Amazing Article On A Saintly Boy With Down's Syndrome

[veritasluxmea]

I'm crying. What a kid. Wow.

 

http://www.ncregister.com/blog/joseph-pronechen/boy-with-front-door-key-to-heaven-inspires-team-name

 

 

That day, at a major hotel in Mumbai, India, Islamic terrorists set off bombs, trapping hundreds of tourists and businessmen. Outside, the terrorists with machine guns began an assault intent on killing everyone inside.

An American businessman hid in the air-conditioning duct in hotel ceiling, terrified of the bomb explosions and machine gunfire. He made one phone call to, of all places, Great Falls, Va. to ask Brendan Kelly’s father Frank for his son Brendan’s prayers “so that he would be delivered from almost certain horrifying death at the hands of fanatics.”

Brendan was 9 years old. And he had Down syndrome. And for most of his life he had suffered severely from leukemia.

The man in Mumbai didn’t think twice about who to call because he, like many others, knew Brendan was close to God.  The man was among Brendan’s many friends who turned to him for help.

After Brendan prayed for his friend, Ruse related, “He walked into his father’s study and said the man would be rescued that very night … and he was.”

 

“Getting a 10-year old to take medicine that makes him violently ill is not easy,” wrote Santorum, “but during that time Brendan would courageously swallow the pills or take the injection and offer up his suffering as a plea to Jesus to heal Bella. His father, Frank, told me that when the pain was the worst, Brendan would repeatedly groan, ‘I love you, Bella.’”

That was 2008. Despite doctors’ predictions, Bella is alive today.

Frank Kelly noted that Brendan did get to meet Bella. And he would offer prayers and his sufferings for so many others too.

“He really loved God and knew he had a mission here,” he told me. Brendan battled leukemia for 13 of 15 years.

“He would look at the doctor before each chemo session and say, ‘I am offering this up for you.’” His parents would ask, “Who are you offering this up for today?” Brendan had his list, and through chemo sessions 8-10 hours long, throwing up, “he made it worthwhile. He knew he was here for a reason.”

“He offered all his pain for others,” Ruse noted in The Catholic Thing, describing how just weeks before he died of leukemia in 2013 just short of his 16th birthday, “massive steroid treatments to fight the ravages of chemo” caused large sores to cover Brendan's whole body. “There was no place you could touch him that did not hurt. Except his head.” His aunt was only able to pat him there, yet “Brendan said, ‘Aunt Kelly, I am so happy. All you need to be happy is to open your heart to Jesus.’”

 

 

[Credo in Deum]

What a beautiful story and one so needed during these days. I hope someone will start a case to look into his life and cause for sainthood!

[brandelynmarie]

Oh wow...we need him!