I spent three days in the belly of the whale. I’m talking about Jonah’s whale—Jonah, the prophet in the Bible. You don’t know Jonah? He was thrown overboard because he was a hindrance. The biblical account tells us that the sea monster swallowed him in one gulp, but the man survived for three days hidden in its belly! That time of darkness saved him. Far from crushing him, his time inside the whale—a sort of “marine grotto”—completely restored him. For God holds the secrets of the labor of childbirth. From nothingness, he creates fullness. From something bad, he makes something new.

Jonah emerged from the fish a new man. I’m not Jonah, just a little old nun who was severely handicapped and disabled, like so many others. I found myself thrown out of the boat of life, a castaway. But I was healed, miraculously. I emerged from a damp grotto in Lourdes totally restored. Don’t ask me how.

Or rather, yes, I will tell you. Because I must tell you everything. Not to convince you with intricate arguments: I am a Franciscan, a disciple of Saint Francis of Assisi; I’ve never been and never will be a theologian. But I write this book to witness to you to what I experienced. Bernadette, to whom the Virgin appeared in Lourdes, told her detractors: “I wasn’t sent to make you believe it, just to tell you about it.” And so—and this is very important before the pilgrimage I encourage you to make—I offer you this story not for my own glory, but for the glory of God. And especially because the Church has asked me to.

Finally, to those who are wondering, “why her?,” a nun, and an old one at that, when so many others are suffering, children, young people, mothers, fathers…—I’ll try to answer that too. Yet all I can tell you is that this mystery is beyond me. In my prayer, I never asked for my own recovery. I always prayed for the healing of others.

So, why Jonah? Why this visceral image of three days of silence and burial? Because when I got back from Lourdes, I really did go through three days of pain, of darkness, before I was healed. And because Jonah is a symbol of the Resurrection of Christ our Lord.

So there you have it. I am going to proclaim the light! I’m a Christian. A Catholic, a nun, a Franciscan; I believe in Jesus and in Mary. Without them, nothing I’m going to tell you would make sense.

My three days inside the whale, my three days of darkness, then.

It was July 8, 2008. I was at the end of my tether. It was so hot. Back from Lourdes, I was in my room in our little convent, in Bresles, France, a stone’s throw from the city of Beauvais. Among the daughters of Saint Francis of Assisi it is called a “fraternity” rather than a convent. It’s