It was the a common saying in Puthenchira and surrounding villages that ‘there was not a single person who died without the assistance of Mariam Thresia in those days; that if Thresia would be there at the bedside of the dying that soul would not be lost in hell’ .
St. Mariam Thresia made use of the special graces she received from God for reading the hearts of sinners and dying to win them all for God. Though she had to go through suffering and struggles from her own family and people, or to bear the consequences of the angry mob of hell she left no effort to provide spiritual help to a sinner or a dying. The devil often yelled at her beat her up in fury for the lose of the souls .
She observed many penances and mortified her body to help sinners with the grace of repentance. One day Our Lady asked Thresia to offer special prayers for the conversion of a sinner belonging to her own parish. Accordingly she began to pray for the person. The man in unconsciousness kept saying” I am ruined this room is full of fire”. The man was living without any faith all his life in sin. Thresia specially prayed for this sinner in front of the Bl. Sacrament day and night. The man regained consciousness after a long period, asked for confession and died in piece. Fr. Joseph Vithayathil has recorded that the devils were mad at her, they came in large number. One of them took the form of a male elephant pierced her side with the tusk and told her” you mind your own business”. Bl. Mother came and cured her immediately but much blood flowed out of her body. The wound was about nine inches long and it remained for days to heal fully.
The Bl. Mother revealed and directed her to the house of sick people in her parish. On such occasions sinners usually got repentance and a happy death through her prayers and help. There was a man suffering from cancer in the throat. He used to do the work of nursing small pox patients. He was not God-fearing in his youth, even before certifying whether they are dead, he used to tie them up and get them up ready for burial. On hearing that he was about to die she went to visit him. As soon as she reached she saw devils frightening him showing him such sights, as a man’s body covered with a mat and a stone placed on His chest. St. Mariam Thresia knelt down and prayed, gave him consoling advises, but the man turned her away in anger. She continued to stay by his side praying for the man with her companions and family members seeking our Lady’s mediation until he died peacefully. Fr. Joseph Vithayathil gave him a complete absolution of sin before the man died. She could see him going to heaven with angels.
To record another incident one day St. Mariam Thresia while talking to her old friend found that she was in a state of despair. So she made use of the meeting to give the women necessary advice and induce her to make good confession. In many cases she read their heart, found, corrected and won those souls for God; persons who were making false confession and approaching death without hope were rescued with the gift of reading the mind.
St. Mariam Thresia like other saintly souls often took upon herself the physical pain of others. A women belonging to other parish had been suffering from stomach disease for number of years. The illness worsened, she had fever, swelling and acute pain in the stomach. She prayed and expressed to take upon her illness in order to cure the women. At once the fever and pain passed on to her. Bl. Virgin informed her that God had not willed to cure the women but instead had prolonged her life for a month. Thresia suffered for her. After a month the women died and came to the saint with Jesus Mary and Joseph and informed her that God had spared her from purgatory and would go to heaven in the early hours of Saturday after which she vanished.
St. Mariam Thresia put her maximum effort to it if at least she could save one soul for God. She made good use of every spiritual practices and even the torments inflicted upon her by the devils to gain more souls, thus to quench the thirst of Christ on the cross. She counted her worth relating to the sufferings and blood flowed from the cross for her. Therefore saving a soul was more important for her than a moment without suffering.
Sr. Udaya Kallukaran Chf