(OSV News) ─ As a fourth grader, Andrea Artz remembers praying that she would experience a Eucharistic miracle one day. She never imagined that, years later, she might witness one with her newborn daughter.
"We didn't think she was going to make it," Andrea said of her daughter Catherine, who nearly died after being born last year. "But we, my husband and I, were praying the rosary throughout the night, and I just felt God's presence."
"I felt like (God) said, 'You know what? It's going to be OK,'" she added. "And it was."
Andrea, 24, and her husband, Wyatt, 25, spoke with OSV News about little Catherine's incredible recovery in 2025 after a priest placed a Eucharistic host on her. The priest involved also spoke with OSV News. The Artz family ─ a Catholic family of six located in Gann Valley in central South Dakota ─ said their third daughter spent 107 days in the hospital before they could bring her home.
Since then, Catherine's story has made local, medical and national entertainment news.
Today, Catherine is a healthy, thriving 1-year-old who is learning how to walk ─ and be a big sister. Wyatt and Andrea spoke days after welcoming their fourth baby (a fourth daughter) in early March. They remembered Catherine's birth that happened just one year earlier.
A struggle from the beginning
Catherine was born March 4, 2025, during a winter storm at Ortonville Area Health Services in Ortonville, Minnesota. Everything seemed normal, and the delivery went well. Wyatt and Andrea held Catherine for five minutes with skin-to-skin contact. Then, the doctors needed to weigh her and check her oxygen levels.
"They were very low," Andrea remembered. "At first they kind of thought it was the machine, but then she started turning purple."
Doctors placed Catherine on an oxygen mask all night. They tried to fly her to another hospital for better care, but the raging storm prevented it. They had to wait until the next morning to move Catherine to Sanford Children's Hospital in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
In Sioux Falls, doctors diagnosed Catherine with pulmonary hypertension, a serious condition where high blood pressure in the lung arteries strains the heart. Doctors also told the Artz family that Catherine's ductus arteriosus, a fetal blood vessel, closed in utero, which was causing her to struggle with breathing.
Catherine was placed on nitric oxide gas, oxygen and 30 different medications. When nothing seemed to work, doctors also placed her on an ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) machine, a form of life support that allows the heart and lungs to rest. Catherine remained on it for 13 days. Then she faced more challenges.
"They took her off, and she was stable but still not doing the greatest," Andrea recalled. "They moved her back into the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit), and then they found out that she had a UTI (urinary tract infection)."
At that point, Catherine "went downhill really fast."
Preparing to say good-bye
The day after Catherine was removed from the ECMO machine, the hospital prepared for the worst.
"My husband was sick at home at the time, and they even said, 'Yeah, we understand he's still sick, but he should probably come because it's not looking good,'" Andrea said. "Her oxygen levels probably dipped down into like 35."
At the time, Wyatt was battling a severe case of strep throat. He remembered receiving a phone call telling him to come as soon as possible. He described the scene when he arrived at the NICU.
"I remember seeing my mother-in-law standing in the hallway talking to like five or six doctors and nurses," he said. "The whole hallway was just full of people right outside her door -- and that was a pretty tough thing to see."
Throughout the night, Wyatt and Andrea prayed the rosary.
An encounter with Jesus
The day after her birth, on Ash Wednesday, Catherine had been baptized by a priest. Now, the Artz parents asked another priest ─ Andrea's hometown priest ─ to come and bring them holy Communion.
"From that point until the priest came, her numbers were very low and didn't really come up," Wyatt said of Catherine. "She wasn't really getting any better."
The priest, who asked to be identified as a priest of the Diocese of Sioux Falls, spoke with OSV News about visiting the Artz family in the hospital. He came after already helping arrange for Catherine's baptism. He had known Andrea since she was 10 and Wyatt since he was in high school. He described them as loving parents and devout Catholics.
"For Wyatt and Andrea calling upon me to have the Eucharist brought to their daughter is such a powerful witness of their faith," he said. They wanted to know, "Can you bring Jesus into my daughter's room?"
The priest brought the Eucharist ─ Christ's body, blood, soul and divinity present under the appearance of bread ─ as well as the text of the Litany of the Infant of Prague and a miniature statue of the Infant of Prague.
When he arrived, he prayed the litany with the Artz parents and left the statue at the end of Catherine's bed. Before distributing holy Communion to Wyatt and Andrea, he placed the Eucharistic host on Catherine's bare chest.
He said this is not something he normally does. While he had placed the pyx holding the Eucharist on individuals before, this was the first time he placed the host itself on someone. Catherine's father, Wyatt, remembered the moment.
"Part of me was thinking, well, at least he came, and she got to be in the presence of the Eucharist before she passed," he said. "I was kind of coming to the point where I was OK if she passed, because I just didn't want her to suffer anymore."
"On the other hand, I was also kind of hopeful," he added. "Maybe this is it. Maybe this is what will be the thing to make her get better."
During Catherine's struggle, the Artz parents also prayed for the intercession of Blessed Clare Bosatta, a 19th-century Italian religious sister who helped found the Daughters of St. Mary of Providence.
Hope of recovery
After the host was placed on Catherine, she slowly started to improve, Andrea said. As her numbers began to rise, the Artz parents were uncertain about the extent of their daughter's recovery. Because Catherine's oxygen count had been so low, doctors expressed concern about severe brain damage.
"They were preparing us basically for her to be a vegetable," Andrea said. Then, "they did an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), and her brain scan was completely normal."
The priest said he was not surprised when he learned of Catherine's recovery. While he knew the Artz parents had been told to prepare for their baby's funeral, "God works in mysterious ways -- and this would not be the first time."
First and foremost, he hoped that people who learn of Catherine's story realize the Eucharist is not bread. He said that oftentimes people leave the Catholic church to join another church while believing they are all the same.
"The only place you're going to get the Eucharist is in the Catholic Church ─ and this is just one of the many multitudes of examples of the power of the Eucharist," he said.
A life transformed
Today, Catherine is on only one medication and has no issues.
Her mother, Andrea, describes Catherine as a determined little girl who also has a silly side. She knows what she wants and loves playing with her sisters. She also still comes close to the Eucharist: Wyatt said he is the one who usually holds Catherine when he and Andrea line up to receive Holy Communion at Mass.
"I always think it's kind of fun taking Catherine up to Communion," he said. And, he added, he thinks Catherine enjoys it too.
- - -
Katie Yoder is an OSV News correspondent. She writes from Maryland.
