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Catholic Saints
St. André Bessette
00:19:02
St. André Bessette, devoted to St. Joseph and emulator of his humility, served as a brother in the Congregation of Holy Cross in Montreal. Serving as a college porter, André welcomed daily visitors and the sick. Dr. Elizabeth Klein shares about the thousands of miracles associated with the intercession of this saint and reminds us about the prevalence of miracles, even today!
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- [00:05]
A
Hello. Welcome to Catholic Saints. My name is Mary McKeon, and I am joined with Dr. Elizabeth Klein. Thank you for being with us.
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B
Thanks for having me.
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A
We're here for another episode of Catholic Saints. Can't get enough. So many saints keep coming. So we keep having more episodes about the wonderful lives of the various saints that we can look to and learn from. So today's episode, we are going to learn about Saint Andre Bessette.
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B
Yeah. So Andre Bessette, if you guys listen regularly, watch regularly, you know that most of the saints I do are patristic saints, early church saints. Sometimes I do medieval saints. So this is a modern saint. So this is a little out of.
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A
My normal horse chair. I was like, we need a modern saint.
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B
Come on. But I do make exceptions for Canadian saints because I'm Canadian. So I have done a couple Canadian saints. And actually, Andre Bessette, I feel like he's, you know, has sometimes people say, like, saints stock you or whatever. Sometimes I feel like I've had a couple encounters with Andre Bessette that I wouldn't have expected. So if you will indulge a little personal anecdote. I was visiting a friend in Montreal before I was Catholic. He wasn't Catholic either. And he had, like, some bike, like, tour planned, of course. Like, I'm terrible at biking. I'm an academic. What am I even doing? So he, like, borrowed this, like, street bike from somebody, and as soon as I got on it, I didn't know where the brakes were, and I, like, smashed the bike. And so we couldn't go on the bike tour. And I was like, well, I'd really rather go to St. Joseph's Oratory. Anyway, so we took the bike to the bike shop, and then we went to St. Joseph's Oratory, which is the beautiful church in Montreal that Andre Bessette raised money for and ultimately helped build.
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A
Okay.
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B
And while we were there, I'd never heard of Andre Bessette, but while we were there, his relics are there, including, like, fragments of his heart. So we had a really interesting conversation about, like, relics and, like, you know, religious objects and things. And of course, I became Catholic. And actually this friend of mine is now, like, an orthodox monk. So, you know, this is kind of like Andre Besset was there. And then right after I got to Notre Dame was right after Andre Besset's canonization.
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A
Okay.
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B
And Andre Bissett is a Holy Cross brother, and Holy Cross is the order that runs Notre Dame.
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A
Notre Dame.
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B
And so there was all kinds of stuff about him and the basilica. And so I feel like he's like kind of like cropped up a couple times. So. Happy to talk about Andre Beset.
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A
He's been leading you along the path and following you.
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B
Exactly. Canadian. Canadian. Canadian saints.
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A
So I'm assuming he is also from Montreal to start.
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B
Yes. So he's from Montreal, Quebec. So for those of you who don't know, that's the French speaking province of Canada that's close to the east coast of the United States.
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A
Okay, thank you for.
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B
Yes. So it's not. It's not like too far from like, I don't know, I don't know the American states that well. Maine.
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A
Yes.
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Massachusetts.
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A
It's up north.
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B
Yeah. It's close to those. So Andre Pesset is, as I said, a modern state. So his dates are 1845 to 1927. So. Yeah. Really just died about 100 years ago, do you know?
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A
Well, actually I wrote it down. He was canonized in 2010.
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B
Yes.
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A
So decently recent.
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B
Yeah. So I think he was beatified in the 70s and then. But then, yeah, not canonized until 2010 by Benedict XVI. So it's kind of interesting. Like, while I was researching, I knew a little bit about him, but like, I mean, really in his own life, he was like insanely famous. And so it's interesting that this is like, what, about 100 years ago? It's not actually that far away. And yet, like, I don't think that a lot of people necessarily know it's true.
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A
Sort of, they might, like, great grandmother would have potentially known his name.
