A Holy Thursday in Soufanieh

Synthèse :

On Holy Thursday 8 April 2004, Myrna began to show signs of fatigue and suffering in the morning. The day before, the medical teams had put her througha series of tests and examinations, which she had obediently undergone. After doing her housework, Myrna sat down, a dozen cameras trained on her, to attend mass in the patio where she received communion. Normally cheerful and social, she looked embarrassed and upset, suffering in silence.

Who in this crowd of visitors in her house realised that she no longer had a home? It had become a place of prayer and pilgrimage; her room was invaded by clerics, doctors and their equipment; she was even dispossessed of her body, which she passively submitted to the requested examinations. Shortly before noon, her face and hands were covered with mysterious oil and she asked to go back to her room to lie on the bed. Journalists, doctors and scientists followed her with their sophisticated observation equipment. Priests surrounded them. In this crowded room, everyone could see the signs of pain on her face and, at 1.21pm, she whispered in ecstasy: "The wound in my heart is enough... ". Immediately, a spot of blood appeared on her left side, under her breast; she ran her hand over her forehead several times as if to remove thorns between her thumb and forefinger. Then, repeating the first sentence, she continued: "The wound of my heart is enough, the wound of my heart is the source of love, the source from which every soul is nourished. As for my wounds, they exist because of a crime I did not commit" (message from Christ). So one understood that Jesus granted Myrna the grace of a receiving a single wound that he received on the Cross: the piercing of his heart. Myrna explained that the voice she heard coming out of the light came from all sides at the same time, in a tone that she thought was full of reproach.

The pilgrims and the people who invaded the house, spilling out into the street, maintained absolute silence. The pain became intolerable and Myrna moaned several times. The Norwegian medical team asked to be left alone and the room emptied. Myrna's daughter, Myriam, stayed beside her, weeping helplessly at her mother's side. On the screens set up in the patio, one could follow the examination of the only wound under the breast (34 millimetres) and the various measurement tests set up. Father Boulos returned to the room and leaned over Myrna, who opened her eyes. He tried to explain the message to her, which she said she couldn't remember. She simply repeated what the voice was telling her. Shortly afterwards, Myrna got up to attend Holy Thursday prayers and services.

On Good Friday 9 April 2004, Soufanieh's house was packed from 7am. This was a day of total fasting in the East, and most of the pilgrims were prepared to observe it. The services were held in the presence of Myrna and the medical team.

On Holy Saturday 10 April 2004, Myrna and her children, cloths and mops in hand, put the house in order. Everyone was amazed. Someone told the story that everyone familiar with Soufanieh knows: a lady comes to visit one day and sees her crouched down washing the patio floor. "What is it that I see? The hands on which the oil of the Blessed Virgin flows, soaking in the dirty water?" Myrna stood up and replied in one breath: "Do you think the Virgin Mary had a maid?" In just a few words, Myrna's common sense, simplicity and poise were summed up.

Later that afternoon, Myrna went up to the first-floor terrace, where the Virgin Mary first set foot on 18 December 1982. Together with Father Zahlaoui, she accompanied a group of Lebanese doctors who had just arrived. Doctors Philippe Loron and Mansour were there with them, as well as the camera crew. She answered the questions put to her very naturally and relaxed. The interview lasted seventeen hours. Suddenly, on the stairs, as she was coming back down with the whole group to prepare for the 6pm mass, her face and hands became shiny and the flow of oil was impressive. The doctors and cameramen quickly crossed the patio and carried her to her bed to lie down. Oil dripped from her eyes, which she kept closed. She flashed a smile... then strongly shook her head no, her mouth contracted, ready to cry. She stood still and fell into ecstasy as the Nordic and Lebanese doctors bustled around their machines, collecting the oil from her eyes and face to fill the specially prepared bottles.

A couple pushed open the door of the room and lay a sleeping baby beside her, along her side. They said they had come from Saudi Arabia and that the child was very ill. The prayer went up. Myrna seemed to be absent, and then suddenly began to speak: "My last commandment to you: from here a light has once again burst forth, and you are its radiance for a world so seduced by materialism, sensuality and celebrity that it has almost lost its values. As for you, preserve your oriental authenticity. Do not allow your will, your freedom and your faith to be alienated from this East." (Christ's message).

The spectators in the room were stunned and those behind the door in the patio began to weep. One of the Norwegian doctors turned against the wall, as if to flee from a reality that was beyond him. He was the only atheist in a Scandinavian Protestant team. Father Zahlaoui tearfully translated the message he has just heard and written down. Myrna came out of her ecstasy and, discovering the baby against her, tenderly caressed him with a smile. Then she got up and, quite naturally, at 6 p.m. mass began. It was only in the evening, in front of all the doctors present who had carried out examinations on her, according to their specialities and research (genotypes, laser perfusion scanner, Doppler, spectrography, impedance) that she described those four minutes of ecstasy: "I went towards the Virgin who stroked my head, as if to say to me: 'Go'. I turned round and went towards Jesus, present in the room in the form of a figure of light. I heard my son John Emmanuel saying: "Leave Mum alone! Even now, do you still want to examine her?"And I said, "Let them do what they want, Jesus is here, and he's waiting!" "

"It's as if a precious perfume had been handed to us and the cork is carefully and delicately opened, so that everyone can breathe in this heavenly aroma," Canadian priest Father Louis René Gagnon testified, before leaving on Easter Sunday. This is what it's all about, this unique fragrance of the Virgin Mary and Christ, and all the accounts, all the ultra-modern equipment transported to Damascus were unable to capture it. Scientific and even religious reports bear witness to this: "They explain nothing. They have eliminated the possible, and are camped on the doorstep of the impossible."

All those who went back to their own world after this Easter in Damascus, in the Christian district of Soufanieh, could have said the words that Myrna said as she greeted them before they left on the evening of that Easter Sunday: "Don't think that my mission is over, it's starting now."

Aller plus loin :

Geneviève and Jean-Claude Antakli, Dieu existe. Ses merveilles étincellent sous nos yeux, Éditions du Parvis, 2020.

En savoir plus :

• Jean-Claude Antakli, Le Silence de Dieu, Éditions du Parvis, 2012.
• See the other articles 1000 raisons de croire, relating to the events at Soufanieh: "Apparitions and message of the Virgin Mary to Myrna" and "Myrna's exsudations of oil an the icon of Soufanieh".