A Man of Miracles
- Aug 10
- 5 min read
I love saints. I’m always excited to look at the church calendar each day and see which saint we are celebrating and read about who they were. Although it’s not an easy journey to become a saint recognized by the Catholic Church. It involves a great deal of investigation, interviewing witnesses, inquiries, and examination of the person’s life. There is much more involved than I’ll be going into here, but rest assured it is a long, intensive process.
There are four steps, or titles, that a person goes through, but let’s look at the last two, since they involve miracles. These last two steps of sainthood, beatification, and canonization, each require a miracle. This means that people have prayed for the intercession of this particular person, and a miracle has resulted from it.
Of course, the scrutiny of an alleged miracle is extremely rigorous. A board of medical experts is established, who examine the healings which are proposed as miracles. A proposed healing is first discussed in a meeting of physicians, where the doctors are not asked whether a miracle occurred—that is a theological judgment—but whether the healing was complete, lasting, and scientifically inexplicable given the diagnosis and treatment. If the physicians have no explanation, then the case goes to the theologians, who judge whether it can be attributed to the candidate’s intercession.
A more recent saint that was just canonized in 2002 is St. Padre Pio, and if ever there was a man of miracles, it was Padre Pio. There have been books filled with miracles through his intercession, both during and after his life. From childhood, he had many mystical experiences: he saw his guardian angel, had apparitions of the Virgin Mary and Jesus, and endured attacks from the Devil. He received extraordinary gifts from God, including the stigmata (the five wounds of Christ), bilocation (being in two places at once), reading souls, and prophecy. Many of these gifts were medically and spiritually examined and remain unexplainable.
I’d like to highlight a few miracles that I thought were just extraordinary. The miraculous cure of Anna Gemma di Giergi of Sicily in 1947 received a great deal of attention. Gemma was born blind and her eyes never had pupils. Doctors and Specialists told her parents there was nothing they could do to even give her limited vision, and that she would never see. One of Gemma’s relatives was a religious sister, and she wrote to Padre Pio asking him to pray for her. A little while after she sent the letter, the Padre appeared to her in a dream, and asked her, “Where is Gemma, the one so many are praying for that it makes my headache?” Then, in the dream, she presented Gemma to him, he prayed over her and then vanished.
What was really amazing was that the morning after she had this dream, the sister received a letter from Padre Pio assuring her of his prayers for Gemma.
Gemma’s grandmother then decided to take the child to see Padre Pio in June of 1947, when Gemma was 7 years old. She was blessed to be able to go to confession and then receive her first Holy Communion from Padre Pio. Afterwards he blessed her eyes with the sign of the cross, saying simply: “Be good and holy.”
Upon returning home, everything changed as Gemma began to see the world around her. Her mother, stunned, rushed her to the ophthalmologist. Her case was documented by numerous physicians who were astonished and were unable to offer any scientific explanation. While skeptics sought explanations, the fact remained: sight without pupils defies medical science. For believers, it was a sign of divine intervention through Padre Pio’s intercession. Though her eyes had no pupils, Gemma lived like any other child — reading, walking, and learning. Later she testified: “I see, but I have no pupils. Doctors cannot explain it. But I know it is thanks to Padre Pio.”
Gemma became a religious sister, a member of the Handmaids of Divine Mercy. Her miraculous ability to see without pupils is a lasting witness of the healing gifts that God has given to this saint.
Although hundreds of miracles though Padre Pio’s intercession happened after Gemma’s healing, he still was not well known in the U.S. for many decades through the mid-20th century. However, this began to change after the healing of Vera Marie Calandra in 1968, a 2-year-old girl who had suffered congenital urinary tract problems that left her with a dire prognosis.
Dr. C. Everett Koop, a surgeon involved in her care, along with her other medical providers, told the family to prepare for her death. Dr. Koop was a well-known physician that would later become the U.S. Surgeon General under the Reagan administration. He removed her bladder to provide some comfort for her but told the family that was all he could do. They needed to accept the fact that Vera was dying and prepare for her funeral.
Her mother, however, refused to accept the words of Dr. Koop. She went home and picked up a book by Padre Pio and heard an inner voice telling her to take the child to Padre Pio without delay. She quickly packed up the entire family and they headed to Italy.
When they arrived in Italy to see him, they had to stand waiting in a packed corridor with others for the priest. It was then, Vera described, that Padre Pio approached. “And their eyes locked,” Vera said. “That’s when she made her promise: make a miracle so that all will believe. He took his wounded hand, covered in his half-glove … pushed it up in front of her face, and she was able to kiss his hand.”
After Padre Pio touched each of them individually on their heads and blessed them, Vera and her mother and family went back home to the U.S.
On their next visit to the doctor, Vera had a follow-up X-ray with Dr. Koop, and an extraordinary discovery was made. They found a bladder in the exact location where her previous one was removed! Dr. Koop was in shock and could simply not explain it. Her health improved greatly and the prognosis was good.
While Padre Pio passed away soon after Vera’s healing, her mother dedicated the rest of her life in thanksgiving to the friar and to making his name known, ultimately building The National Centre for Padre Pio near their home in Pennsylvania — with the focus of leading souls to Christ. While her mother and father have now joined the Lord, Vera still serves as the Centre’s Assistant Manager and Vice President, working alongside two of her sisters and several of her nieces and nephews to lead the Centre into a future of growth.
These are only a few of the amazing miracles of Padre Pio. A humble friar who always showed a great deal of humility and yet coexisted continually in the presence of the supernatural. Not only given many mystical gifts, he was also an incredibly generous and charitable man. He founded the Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza hospital and was famed for hearing confessions for up to 15 hours daily.
There are dozens of amazing books and videos about this great saint. One of my favorites is the movie ‘Miracle Man.’ There are a few books listed below, and many articles and videos online. Let us be forever grateful to God for this great saint!
'Pray, hope, and don’t worry' ~ Padre Pio
Padre Pio of Pietrelcina by Fr. Stefano M. Manelli
Padre Pio The Stigmatist by Rev. Charles Mortimer Carty
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