Observations placeholder

Death and its Mystery, At the Moment of Death; Manifestations and Apparitions of the Dying – Camille Flammarion

Contributed by Madame Frondoni-Lacombe of Lisbon 1911.  Letter 2158

Here in Lisbon, in the Saint Louis des Francais Hospital, a sister of Saint Vincent-de-Paul, Sister Marie Souchon, had violent pains in her stomach and was completely prostrated.  The mother superior sent for a physician, Dr Beirs.  The latter declared the sister very ill and as he was a convinced believer he thought it was his duty to advise the mother superior to have the last sacraments administered as quickly as possible, since a crisis might carry the patient off at any moment.

The mother superior told Sister Marie what the doctor thought and her confessor Father Fragues, came without delay.  The next day he gave her the last sacraments.  It was a Monday.

After the last sacraments had been given, the patient, who was most resigned, asked her companions not to make themselves miserable too soon and to sleep quietly, for, she asserted, ‘I shan’t die until next Saturday’.

‘How do you know that?’ the mother superior asked.

‘Through the holy virgin’ Sister Marie answered.  ‘She just appeared to me and told me so.  All my life I have told her of my wish to die on a saturday, the day sacred to her’.

The mother superior believed this an hallucination.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday up to six o’clock in the evening, there was no aggravation of her condition.

‘It’s strange’ the sister said ‘it’s already so late and the Holy Virgin has not yet come to take me; but she promised to do so, definitely’.

‘Oh’ said the mother superior ‘the Holy Virgin couldn’t take any notice of you; there are so many imploring her aid!’

But all of a sudden the invalid cried

‘No, no – death is coming! – Feel my feet, they are icy, yes I am dying from my feet to my waist – I am dead.  A crucifix, quickly – a Holy Virgin!  Pray – pray’

And she died.