Eloise Azélie Holt in utero

Emily Holt is a young mother in the United States who is 18 weeks pregnant with her third baby, a girl. Unfortunately, her baby has been diagnosed with a very severe case of osteogenesis imperfecta. Her bones are extremely fragile, tiny, and brittle, and have broken in utero. What makes this lethal is the narrow size of her chest cavity, which is measuring in the first percentile. The doctors have said that her lungs will not have room to expand so that she will not be able to breathe properly after birth. 

Emily and her husband Jack have already named their little baby girl after Saint Therese’s parents, Saints Louis and Marie-Azélie Martin. Her name is Eloise Azélie Holt. 

The family have specifically asked for prayers for a miracle through Fr Doyle’s intercession. They want many people to pray a miraculous healing for Eloise Azélie; that her chest be wide and her bones strong, and above all that she may be born breathing so that she can be baptised.

Friends: this is important. It is important that we pray for, and support, the Holt family in this time of need. It is important that we pray for a miracle specifically through Fr Doyle’s intercession. We know from the historical record, and from personal experience, that Fr Doyle is a powerful intercessor. In the first 14 years after his death the Irish Jesuits received 6,426 letters claiming favours and healings through his intercession; almost 1,900 of these alleged healings were in the United States.    

Many of us long for the day when Fr Doyle’s cause for beatification will be opened. A miraculous healing of this nature would be one of the very best arguments to further this aim. God still grants miracles, but we have to ask for them! And He chooses to do so through the intercession of the saints, and through holy men and women who have not yet been beatified or canonised. In fact the approved miracles for St John Henry Newman (miracle in 2013) and Venerable Fulton Sheen (miracle in 2010) involved difficult pregnancies. And both approved miracles for St Paul VI (one in the 1990’s, the other in 2014) also involved miraculous healings of unborn babies in difficult pregnancies. Let us help the Holt family, and add a miracle through Fr Doyle’s intercession to this list!

You can pray any prayer to Fr Doyle, but the following prayer was approved for private use by the Archbishop of Dublin in the 1929 when there were initial moves towards Fr Doyle’s beatification:

O Jesus, who has given us the example of Your servant, Father William Doyle, graciously grant us the favours we ask You through his intercession…[Pray here for the miraculous healing of Eloise Azélie Holt]

Teach us to imitate his love for You, his heroic devotion to Your service, his zeal for repairing the outrages done to Your Sacred Heart. And, for Your greater glory and the salvation of souls, hear our prayer and grant that the credit we believe He enjoys in Heaven may be recognised solemnly by the Church, so that we may soon be able to venerate him in public worship.

Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be

Please encourage your family, friends, prayer group and parish to pray through Fr Doyle’s intercession for this miracle. Spread this story on social media and in your various networks. Let us storm Heaven, and pray for this miracle.

Emily Holt