She also distributed to her friends and family prayer cards from the Sisters of St. Joseph in North Sydney.
"We asked them to pray the same prayer, asking Mary to pray with us to God for nine days on my behalf," she said.
Evans suddenly and unexpectedly began to improve. Instead of becoming weaker and frailer, her color began to return and she began to feel better.
"Every day I thought I was going to lose her, and when she started getting better, well it just blew me apart!" said Barry, her husband.
Ten months after her initial diagnosis, a series of X-rays and scans showed scar tissue on her lungs and brain where the cancer had been, but there was no sign of the disease.
"They asked to do a second series of tests. They couldn't believe there could be nothing there," she explained.
There was no scientific explanation for the disappearance of the cancer. Almost 15 years after its disappearance, Evans is fit and healthy and has not suffered any recurrence, the Archdiocese of Sydney reports.
"I don't believe I will ever get cancer again," she said, joking: "I'll probably die of a heart attack first."
Asked why she thought she had been chosen to be healed by God through Mary MacKillop’s intercession, she remarked, "When I get upstairs that will be the first question I ask."
Evans continues to pray to Bl. Mary MacKillop and feels her presence and believes she is constantly with her.
She said she hopes to be a good ambassador for the future canonized saint and would love to be in Rome for MacKillop’s canonization, which is likely to take place sometime later this year.
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"If someone doesn't believe in miracles that is for them and that's fine," she said. "But it just happens I do believe in miracles and through Mary MacKillop's intervention, God saved my life."
Mary MacKillop, who lived from 1842 to 1909, founded and directed the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart, who devoted themselves to offering education all over Australia. She was beatified in 1995 after a previous miraculous cure from cancer was attributed to her.