypass surgery. The prognosis without intervention was poor.

On October 5, 1995 — the feast day of Blessed Faustina Kowalska, who had been beatified two years earlier — Father Pytel participated in celebrations marking the anniversary of her death and prayed for her intercession regarding his condition.

In the period following, his symptoms resolved. Follow-up cardiac testing found no evidence of the arteriosclerotic disease that had been documented and that his physicians had considered severe enough to require surgery. His heart appeared normal. His cardiologist could not explain the findings in light of the prior documentation.

The case was submitted to the Vatican as part of the investigation into Faustina's canonization. In 1999, the Holy See's medical board reviewed the documentation and declared the healing medically inexplicable. The theological commission concurred. The miracle was approved by Pope John Paul II.

Faustina Kowalska was canonized on April 30, 2000. At the same ceremony, John Paul II established Divine Mercy Sunday as a feast of the universal Church — the first Sunday after Easter — fulfilling one of the central requests Faustina had recorded in her diary.