A combination of prayer and the Eucharist, a Canadian Catholic powerlifter believes, helped turn the tide in his battle against a serious illness.

Jared Maynard credits prayer from family, friends and parishioners in his church community and beyond and the Eucharist for fueling “a miraculous” recovery from a life-threatening disease that had him on life support for more than five weeks. His courageous battle even earned Maynard the nickname "Miracle Man" from staff at the intensive care unit of Grand River Hospital in Kitchener, Ont. 

Now, he is back to competing, on May 25 taking part in his first powerlifting meet since before his diagnosis where he achieved a personal best of 501.5 lbs in the deadlift competition and a 347.6 for his overall Dots Score. (A Dots score is a ratio between a lifter's body weight and the weight they're lifting.)

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Maynard will be back in competition at his next meet Aug. 10.

Maynard's medical woes began in January 2023, when the resident of Wallenstein, Ont., his wife Ashley and their three young daughters each caught colds. While Maynard’s loved ones bounced back to health within a week, his condition steadily deteriorated.

“(It) developed into a fever and chills,” recalls the 33-year-old, “and I started to have insomnia, which was really unusual because I had never experienced it beforehand. I went to my nurse practitioner. I was prescribed some antibiotics and a nasal spray, but it did not touch the symptoms.”

Maynard’s lymph nodes began swelling, and his other symptoms intensified. The physiotherapist and strength coach was diagnosed with mononucleosis caused by the Epstein-Barr virus. He was sent back home with sleeping medication.

“Three days later, nothing was getting better,” said Maynard. “My wife looked at me and said, ‘you’re yellow.’ My skin had started to jaundice.”

Tests over the next several days revealed his kidney and liver were failing, his spleen was enlarging, multiple other organs were declining and he started experiencing delirium. Intensive medical examinations, including a bone marrow biopsy, revealed Maynard contracted hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH), a rare and potentially deadly hyper-inflammatory disorder that sees a person’s white blood cells become overactive and hostile to other blood cells. He actively bled, and there was a hemorrhage in his throat.

Maynard was a man just under six-foot in stature, weighing 193 pounds before the illness struck. He lost over 40 pounds during his prolonged stay in intensive care, and doctors credit his muscle mass from training for giving him the sustenance to survive. Considering this is a man who viewed his disciplined body-building routine and his other exercises as an “anchor” in his life and an “outlet for drive and personal growth,” he described witnessing his body, weakened by his HLH diagnosis, “as a massive amount of shellshock.”

“It felt like waking up in a different body, without any exaggeration, when I came out of sedation,” said Maynard. “Again, this is five weeks after dialysis, having a ventilator and a tracheotomy through my throat. There was a malfunction with an IV —the back of my hand and forearm were blackened.”

It was clear his body was so weak that it would reject chemotherapy. After much deliberation, the practitioners proceeded with monoclonal antibodies.

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The hematologist informed his parents after the last treatment that “his body is going to do what it’s going to do.” They began to pray. His wife, children and friends prayed, and members of his church congregation, St. Mary’s Latin Community in Linwood, Ont., also beseeched the Lord to intervene. His story transcended Canadian borders and received prayerful support from the United States, India and Ireland.

“My dad talks about being in prayer one morning and having this overwhelming and supernatural sense of peace that things were going to be okay,” said Maynard. 

Maynard later found out that his parents liaised with local Catholic parishes in Kitchener and secured hosts for a liquid suspension of the Eucharist. The Eucharistic suspension was “exorcised and blessed holy water with exorcised and blessed salt, boiled to sterilize with the host dissolved in it.” He received it directly by mouth instead of via a feeding tube.

The Eucharist was snuck into Maynard’s mouth after the last treatment when his body was still apparently on the decline.

“After the Eucharist was administered, things started to turn around,” said Maynard. “It was a dramatic enough change that I earned the nickname ‘Miracle Man’ from some of the staff who worked with me in the ICU.”

He was in the hospital for nearly four months before his release, and some additional bedridden convalescence was required upon his return home.

Maynard has charted his inspirational journey of retraining his body and rebuilding his strength on his Instagram account jared.rebuild_stronger, which has accumulated over 23,400 followers.

While a devout Catholic before his adversity, Maynard said he has come out the other side spiritually deepened. He said the Bread of Life is a “phrase that becomes all the more powerful” given what he experienced.

During his stay in the hospital, Maynard said he also was heartened by the story of an Old Testament Biblical figure who never lost faith in God amid so much misfortune.

“I found a lot of comfort in the story of Job, particularly as I was going through the grieving process of recognizing that I wasn't the person who I was before being admitted to the hospital,” said Maynard. “(I) was waking up in a different body and trying to reconcile the understanding of God being all good and all loving while in this awful situation.

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“I used Job as a model to grieve and to feel all of the things that naturally come from any sort of calamity and to continue recognizing God as sovereign and to trust in Him,” said Maynard. “It was a tall order, and it's still something that, again, I'm working on. I’d say I have made progress, but some days are challenging.”

He also offers The Lord’s Prayer. Similar to “Bread of Life,” he said the line “Give us this day our daily bread” has become even more meaningful and powerful.