A young lady from Eecloo went one day to see Fr. Paul of Moll (a Flemish Mystic who lived from 1824-1896).

It turned out that this unfortunate lady was a scrupulous person. This means that there were times when she thought that something she did was a sin, when it actually was not. So, when the good priest saw her, he pointed his finger at her in rebuke, saying,

"You allow yourself to be tortured by scruples. That is bad. The good God is not pleased with scrupulous persons. Tell me what it is."

"I dare not." The poor girl replied.

"Tell it anyway."

"I am ashamed."

"Ah, go on; let us see!"

"No, I am too bashful…You say it yourself!"

So Fr. Paul described her scruple in full detail. When he had finished, he said,

"Above all, don’t tell it in the confessional, for it is ridiculous. And don’t be scrupulous any longer."

Having cared for this young lady’s spiritual ailment, Fr. Paul noticed that she also had a physical one. She had a tumor on her hand. When he asked her about it, she explained that she had had it for eight years.

So the holy priest took her hand, and pressed his thumb very hard against the tumor.

"Oh! You hurt me." the lady cried out.

But Fr. Paul prayed silently, and kept pressing her tumor as long as he felt inspired to do so.

However, when he was finished, the lady did not notice any change to her hand.

The next day, when she was back home, she saw two young boys annoying each other. In the midst of this quarreling, one of them roughly struck at the other boy's hand.

This got the angry attention of the young lady who was quick to correct the fault.

"That is a bad thing to do! Striking someone like that could very easily cause an injury like the one I have here." So saying, she showed her hand to the boy.

To her surprise, the child, looking from her very stern face to the outstretched hand, laughed and asked,

"Well, what have you there?"

The woman looked at her hand and was stunned to see that her tumor had vanished without even leaving a scar. All at once her mind flashed back to the pain and prayer that the good Fr. Paul had applied just the day before.