After an amniocentesis and subsequent ultrasounds, the specialists at UVA Hospital told Patrick (’02) and Jill that their unborn baby had a chromosomal deletion that indicated a possibility of TAR syndrome. Patrick and Jill placed their unborn son in God’s hands and began to pray for Blessed John Paul’s intercession to cure him. “During one particular appointment, I started to lose hope and became very disheartened and frightened,” Jill recalls, “I started to pray to Blessed John Paul to give me strength and courage to endure this cross that I didn’t understand, and I felt an interior voice tell me, ‘He needs you to love him in a way which only you can love him.’ I believe that it was the voice of Blessed We are grateful to Christendom for not only John Paul. That day I began to feel a peace providing us with the truth and fostering in us a love and courage that God for it, but also being a place where we have friends would give us the grace we needed to who love and respect John Paul for the very same endure this cross, and Patrick and I decided reasons we do – because he is a human person, a child to name our son John of God, and he is fearfully and wonderfully made. Paul.”
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They prayed to Blessed John Paul for a miracle to cure their baby and asked everyone they knew to do the same.
Patrick and Jill with their five sons: George, Andrew, Thomas, Samuel, and John Paul.
John Paul was born on March 11, 2013, at UVA Hospital in Charlottesville. His platelet count at birth was 12,000, and he was diagnosed with a form of TAR syndrome. X-rays of his arms show that he has a tiny humerus in both arms, but no radii and only a trace of an ulna, if any. His right leg is fused at the knee with no joint, and his foot is turned in at the ankle. “Although it was not God’s will to grant us the miracle that we asked for, we do believe that He watched over John Paul’s Winter 2013
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