by Jay Sorgi
(50 for 50 series) Fifty years ago, Jimmy Porter’s neurosurgeon thought he was working on a dead man. Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, who would be canonized months later, had other ideas.
“The atmosphere at the hospital was ‘Pray for his death,’” his mother Mary Porter wrote about her then 21-year-old son. Hours before, on July 6, 1975, Jimmy was riding his new motorcycle when a car pulled out and collided with him. Jimmy flew 30 feet into the air and smashed headfirst into concrete.
Jimmy’s doctor at Lakewood Hospital in suburban Cleveland said that brain tissue went through his right ear, with hemorrhages so huge that doctors had to remove part of his skull.
Through the prayers of dozens, God used the work of that neurosurgeon. Two months later, while still in a coma, he was transferred to a long-term care facility. Doctors didn’t give Jimmy much of a chance, a prospect that brought anxious thoughts to a mother who had already lost two of her seven children.
Mother Seton certainly knew the pain of losing children. So when Mary Porter read in her diocesan newspaper that a mother like her was going to be canonized as the first American-born saint, she began to pray.
“We had prayed already so much, to so many, to intercede for us, and we were still hurting. Oh, God, the hurt!” Mary wrote. “Please, God, work another miracle through this new saint of yours. Let her glory be even more, God. Please give her a miracle for her canonization day. Come on, God! Come on, Mother Seton! You can do it! Won’t you?”
That was on Sept. 8. Four days later, Jimmy’s doctors said that his eye was somehow healing. And two days later, the day of Mother Seton’s canonization day, Mary said he seemed “attentive, concentrating. Was he?”
Sister Patricia Newhouse of the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati, a teacher of one of Jimmy’s family members, arrived at the hospital on September 16.
“I said, ‘Well, I got a Mother Seton relic and you can have your mom come and we’ll all pray to Mother Seton,’” she recounted years later. Jimmy’s mom rubbed the relic over Jim’s head.
Jimmy began to show strength in his neck and his spine. A staph infection came and went. His brain swelling disappeared.
His mother kept prayers going through Mother Seton. More miracles kept coming.
Jimmy fully awakened from his coma. On the one-month anniversary of Mother Seton’s canonization, he began eating.“Holy God, we praise Thy name! Thanks, God, Mother Seton, and everybody!” his mother exclaimed in her diary.
Over time, he retrained his mind at the school where Sister Pat was principal.
“He went to a confirmation retreat the eighth grade had,” said Sister Pat. “He said, ‘You guys, if you need a good friend’ – he reached his heart, he reached in his pocket, pulled out Mother Seton – ‘Mother Seton’s the best friend you can ever have.’”
Mother Seton remained Jimmy’s best friend for decades longer than the 15 years he was expected to live.
“He said to me, ‘I don’t know why I’m alive,” Sister Pat explained. “’I think it’s just to let people know about Mother Seton.’”
50 for 50 is a series of stories, quotes, clips, photos, and/or devotional statements from ordinary people to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the canonization of Elizabeth Ann Seton as the first native-born American saint.