As Audrey Toguchi and her sisters stood at the side of Father Damien's grave in Kalaupapa, Moloka'i, she prayed for him to save her from cancer.

"I asked Father Damien, 'Please help me,'" she said, recalling that she was mostly dizzy and hanging onto her sisters.

Miraculously, what her doctor and surgeon had described as "cannonball" tumors would soon disappear.

Now a committee of the Roman Catholic Church has declared the event a miracle that occurred because Damien interceded on Toguchi's behalf with God. That assessment puts Damien just two steps from sainthood.

It was the second event that church officials have called miracles attributable to Damien's intercession with God. Both assessments came after years of inquiry and fact-checking by church investigators.

Several years ago, the Rev. Emilio Vega Garcia, postulator for the Damien cause, introduced himself to Toguchi's surgeon, Dr. Walter Chang, then at St. Francis Hospital (now called Hawaii Medical Center).

"He said, 'I'm a Catholic priest, but I don't believe in miracles,' " Chang said yesterday. "I told him, 'I'm a doctor. I don't call this a miracle. ... But imagine throwing a pingpong ball across a 30-foot room, with fans blowing, and landing in a hole that just fits the size of that pingpong ball. That's what happened to Mrs. T.' ''

Chang, who said he has since quit practicing medicine, went on to write about his findings about Toguchi in the Hawai'i Medical Journal in 2000.

The case began in 1997, when Yukio Toguchi found a lump on his wife's left hip. At first, her family physician thought it was a hematoma, but it kept swelling.

She went to see Chang, who discovered it was cancer — a rare and aggressive type that spread to both her lungs.

"Cancers just rob you," Audrey Toguchi, now 80, remembered Chang telling her. "This one is going to rob and kill you."

Chang recalled telling her she would need chemotherapy, and she responded: "No, I'm going to pray to Father Damien."

As she ventured to oncologists and other doctors, improvements were being made, said Audrey Toguchi, a former schoolteacher who names newscaster Joe Moore among her students.

"The X-rays started to show it disappeared," she said. "Who else are you doing to give credit to?"

COMPLICATED PROCESS

There wasn't a single moment, an epiphany of healing. "To be very honest, I must be numb. ... When it moved to the two lungs, I still didn't know I was in big trouble," she said.

"For me, I must be living in fantasyland. I put all my faith in God. I figured, you just got to put your faith in him, trust in him, and be humble."

And she thanks God for sending her the right doctors, including the upbeat and positive Chang.

Asked if he was Catholic, Chang responded that he doesn't belong to any faith organization and is not religious.

Bishop Larry Silva, head of the Roman Catholic Church of Honolulu, said yesterday that he was alerted by a source in New York that Toguchi's cure was accepted as a miracle by the Theological Consultors of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints as "indeed granted through the intercession of Blessed Damien."

That's a big hurdle to clear: In the past few years, the case had been batted about by Vatican officials sifting through medical and theological issues. They had to first determine if it stacked up as a miracle. And if so, could it be directly attributed to Damien's intercession?

Roman Catholics believe that God makes miracles, but saints can intercede to aid the process.

Damien was beatified in 1995 by Pope John Paul II in Belgium and is now called Blessed Damien by Catholics. The next step in the path to sainthood is for the cardinals and bishops of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to issue their opinion, which goes to Pope Benedict for a final decision. If approved, Damien would be the first Catholic saint with Hawai'i ties.

"This is very exciting," said Silva, who oversees the Diocese of Honolulu, the largest faith organization in the state. "It wouldn't surprise me if something happened before the end of the year."

UNWAVERING FAITH

Another event associated with Father Damien had already been accepted by the Vatican as a miracle. In 1895, a nun in France named Simplicia Hue was cured of a debilitating intestinal disease after praying for Damien's intercession.

Yukio Toguchi, now 79, talked about his wife's case at their home in 'Aiea yesterday while picking Mauna Loa anthuriums for a friend. He blanched while describing how doctors told him his wife had just a few months to live.

His son, Ivan, a dentist in Kona, remembered calling him to gauge how desperate the situation was after hearing about it from an auntie.

"When Dad broke down, it hit me," Ivan Toguchi recalled. "It's real."

But Audrey Toguchi never wavered in her belief that prayer would get her through.

Audrey Toguchi — who had an affinity for Father Damien even as a girl in Catholic school — said yesterday that she just heard the news about the miracle's assessment from New York-based Monsignor Robert Sarno, who has worked on sainthood causes for 20 years.

He had come to Hawai'i last year to interview her, her husband and her sister, re-evaluating whether Audrey Toguchi prayed primarily to Damien, rather than another intercessor.

It was only the latest in several visits by high-ranking Catholic officials, checking and re-checking information.

Ivan Toguchi said he stayed positive after his mother's cancer diagnosis because he knew of his mother's strong faith.

"It was almost like, after this happened, 'See I knew it,' " said Ivan Toguchi, who was raised Catholic and attended Catholic schools. "I knew my mother had enough faith. I knew if (a miracle) were to happen to someone, it would be her."