A miracle among us

I remember as a young priest traveling south with Msgr. Richard Shirley to take an elderly Msgr. George Gloeckner to visit his old friend Father Peter Smith in his parish in the Valley. Father Smith was ordained for the Diocese of Corpus Christi and later became a priest for the Diocese of Brownsville after its formation in 1965. 

We had a warm welcome and enjoyed some pleasant hours remembering old times as they related some of their early experiences in the Diocese of Corpus Christi. A time when it included all the counties of south Texas, stretching from Corpus Christi north to Tivoli, west to the Rio Grande and then south to Brownsville.
 

St. Frances Cabrini

It also was an occasion to meet a “miracle among us.” An article in the Corpus Christi Times (the evening edition of the Caller) on May 30, 1951, related the story of Father Smith as he prepared for his ordination by Corpus Christi Bishop Mariano Simon Garriga. But the ordination would not be in the Corpus Christi Cathedral. It was to take place at the Mother Cabrini Shrine in New York on the following Saturday.

The article also recounted the story that made him a miracle among us. Father Smith’s mother, two younger brothers, and the doctors and nurses who testified to the miracle were to be present for his ordination.

A miracle shortly after Father Smith’s birth was used in the canonization of St. Frances Cabrini. St. Frances Cabrini, born in Italy in 1850, worked among the Italian immigrants in the United States. She became a United States citizen and is the first American citizen to be canonized a saint. Pope Pius XII named her patroness of all immigrants. She died in 1917 in Chicago.

Father Smith was born in one of Mother Cabrini’s hospitals in New York City on March 14, 1921. After Smith’s birth, as a matter of routine, the attending nurse hurriedly dropped a solution of silver nitrate into the infant’s eyes. As she returned the bottle to its place, she discovered she had used a fifty percent solution instead of a one percent solution. She knew the baby’s eyes had been destroyed. Two doctors were called to the room in an effort to save the child’s eyes, but they agreed that the cornea was destroyed in both eyes.

The hospital superior hurried in, bringing a relic of Mother Cabrini (who had died three years before), and put it on the baby’s eyes before pinning it to his smock. Both the superior, the sisters, along with the near-hysterical nurse, spent the night in the chapel, praying for the child’s sight.

The next morning the doctors checked on the infant. One looked at the other after he had bent down to the baby and looked into Peter’s eyes with a light. “No, you are not seeing things, but he is. Those eyes are now normal.” Soon Peter Smith was to be the beneficiary of a second miracle. He developed double pneumonia on the very day his vision was restored. His temperature registered 108-109 degrees. The doctors rushed in again. “Well,” they said, “This temperature is generally fatal.”

“Doctor,” the mother superior said, “Mother Cabrini did not cure his eyes just to let him die of pneumonia.”

The sisters again prayed, asking for a second miracle. By morning, all symptoms of pneumonia had disappeared. Ten days after his birth, infant Peter Smith went home with his mother. The record of Mother Cabrini’s beatification, containing the story, was signed by Dr. Michael J. Horan, Dr. Paul W. Casson, and the nurse, Mary Redman, R.N.

Father Peter Smith continued to share his story with groups around the country. After attending and graduating from Fordham University, class of ’43, and serving in the Armed Forces, he came to Texas through the influence of Msgr. George Gloeckner. He studied in St. John’s Seminary in San Antonio, was ordained a deacon in Corpus Christi Cathedral in 1950, and then was ordained to the priesthood on June 2, 1951, for the Diocese of Corpus Christi.

In 1965, after the death of Bishop Mariano Simon Garriga of the Diocese of Corpus Christi, the lower four counties of our diocese were separated and become the new Diocese of Brownsville. Bishop Adolph Marx (the auxiliary bishop of Corpus Christi at the time) was appointed the first bishop of the Diocese of Brownsville.

Father Peter Smith continued to serve in the Valley for 40 years until his retirement. At that point, he returned to his native New York, but even there continued to minister. He served in a nursing home operated by the Carmelite Sisters, where he died unexpectedly of an aneurysm on Feb. 12, 2002.

His younger brother noted that even on that day, he was still working — anointing some 40 residents that day in the nursing home. On the day of Father Peter Smith’s ordination, Bishop Garriga had remarked in jest that the new priest “has Mother Cabrini’s eyes, and she is winking at him.” Hopefully, those blessed by Father Peter on his last day saw in his eyes that compassion that marked the eyes of Mother Cabrini in her care for those in need.