It was 1966 when Pat Bitzan, a 39-year-old wife and mother living in St. Cloud, was told by doctors that breast cancer had spread to her lungs and that her future was grave.

Bitzan, a Roman Catholic, immediately traveled with her husband, Donald, to an obscure monastery in Belgium, where a dead priest named Columba Marmion was rumored to have healing powers.

Marmion, who died in 1923, was well-known for his spiritual writings and his holy life as the abbot of the monastery in Belgium. As early as the 1950s people were working for Marmion's canonization.

But the Catholic Church is cautious about designating people as saints. The process of beatification, one step below sainthood, must include evidence of at least one healing resulting from prayers to the dead candidate for sainthood. Priests advised Bitzan to pray only through Columba Marmion.

"We talked to God and asked Abbot Marmion to ask God to intercede for us with a miracle cure," Bitzan said from Florida, where she is vacationing. "We didn't pray to the Virgin Mary at all. We prayed only to Abbot Marmion because then we can prove that he is where we got help."

Bitzan and her husband spent four days at the Maredsous Abbey in Southern Belgium asking the deceased Abbot Marmion to intercede on her behalf.

"We went to the abbot's tomb every day and said our prayers," Bitzan said. "We had been in contact with the monks there, so every day we were at the monastery, the monks came to Abbot Marmion's tomb and celebrated a Mass."

By that time, Bitzan had recovered from surgery, which removed a tumor from her breast. But doctors in St. Cloud told her the cancer had spread to her lungs. Still, during her time in Belgium, Bitzan said she felt strong and healthy.

When she returned to the United States, doctors examined her but found no cancer.

"My doctor is not a Catholic, but he said he could not explain it through medicine," Bitzan said. "He said I had cancer in my lungs, and it had disappeared."

Now 73, Bitzan and her husband are avid golfers, and she is in good health. After her cure in 1966, Bitzan continued to pray to Abbot Marmion for family favors. In the 1970s, the Catholic Church asked her to testify at a hearing about her healing.

"About 10 years after I was cured, the Catholic Church had a hearing in the St. Cloud Diocese," Bitzan said. Several Catholic leaders gathered, including St. Cloud's then-Bishop George Speltz, three or four priests from the diocese, and a Catholic doctor who specialized in cancer.

"My husband, Donald, and I met separately with the committee, and then each of my three doctors met with them," Bitzan said. "We had to swear we would not tell what was said. Then they sent doctor's records, X-rays and all our testimony to Rome."

In January of this year, Pope John Paul II approved the decree that a miracle of healing was performed through the intercession of Abbot Marmion. The official press release from the Marmion Abbey in Aurora, Ill., says cardinals of the Catholic church and doctors in the United States and Rome had conducted an "exhaustive medical study" of Bitzan's medical records.

Bitzan's miracle cleared the way for two significant steps in Abbot Marmion's pilgrimage to sainthood. Last June, Marmion's "heroic virtue" was established, and the Vatican proclaimed him to be "venerable." This year, Bitzan was informed that Marmion would be beatified by Rome, the second step in the sainthood process.

Marmion was born in 1858 in Ireland and became a priest for the Archdiocese of Dublin in 1881. But seven years later he entered the Benedictine Abbey of Maredsous in Belgium and devoted his life to writing, teaching and prayer. In 1909, Marmion was elected abbot of Maredsous Monastery and became the leader of 150 monks. He died in 1923.

In 1957 the formal investigation into the life and works of Marmion was begun. The Vatican appointed the Rev. Alcuin Deck of the Marmion Abbey in Aurora, Ill., as the North American vice postulator for the cause for beatification and canonization.

Today at the age of 87, Alcuin Deck continues his work as vice postulator by helping the Vatican gather evidence and promote the cause of Marmion's sainthood.

"People write in for holy cards and book marks, and they send me information about favors they have received," Deck said. "I try to get a newsletter sent to about 50 Benedictine abbots around the world just to keep them informed."

In 1963, Deck was one of nine Catholic officials present when the church exhumed Marmion's body.

"They moved the abbot's body from his crypt outside the monastery to the side chapel inside the monastery," Deck said. "When they opened the coffin, the body was not corrupt. They left the body in the coffin and then closed it and put it into a bronze box. Then they carried the bronze box with the body in procession into the chapel and it was buried in the floor."

According to the Rev. Charles Reichenbacher, director of public relations at the Illinois abbey, after the beatification in September special, Masses can be said in Marmion's memory anywhere in the world.

"For the next stage, I can't speculate on his cause," Reichenbacher said. "For a canonization the church usually requires two more miracles. They also usually ask that the saint have universal appeal and that declaring him a saint would be significant for the entire church. That's what the pope has done in the past - universal appeal and that the new saint would be helpful to the church."

Bitzan, her husband and their seven children will travel to Rome this fall for the beatification ceremony. After Rome, they will travel to the Maredsous Monastery to visit the tomb of Abbot Columba Marmion.

"If I'm a tool for the beatification, then I want to help in any way I can," Bitzan said. "This experience has been a great influence in our life and our family. All of our children are still loyal Catholics."

Clark D. Morphew