6th August, the feast day of the Transfiguration of Our Lord, saw the birth of our first son, Francis. He was a strong, healthy baby with a lusty cry.
After we took him home from the hospital, we found that he was having great difficulty feeding. At first this was not so noticeable since the amount of milk he required was very little but as the days went on, it became more and more of a problem. Since he was our first child, we assumed it was due to our inexperience and we persevered in dealing with this awkward situation without mentioning at the clinic.
After about a month, we had to change to bottle feeding as the breast feeding had become practically impossible, he used to choke and gasp for breath every time he tried to feed. Even with bottle feeding, it was still a slow process. However, it did make him choke less and it seemed to be successful. He was now managing to drink.
One day, when he was about four or five months old, I saw he was having difficulty swallowing the pureed food he was now being given. I picked him up and looked into his mouth and my first impression was an unusually high roof and some jelly like substance on it. It made me feel rather uneasy and concerned. I knew in my mind that something was wrong but had no idea what.
I had no intention of worrying Ursula unduly and asked her to let the people at the clinic take a look at his mouth without specifying any particular reason for this.
That evening I asked Ursula about the outcome, and she assured me there was nothing wrong. They had looked at his mouth but apparently, I later found out, they had simply looked down his throat. I still had this nagging fear and decided to put Francis before God in prayer and to trust in Him.
I resolved to ask Padre Pio for his help and formed the idea of a painting with Padre Pio holding Francis in his arms. I had never attempted an oil painting before, so I asked Ursula for some guidance.
We set up the easel in our living room and we both worked on it when we had a little time to spare. It was amazing that we seemed to find it easy to work on the painting in turn. Our individual efforts and style seemed to complement each other.
The prayer group became involved as the members saw the painting materialize and we decided that the painting should become an expression of our prayers. So, Anglicans, Catholics, Protestants joined in putting this little work before God.
Francis’ eating problems improved to the point that he enjoyed just about anything and ate with no problems at all.
About a year later Ursula came back from visiting our Polish doctor who lived next door. She pointed out to Ursula that Francis had obviously been born with a submucous cleft palate which had come together sometime after birth. She could tell this because it had left an obvious overlap, that is, a ridge at the top of his mouth. “You are very lucky,” she said. “Had it been detected at birth or when he was a young baby, the doctors would have recommended surgery. It usually takes a lot to correct it. This is far better,” she continued, “and, personally, I have not seen a case of it happening.”
I reminded Ursula about my fears and telling her to visit the clinic. I do agree that had they noticed the problem at the time, things may have been different, possibly worse. God saw fit to put things right in His own way. Praise God!

Because it was painted in an atmosphere of continuous prayer, Fr. Michael Hollings gave it the Iconic blessing of the Church and the Padre Pio magazine even gave us some space by including a photograph of me holding Francis and standing before the painting. This was published in one of their editions in 1977.

An endnote to this is that Francis, in the 1990’s became well known as a radio presenter and spent four years as a DJ with his own music show. His voice was then an important asset.