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B
Yeah. And so he's actually the first Canadian national to be canonized because Canada didn't become a country until 1867. So there are obviously other French Canadian saints, but not technically when Canada was a country. So he's kind of the first. Yeah. Canonized Canadian. Which is kind of funny to think that was like 2010. But anyway, okay, so Andre Bessette really is famous for being a miracle worker. That's what he's famous. So I read to prepare for this, I read this like adorable book from 1922 before he died called the Miracle Worker of Mount Royal. So it was like, really interesting. This was mostly. Cause I didn't actually order a modern book in time, but I'm actually really glad that I read this book while he was still alive because just like in and of itself was kind of like a historical encapsulation, a gem. And so it was really, really interesting to read about. So just give a few. There's not A lot about, like, his life. I mean, there is about his life, but it's mostly focused on his miracles, which in and of itself is interesting. But we'll come back to that. So a little bit on his biography. So he was one of 12 children, but he was orphaned at the age of nine. His father died in a work accident and his mother d of tuberculosis. So this is, I feel like I was saying to Mary beforehand, this feels like all like the Quebec states, like they're all really poor. They have like these huge families and just like, wow, like all this suffering, but all this holiness at the same time. It's kind of amazing.
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A
You have nothing to complain about.
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B
Yes, but he was taken in by an aunt and uncle. Okay, but because of, you know, these circumstances, he mostly worked as a young man. He hardly had any education. I don't think he was totally illiterate, but I don't think he could read very well. So he, he didn't, he didn't leave any writings. So there's not a lot about necessarily like his interior life and spirituality. There's a little bit, but. Yes, but that's kind of not. Not what he's known for. So when he was still young, in his, I think his 20s, early 20s, the pastor of his parish recommended him to the Holy Cross Brothers and recognized he kind of had a saintly character. And he reportedly wrote, I'm sending to you, I'm sending you a saint. So recognizing this young man holiness, and he joined the order, taking final vows two years later. Because he was uneducated and didn't really have a strong background. He really just was a simple person. He was a porter. So he washed the door, he did laundry, he cut hair. He was just one of the sort of lowly cut parents. Cut hair. Oh, cut hair. Not pears. Maybe he cut Paris too. I'm sure he helped in the kitchen, but cut hair. And so the Holy Cross Brothers were in a college for boys. And so that's where he. He was helping in Montreal. He joked that when he first arrived, his superiors showed him the door and he never left. So.
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A
Interesting. And I'm sorry, he said he entered pretty young, in his 20s, in his 20s. Okay.
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B
And he lived till he was 91. So, okay, so he lived a long and simple, simple life. So how did he get famous then?
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Was he always a brother? Did he ever become a priest?
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He never became priest. He's a brother.
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Yeah, Brother Andre.
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B
Brother Andre, Yep. That's how he's known Brother Andre. So he had a great devotion to St. Joseph, which he was famous for. And he would pray for people who were ill, and he would often give them some of the oil from the St. Joseph's Chapel. And this is just a very simple pious act. But apparently this started to work. Miraculous healings. And so even though he was just the porter at this boys school and just sort of prayed for people who came to him, the news spread far and wide that he was a holy man and a miracle worker. And so, so many visitors started to inundate the college that he could no longer stay there. So they had to find a different place for him to meet people. And so he advocated for the building of a Chapel to St. Joseph on the side of Mount Royal. So this started as a small chapel, eventually raised the money to build St. Joseph's Oratory. I don't know if anyone out there has been to St. Joseph's Oratory. It's incredibly beautiful. It's like an incredible pilgrimage. Yeah, it's right up. It is, yeah. And it's still a regular pilgrimage site. There's pilgrim stairs all the way up the side of the mountain.
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A
Mm.
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It's very picturesque. It's a beautiful church. And St Andre's there in the crypt. And so he was then at the oratory for 10 years, where he would read thousands, or not read them, have thousands of letters, read to him, pray for people, send medals and oil, and became famous. Famous for the healing miracles.
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Yes.
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The little book I read said during his 10 years at the Oratory, they would receive 250 to 300 favors received.
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A
It sounds like lords, almost.
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B
Yeah. Yeah. So they estimated something like 30,000 people.
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A
Wow. Okay. So to recap, he served as he entered as a brother, or he became a brother of the Holy Cross congregation. He was serving as a porter at this all boys college school. And he had a strong devotion to St. Joseph. Where did he get this oil? What did. Do we know what the oil was?
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B
Yeah, I think it was just like blessed oil from their chapel. I don't think it was like. And he would give people medals.
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A
Okay. He would greet people at the door. And something, I guess, about him and his presence to receive started to come. And he would bless them with the oil. I'm trying to understand where it all came from.
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Pray for them, bless the oil, give them a medal, welcome them. That's it.
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A
And miracles started to be attributed to him.
