Devotion to Padre Pio: the friar heals a child in San Giovanni Rotondo

Maria is the mother of a newly born sick child, who learns, following a medical examination that the little creature is suffering from a very complex disease. When now all hope of saving him is absolutely lost, Maria decides to leave by train for San Giovanni Rotondo. He lives in a country at the opposite end of Puglia but has heard so much about this Friar who carries five bleeding wounds, equal to those of Jesus on the Cross, and who works great miracles, heals the sick and restores hope to the unhappy. He leaves immediately but during the long journey, the child dies. He wraps it in his personal clothes and, after having watched it all night on the train, puts it back in his suitcase and closes the lid. Thus comes the following day in San Giovanni Rotondo. She is desperate, she has lost the affection she cares about most in the world but has not lost faith. The same evening he is in the presence of the friar of the Gargano; he is lined up to confess and in his hands he holds the suitcase containing the small corpse of his child, who has now been dead for more than twenty-four hours. He arrives in front of Padre Pio. He bends down to pray when the woman kneels sobbing with tears broken by despair, and begs for her help, he looks at her intently. The mother opens the suitcase and shows him the small body. The poor friar is deeply touched and he too is tormented by the pain of this inconsolable mother. He takes the child and places his stigmatized hand on his head, then turns his eyes to heaven and recites a prayer. It doesn't take more than a second for the poor creature to come to life again: a snap gesture removes his legs first and then his small arms, he seems to wake up from a long sleep. Turning to his mother, he says to him: “Mother, why are you screaming, don't you see that your son is sleeping? The cries of the woman and the crowd that surrounds the small church explode into a general ovation. From mouth to mouth the miracle is shouted. It is May 1925 when the news of this humble friar who heals cripples and resurrects the dead, flows quickly on the telegraph wires all over the world.