The healing of Gemma Di Giorgi, who was born blind, without pupils, and then could see.
So a stupendous miracle.
Please do stay tuned to find out more.
Hello, friends, and welcome to this channel, following Padre Pio.
On this channel, we, through a series of short stories, we present the life of our great
Saint Padre Pio.
He was Capuchin friar, mystic, a tremendous miracle worker.
So do stay tuned to find out more about his life, and also to see what his intercession
could do for you.
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And we bring your intentions to this mass.
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Now, there are so many miracles of healing attributed to Padre Pio.
But this one in particular, a blind person who was able to see, but still had the physical
symptoms.
In other words, could see without pupils after the miracle.
And so of course, from a scientific viewpoint, it was absolutely impossible.
And her name is Gemma Di Giorgi.
And you can see some photos of Gemma when she was young.
And also, today she's a public speaker.
You can see photos or video of her as well.
Now Gemma was born on Christmas day in 1939, in Ribeira, the town.
And that is in Sicily.
We've heard recently that Sicily is the land of grandma's lace.
As a very prominent Vatican official recently tells us.
So to me, it wouldn't exactly be a compliment.
Especially if it were my industry.
But in defense of this official, if he had been speaking about the use of grandma's lace
in some immoral, for moral purposes, then of course he would be doing his job.
And then on the other hand, in defense of the beautiful land of Sicily.
God, through Padre Pio, worked this stupendous miracle there for the Sicilians.
And this was giving Gemma Di Giorgi sight without pupils.
And then again, there's the great Saint Theresa of the infant Jesus.
A doctor of the church who, thanks to grandma's lace as her parents' industry, they gave us
a tremendous Saint.
Almost immediately after her birth, that's Gemma's Di Giorgi's birth, her mother realized
that her eyes were different from other children's eyes.
In fact, Gemma was blind.
And her mother took her to the doctor.
And she was referred then to two different specialists.
And they both determined that Gemma actually had no pupils in her eyes, nothing to focus
the light with.
And they said there was nothing further that could be done.
She was blind.
That was it.
Inoperable in those days.
So now Gemma's family was desperate, of course.
And they prayed a lot, and they offered up Gemma's problems at Our Lady at Mary's altar.
And they also had a relative who was a nun, who advised them, the family, seek out Padre
Pio.
And so a little ray of light entered into the situation.
And Gemma's grandmother asked the nun, "You should please write a letter to Padre Pio
on Gemma's behalf."
Which the nun did.
She asked Padre Pio to pray for Gemma.
And then sometime after that, one night, the nun had a dream in which she actually saw
Padre Pio.
And Padre Pio was asking her, "So where is Gemma, for whom so many prayers have been
offered that they are almost deafening?"
And in her dream, then she introduced Gemma to Padre Pio.
And he made the sign of the cross.
The very next day, out of the blue, unexpectedly, this nun now received a letter from Padre
Pio, and in which he wrote the following, "Dear daughter, Rest assured that I will pray
for Gemma.
And I send you my best wishes."
Now, of course, this nun was struck by the coincidence of these two things, the dream
and the letter.
And so she wrote to the family, and asked them please to take Gemma to Padre Pio.
In 1947, the grandmother took Gemma, who was seven years old at the time, and they both
went to San Giovanni Rotunda.
From Sicily to San Giovanni Rotunda.
Of course, they were hoping to see Padre Pio.
That he would pray and hoping for a miracle.
Well, on the journey, something strange happened.
Because Gemma, her eyesight actually began to function, mysteriously.
Now about halfway in the journey, Gemma began to actually see.
She saw the sea, and she saw boats on the sea, a steamship.
And so she told her grandmother about this.
She's just seven years old.
She told her grandmother as best she could.
And her grandmother just didn't know quite what to think of it.
She just ignored it because she was preoccupied with this idea that Gemma must meet Padre
Pio.
They arrived in San Giovanni Rotunda.
Now Gemma was standing in the midst of a large crowd.
And Padre Pio singled her out and called her by her name.
And then he heard her confession.
And even though she made no mention of her blindness, after the confession, he touched
her eyes with the wounded parts of his hand.
And he traced the sign of the cross over her eyes.
And as he blessed her, he said, "Sii buono e santo", be good and saintly.
And then the grandmother's turn for confession came.
And she spoke to Padre Pio, and she asked for the grace of healing for Gemma.
And she said, I told Padre Pio that Gemma was weeping because in her confession with
him, she had forgotten to ask this grace for the healing.
"And so I will never forget," she says, "his soft and tender voice as he answered me with
these words, 'Do you have faith, my daughter?'
The child must not weep.
And neither must you.
For the child sees.
And you know that the child sees.'"
And then she says, "I understood then that Padre Pio was alluding to the journey here,
the sea and the ship that Gemma had seen.
With that, Gemma and her grandmother now returned to Sicily.
There they saw another eye specialist and the doctor had various tests.
He held up various objects for her to see, and she was able to recognize each one.
She was also able to count how many fingers the doctors, the doctor, was indicating at
a distance of 16 feet.
So clearly she was seeing something.
She could see.
The doctor declared, however, that Gem's eyes were in no condition to see.
Because there were still no pupils in the eyes, and he could offer no medical explanation
for this.
And then after that, many other doctors wanted to examine Gemma's eyes.
And they examined her eyes many, many times.
And this extraordinary cure, and the prophecy that preceded it in the dream, we can only
imagine the interest that it sparked among people.
And Gemma's eyesight just continued to improve and to get better.
She was now able to go to school.
She learned to read and to write.
And today she lives a perfectly normal life.
Some years later, a father, John Shug, the author of the book, 'A Padre Pio Profile',
met and interview Gemma.
And he also testifies the following.
"She looks like a blind person," he says.
"Her eyes are shallow and lusterless.
But there is no doubt that she can see.
Because," Father John tells us, "I saw her reach for a phone book, look up a number,
and then dial the number without any hesitation, without groping," he says.
And the doctors, today they're still not able to come to a consensus on Gemma, on her medical
condition.
And since this time, Gemma has traveled the world telling her story to different people
as a public speaker.
That's quite an incredible story to me.
To be able to see without pupils just does not sound possible.
But the doctors have examined it.
Next time on this channel, we can have another video on Padre Pio.
Please do join us for that video.
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