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B
I mean, he always, of course, said that the miracles were worked by St. Joseph.
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A
Yes.
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B
But he was, like I said, this little book is called, like, the Miracle man of Mount Royal. And so, yeah, that's what he became known for. I can't, unfortunately, it's like a really bad picture. Oh. I can't show it, like, on screen because it's so bad. But in this little book from the 20s, there's this amazing picture from the oratory of just like these bins and. Bins and bins full of crutches and canes that people left after their healings, which is like. I don't know, I was just blown away by this. I was blown away by researching this because so often, I don't know, we just don't actually believe in miracles and we don't think they happen. Or maybe we heard about, like, one that happened one time to somebody and maybe it happened and maybe it didn't. Or like, that was cool.
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A
No, agree.
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But, like, how could it be that 30,000 healing miracles were worked on this continent less than 100 years ago and I didn't know about it?
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A
That's a really good point. It's true.
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B
It shocks me. It also seems so wild that, like, there was that many healings. And I mean, this little book is like. It's like the medieval lives that I read. It's just like miracle story after miracle story after miracle story after miracle story. And when you sometimes when you read those old lives, you think like, oh, those ancient people, like, they kind of believed anything or they like, made stuff up. Exactly. But this is very modern and it has, like, the names of people. It has doctor's reports, it has, you know, it's. It's really fascinating.
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A
I agree. It is shocking. And in the picture that Dr. Klein is mentioning, there's tons of crutches that people leave behind. So I'm assuming tons of physical healings as well.
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B
I think they're almost all physical healings. That is almost all the stories. Yeah.
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A
Okay. That's incredible.
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Yeah. I'm not sure if, like, the 30,000 are all physical healings, but that's all the stories anyway that were in the book. They were all physical healings.
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A
Do you have any hunch why he had such a strong devotion to St. Joseph?
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B
I think it was just. Yeah, I think it was just simple piety. Just simple French piety. He's our Father. And yeah, so there's a Beautiful statue at St. Joseph's Oratory of Statue that says, itaya, Joseph come to Joseph. And I don't know, for me, this saint is very inspiring because it's so tempting in human life to look for God in politicians, in bishops, in hierarchy and systems. And we think, oh, if only the laws were different, if only the leader were different, if only they would make a better bureaucracy, like, the Church would be in better shape. And I'm not saying that those things aren't true or that, like, it isn't important to have holy bishops, but how often does God work powerfully in the least? You know, it's like. And yet we don't expect it. We don't look for it. We don't. We don't expect God to change his church through saints, but that's always what he does. It's always through the saints. And it's often through crazy people like St. Francis or St. Simeon, who I did earlier, or it's through people of no value in the eyes of the world. I mean, here's a man who had not even enough education to be a.
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A
Priest, who had no parents.
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No parents, no wealth to his name. I'm sure nothing outstanding other than his piety and his love of God. And we think we can't make a difference in the church, or that doesn't matter. Or we're so frustrated because of X, Y or Z circumstance in the church that we can't control. But over and over and over again, God shows us, like, love me and I will bless you. You know, like, if we have the love of God and we pray, that's how the church has changed. And it's always renewed by his saints. Rarely is it renewed by an administrator. I mean, you have, like, Gregory the great saint, Great administrator. So, yeah, there are exceptions. It's wonderful to have saintly administrators, but that's not usually how it works.
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A
That is a really good reminder.
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It's usually through the lowly that the church is renewed. And it just seems to me that, like, Andre Bessette is such a perfect example of this. And he really reminded people at a time. You know, I think there has been periods, many periods in the Catholic Church where God can seem like a kind of sovereign judge. You can seem distant or maybe even scary. And so people kind of, like, go to Mary because she's, like, easier or something, and you can get a kind of false sense of who God is. And Andre really emphasized that God is so close to us, and how powerful is it? Like, healing miracles are very powerful. Jesus did healing miracles to show the love of God and show how God is so close. So there's a couple quotes from Andre about this. He says, when you say to God our Father, he has his ear right next to your lips. There is so Little distance between heaven and earth that God always hears us. Nothing but a thin veil separates us from God.
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A
Oh, wow, that's beautiful. And it's just like that proximity of God's presence, right?
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And how ultimately that proximity was shown through Brother Andre, through his simple faith and piety. And God works through him. It's so amazing that God works through his saints because it shows us how much he loves us and wants to include us in his plan and show his goodness to us, not in an abstract way, but in this, like, very concrete way, very concrete of thousands of people experiencing healing through the love of a simple brother. It's just such an inspiring story.
