Seeing the world through ‘Rose’-colored glasses
Rose Ferron Foundation makes city stop to trumpet miracle worker
WOONSOCKET — As president of the Rose Ferron Foundation of Rhode Island, David Ethier often hears stories about miraculous recoveries that are attributed to the organization's namesake. He often hears stories of people visiting the grave of “Little Rose” and feeling at peace. He often hears stories of hope.
“I get depressed sometimes, and at times it seems there is no help,” Phil Gidley wrote. “I just stand briefly in silence before her grave and it's as if some of the weight is lifted from me. At times I smell flowers, even if there are no flowers present.”
It's been 81 years since Marie Rose Ferron's death. But in the two years since the founding of the Rose Ferron Foundation of Rhode Island, people have sent in testimony about how the mystic and stigmatist has helped them.
The Rose Ferron Foundation of Rhode Island held a talk at the American-French Genealogical
Society on Saturday afternoon, an opportunity for Ethier and others in the Foundation to read the testimonies they've been receiving and to answer questions.
Ferron, who died two weeks shy of her 34th birthday, was bedridden for much of her life but was viewed as a healer by others.
Born the tenth of 15 children in 1902, Ferron moved with her family from Quebec to Fall River in 1907 and to Woonsocket in 1925. She endured arthritis, rheumatism, a spinal problem, spasms and hemorrhages.
Through her physical ailments, her religious devoutness grew and she would experience intense moments of “ecstasy.” She was a noted stigmatist, a person whose visible bodily wounds and marks resemble those of Jesus' crucifixion wounds.
From her wooden bed, necessary to keep her laying flat, she received religious vows and then wore a habit. According to the Rose Ferron Foundation of Rhode Island, 15,000 people lined up to see her at rest when she died, and another 2,000 attended her funeral Mass and burial.
Her grave is located in Precious Blood Cemetery on Diamond Hill Road. Those who support Little Rose posthumously hope the Catholic Church will change its position that there is not sufficient evidence for the mystic to be recognized as a saint.
Ethier has noted that because Little Rose is not recognized as a saint, the items she came into contact with should not be called relics, but rather mementos or souvenirs.
The prayers and favors people asked of Ferron in her life continued in her death and to the present.
On Saturday, Ethier spoke of an antiques dealer visiting Woonsocket in September who saw an article on Little Rose and decided to visit her grave to say prayers. Doctors told her she was barren, Ethier said, but she returned home and discovered she was two months pregnant.
“Where you hear stories like that, there's hope,” Ethier said. “There's a lot of them. We have truly a gift in Little Rose.”
He also read testimony from Helen Peltier, an 87year-old woman whose physical exam at age 12 led to an X-ray that identified a tumor in her chest. One of her lungs had collapsed, and she went through a lengthy operation to have it removed.
Her breathing remained shallow after the operation, but when a nun placed an image of Little Rose on her chest, she began breathing normally again, Ethier said.
Carl LeClair came from Revere, Mass. to Woonsocket on Saturday to share his story. He was introduced to Little Rose on monthly trips to Woonsocket with his church, and he eventually got a rosary from Flora, Little Rose's sister.
LeClair came down with a bad flu and was taken via ambulance to Massachusetts General Hospital, where he was resuscitated six times. After three or four days in a coma, he said he woke up to a deacon saying a rosary over him.
Some visitors to the Rose Ferron Foundation of Rhode Island's event have dedicated a lot of time to preserving Little Rose's memory.
Pauline Lalonde set about trying to find a Jesus Scourged statue for the chapel of Rose Myette, who was Ferron's cousin and caretaker. Through a friend, a Third-Order Franciscan doing work on statues, she found a Jesus Scourged statue at Marianapolis Preparatory School in Thompson, Conn.
The Rose Ferron Foundation of Rhode Island was founded with the aim of preserving the contents of Myette's chapel, which includes artifacts from Little Rose's life and items made in her honor.
The organization's goal is to reestablish the chapel and to create a museum in the house where Ferron died, at 271 Providence St. Ethier said the property will be coming up for sale soon and it's possible the Foundation will buy it.