The Ghost of Holly Marie
Dictionary Definition https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ghost
ghost noun
The soul of a dead person is thought of especially as appearing to living people.
Synonyms & Similar Words
Spirit, soul, phantom, spectre, shadow, angel, demon, sprite, djinn, daimon, genie, jinn, succubus, incubus, etc.
The Thomistic Institute
Aquinas 101
Angels are beings or substances that are spirits. Angels have intellect and will, and so exorcise knowledge and love. Still, they do not have bodies. Each angel is essentially a center of consciousness without a body. Angels do not see, taste, smell, touch, hear, imagine or recall sensory things, and they do not have sensory passions; they do not eat,
sleep, smile, laugh, marry, make love or have children, and they’re not babies flying around with wings. Aquinas says: ‘In how the angels interfere with us, they are influencing the physical things or people in the place.”
This definition also applies to Holly Mary, and this is how she protected me.
The story I wrote for a podcast and posted in 2022 was re-published in a newsletter of the Order of the Franciscans of the Eucharist in 2025, after I submitted four articles; only two were retained by the publisher: “The Blessing of the Animals” of Saint Francis day and this one:
United in Spirit OFE Newsletter
December 2024 Vol 5 Issue 2
Unexpected Care of Mother Mary
Merriam-Webster Websites:
miracle noun
An extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs, the healing miracles described in the Gospels.
An extremely outstanding or unusual event, thing, or accomplishment. The bridge is a miracle of engineering.
Christian Science: a divinely natural phenomenon experienced humanly as the fulfillment of spiritual law.
I do not know if it was a miracle, but this event happened to me in 1983.
This story begins at the beginning of the 70s, when I was a passenger in my friend Gaetan H.’s car. We drove around the Outaouais most of the time, but occasionally we drove up to Montreal to spend a few hours there. Then it was a four hours drive down and back in Hull (Gatineau today).
On a few occasions, he brought me to visit Montreal churches Notre-Dame and St Joseph Oratory, but not simultaneously, La Ronde, the cinema, bars and restaurants.
One time at the Oratory, when you go out of the primary worship place, there is an escalator to go down. Just across the escalator is a souvenir boutique; I do not know why, but I purchased a Holy Mary Car Magnet to be stuck on the car’s dashboard. The cars’ dashboards were made of metal then. I didn’t have a car, and I didn’t even have a car driver’s licence. So, during my motorcycle time, I stuck Mary on the tachometer.
One day, at lunch hour at work, my friend Denis invited me to have a beer with him, so we went to a bar on Portage St. After one beer, he said I must go home for supper. I worked the evening shift, so it was lunch for me; he wanted me to go with him to his residence for supper, and I would be back on the job in no time. I didn’t want to go, but he convinced me; Denis was driving a Honda Goldwing, and I, the Suzy 1980 GS1100. From Highway 5, there are two exits to go to his place. One was the St. Raymond exit, and the other exit was Blvd Mont Bleu; I was in front of him, aiming at Mont Bleu. I looked in my mirror and saw him going off to St Raymond. So, to be at his place simultaneously, I accelerate up to 80MPH, passing a car, and then it happens.
I don’t remember the month, but it was probably in June; the bike was out of storage in May. At the same time, I asked Honda of Outaouais to do maintenance and a few repairs. It cost a fortune to take it out, but the mechanic told me that it leaked from my front fork. That needs to be addressed; no more cash, so it was ok to drive at an average speed. That year, Suzuki put oil and air in the front fork, and the air leaked.
Carrying on with the story, the motorbike, at that speed, starts to zigzag and wobble, and it slows down to maybe 50 or 40 MPh, and it flips, and the bike and I start to slide for a good two to three hundred feet.
I was terrified of three things:
Will I hit the cement divider? I’m in the passing lane.
The bike is in front of me. Will I hit it if it stops sliding before me?
Is a car coming to run me over?
It was a scorching day. I had never done this before, but I didn’t wear my leather jacket that day.
The result was a second-degree burn in my arms and back.
Treatment: in Hull hospital, a swirl bath in water and iodine.
I was sure of dying, and it didn’t happen. Why?
A few days later, I probed my jeans pockets and found my Holy Mary Magnet all bent out of shape. My father told me that she saved me, probably lifting me off the ground and watching the surroundings so nothing worse would happen. I believed in Divine intervention through Mary.
Bro. Eric Michel