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A
I agree. Thank you. That note is beautiful. Even just that reminder that God still gives us miracles today and how more simple we can be, you know, if we have the faith the size of a mustard seed, we can move a mountain. Do we really believe that to be true? Or do we really believe God in that. That proximity, his desire to be so close to us wants to demonstrate his great love through healing and miracles. And I was thinking of Mother Teresa as well as another saint of just great simplicity, little education, but would just receive and welcome people as they were, as they, you know, she showed up.
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B
And great love and how famous she became and how she changed the world through loving the poor.
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A
The simplest action.
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B
Yes, right. And this is the same poor little brother Andre just loving poor little French voice and those around him became sort of a worldwide sensation. A lot of the miracle stories, too. They interestingly emphasize the Protestants who came to Brother Andre for healing too. So that's a kind of interesting, I don't know, fact. Of course, all of us aren't going to just like conjure up miracle working as like a witness to the truth of the faith or something. But at the same time, it's ultimately like the love of God which draws people. And arguments are good. I'm a theologian. I like to have arguments. But it's ultimately charity and the love of God and our piety and prayer that's like the strongest witness.
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A
No, that's a really good point. And just that hunger of when you meet someone who. Exemplifying this presence of God. I mean, over 30,000 people, you know, came to him. And I'm sure there's even more. Those are just the miracles associated with him flocking to that church that he. They actually had to send him to a bigger church for them to come. People hunger that presence of God. And I was. I was just gonna ment. And when you look up an Image of Brother Andre. Cause he's a modern day saint. You can see pictures and photographs of him. Just he looks so kind, like the kindness of his face. I was like, I would go visit him and talk to him especially.
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Cause a lot of them are like, oh, he's elderly too, because he lives till he's 91, which is really beautiful. And the word got out then we're definitely got out.
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A
Yeah, just like a gentle soul as well.
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B
So I thought maybe I would just end with just like one of the miracle stories that I read about. So this one was actually the last one in the story in the little book I read. So they said it was impossible to not tell this one. So this one was of a little girl in Montreal who was at a convent school and her eye was crushed by an oar. So obviously some like paddling games of the other convent girls got a little rowdy and out of hand at her right eye was crushed. And this one is interesting because her eye was examined by two different doctors. So it has the account of both of the doctors reports from when the accident happened. They both said it was completely incurable. They tried treatments, but they said it was fruitless and that her optic nerve had been damaged and there was like no way she was going to recover. So they send to the oratory and they send him back the oil and the metal. And then they're praying a novena for her and placing the medal on her eye every day for nine days. And on the ninth day during mass, she is able to see the statue of St. Joseph in their chapel and cries out, I can see in the middle of mass. And then they have the doctor's reports from after where they say that her sight has been restored equivalent to the other eye.
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A
That's incredible.
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B
And I thought this story was really beautiful because sometimes like miracle stories, I don't know, it's just like the facts that it's like, oh, this person was sick. And then they came and they were healed and it was so amazing. But this one provides enough detail that you can like kind of like recreate the psychology of that. I mean, the poor sisters probably felt terrible because she was injured in this like such a grievous way on their watch, in their own property. Some other poor girl in the common school is probably the one who did it. And she like can't do her studies, she's in pain, she can't see.
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A
Completely alters her life at such a young age as well.
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And then to have this like communal experience of praying for her and having her recovery, like, witness to so many, like, right in the middle of Mass. It's just, like, very. It's very moving, and it's, like, inspiring for all of us, you know, to pray with confidence for the great things God can do.
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A
Amen. Thank you. That is beautiful. So I guess to sum up, how would you Summarize Blessed Andre, St. Andre, the way he exemplified the life of Christ?
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B
I'd say, yeah, God can do the greatest things to the least. And our Lord chose to become poor and be among the poor. And so we also have to have that same poverty and that same love and humility.
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A
Great faith of God's goodness and greatness today. Well, thank you. That was Beautiful reflection on St Andre. Bessette, was there anything else you wanted to add?
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B
I think that's it.
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A
You can check out some of those images and miracle stories you mentioned.
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B
The book was the Miracle man in Montreal. It's. It's out of copyright, so I'm pretty sure you can find it online.
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A
Online as well. Great. If you'd like to learn more, please do. Thank you so much for this reflection and thank you for joining. We'll see you next time.