Healing of Maureen Digan

While praying at Faustina's tomb in Krakow-Lagiewniki, felt a sudden draining sensation in her legs. The chronic swelling resolved immediately and she was able to walk. Her husband Bob was present and witnessed the healing.

Maureen Digan was an American woman from Fall River, Massachusetts, who had lived with chronic lymphedema for thirty-six years. Lymphedema is a condition in which damage or obstruction to the lymphatic system causes fluid to accumulate in the soft tissues, producing chronic, progressive swelling — in her case severe enough that she could not walk. The condition had no cure. Medical management could slow its progression but not reverse it.

In March 1981, Maureen and her husband Bob traveled to Poland to visit the tomb of Sister Faustina Kowalska, whose beatification cause was then under investigation. Faustina had died in Kraków in 1938; her remains were interred at the chapel of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy in Kraków-Łagiewniki. On March 13, 1981, while Maureen was praying at the tomb, she felt something change. She described a sensation in her legs — a cracking or loosening — followed by the rapid draining of the fluid that had swollen them for decades. She stood up and walked. Her husband was present and witnessed what happened.

She returned to the United States. Her physicians examined her and could not account for the resolution of a condition that had been present and documented for thirty-six years. The case was submitted to the Vatican. In 1992, the Holy See's medical board reviewed the documentation and declared the healing medically inexplicable. It was accepted as the miracle for Faustina's beatification.

Faustina Kowalska was beatified by Pope John Paul II on April 18, 1993.