A Saint in Old Lyme — Elizabeth Brown

What happens to a visionary or prophet, one of God's chosen, in a digital era becoming increasingly secular? Many people are diagnosed mentally ill and become hospitalized or homeless. Could some of these individuals prophesying on the streets be misunderstood? Saints from the past, prior to their canonization, such as Saint Faustina, were considered deluded. All but one of Jesus' disciples were martyred. The folie a deux hypothesis (shared psychosis) has been used to discount Jesus' resurrection. In 1960, Jane Wright, a ten-year-old girl, during a summer stay in Old Lyme, drowned in the creek and suffered from a near death experience. She claimed she was saved to save others. When one of her miracles hit the news, Jane Wright, or the Guardian Angel as she was referred to in the Old Lyme Gazette, went public. After Jane's death, fifty years later, ninety-year-old Jennie Wright took on her final divine endeavor, an appeal to Bishop Monroe regarding the sainthood of her best friend and sister-in-law, Jane Wright. Jennie recounted miracles, a resurrection and healing, along with an account of stigmata and an exorcism. In an epistolatory format, A Saint in Old Lyme explores the embattled soul of Jane Wright and her journey into the dark night.