OMAHA, Neb. — Dr. Edward Gatz’s story is one of Easter hope and triumph.

The 71-year-old retired physician was expected to live no more than six months after being diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus.

But 20 years later, he is alive thanks to a miracle that will lead to the canonization of Blessed Jeanne Jugan, foundress of the Little Sisters of the Poor, on Oct. 11.

For a person to become a saint, a miracle must be attributed to his or her intercession after beatification.

Gatz’s wife, Jeanne, and the late Jesuit Father Richard McGloin, a friend of the couple, prayed to Blessed Jeanne daily following the diagnosis, though it was not until 13 years later that, at the urging of another priest, they told the Little Sisters what had happened.

A seven-year process of gathering information and witnesses followed, culminating in the Vatican’s decision to authenticate the miracle and canonize Blessed Jeanne, who started the Little Sisters in France after taking in an elderly blind woman on a winter night in 1839. Today, the congregation of more than 2,700 women operates 202 homes for the aged poor around the world.

Gatz and his wife knew little about Blessed Jeanne, who was beatified in 1982, when he first suspected something was amiss with his health in 1988. A dermatologist he had consulted about some small bumps on the backs of his hands thought they might be caused by an “occult neoplasm” (hidden cancer), and he sent Gatz, an anesthesiologist, back to his internist, Dr. David Jasper of Omaha, Neb.

After a series of tests showed nothing that would confirm the dermatologist’s suspicions, Gatz thought he might have cancer of the transverse colon — his mother had died of the disease at age 45 — but because he had no other symptoms, he continued working his usual 84-hour week until he could have an endoscopy on Jan. 9, 1989. That test showed a large tumor in the esophagus extending into the stomach.

“His cancer was invasive through the wall of the esophagus, and this is almost always fatal,” Jasper said, adding that no one else in his 34 years of practice has ever survived this type of cancer to the extent Gatz has.

On the day of the diagnosis, Gatz’s wife phoned Father McGloin, who told her to pray to Blessed Jeanne “every day without fail.” The priest had developed a devotion to the Little Sisters’ foundress while serving as a chaplain at the sisters’ home for the elderly in Milwaukee in the 1950s.

‘Miracle Man’

Father McGloin subsequently sent Jeanne Gatz a novena prayer to Blessed Jeanne when she accompanied her husband to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., where he underwent a palliative surgery to allow him to take nutrition. The radical procedure involved removing the tumor and parts of the stomach and esophagus.

About three months later, Gatz returned to Mayo for follow-up and learned he was clear of any major spread of the cancer. He had decided not to have chemotherapy or radiation because he was told that neither would cure him, but he was instructed to continue having regular exams back in Omaha.

After each exam, nothing would be found. “Every time, I expected bad news, and I didn’t get it,” he said.

Two and a half years after the surgery, doctors at Mayo did additional studies on Gatz’s tumor at the request of an oncologist in Omaha. Based on the cell type, he was deemed “lucky” to still be alive. “I knew it was a gift from God,” Gatz said.

Meanwhile, he was learning to live with the effects of the surgery that had been performed so he could eat during what were to have been the last months of his life. What was left of his stomach, he explained, was now in his chest, altering his digestion and requiring him to sleep with his head elevated.

Gatz was able to change his diet and stabilize his weight and, with each year, has found he can eat and do things he couldn’t do before. “The miracle goes on,” he said.

However, because of his condition, he was never able to return to the work he loved in medicine, which had included teaching and research, in addition to caring for patients.

“I was just so thankful for every day that came,” he said. “I try to live my life as though each day is my last day and accept each day as it comes. . . . So, it was that type of attitude that got me through with more ease than most.”

When doctors he knew would call him “the miracle man,” he would correct them by saying, “I am the recipient of a miracle.” He believes God may have chosen him to receive the miracle so that he could defend it for the cause of Blessed Jeanne’s sainthood. “Having written scientific articles before this, I could certainly present it in a way that the conclusions were inexplicable and, therefore, miraculous,” he said.

Soft Spot for Americans

Mother Marguerite McCarthy, who was at the Little Sisters’ home in Kansas City, Mo., when Jeanne Gatz called about her husband’s miracle, said Gatz’s medical background made him an excellent spokesman for the cause. In addition to his medical degree, he has a doctorate in pharmacology and is knowledgeable about all the details related to the type of cancer he had.

“He obtained all his records himself for us,” Mother Marguerite said, “and he worked hard once we asked him to do this. He was very cooperative, not because he wanted to be known or considered himself worthy, but because he wanted to see our foundress receive the honor she was due.”

Passionist Father Dominic Papa, vice postulator of Blessed Jeanne’s cause, said he considers the miracle of Gatz’s cure to be extraordinary: “There really isn’t a typical one, but I would say this is really an outstanding miracle.”

Mother Anne Joseph Doyle of the Little Sisters’ home in Oregon, Ohio, said many of the sisters find it interesting that the miracle was granted to an American because Blessed Jeanne was said to have had a soft spot in her heart for Americans. “When in Latour, [where she spent her last 27 years,] she always tried to be very kind and give the Americans attention,” Mother Anne said. “She said, ‘They are so far from home.’ It seemed like a delicacy to us, almost, that the recognizable miracle would have been one from America.”

Jeanne Gatz said her involvement in the miracle has given her a sense of great purpose. “I have a totally awestruck feeling about the whole thing, how God has smiled upon us and granted this huge miracle. This is such a humbling experience. ... He chose us; he chose Ed, and I got to have him for all these many more years because God gave us this tremendous blessing of a cure.”

Judy Roberts writes

from Graytown, Ohio.