Gemma di Ribera: sees without pupils. A miracle of Padre Pio

from the Giornale di Sicilia of 20 November 1952

Ours is not a time of miracles, opaque, bleak, illuminated by the sinister radiance of the atomic bomb and Napalm; it is a time of violence, of unleashed passions of tenacious and sterile hatreds; gray weather; never before have men appeared an ant population.

In the collapse of many beliefs, of many myths, and in the arrival of other beliefs and other myths, the spirit of all is known in the known, the more morally small, the more the technique makes us powerful in destruction.
With every explosion, with every search beyond the barrier of the sound of the unknown, the ancient satanic pride of the wisdom of the force is reborn as ever smaller man of today, once again forgets how inexorably far both the frontier and infinitely separates the his littleness of the eternity of God.
It is a daily desert in which we all lose ourselves a little, inexorably, despite every effort and every faith: the crowd always drags everyone even more attentive and alert.

There is only one hope and it is only valid for those who know how to find the strength to occasionally get out of the dead gora and breathe. Among these lucky ones there will certainly be few journalists, since the chain that binds us daily to the profession, and stiffer, heavier, shorter.
Yet every now and then life knows how to take us by the hand and show us a corner of heaven; we find it in front of us without foreseeing it, in the places that in the most diverse moments of the unexpected: today we found it in Naro, in the black eyes of a little girl not yet 13 years old, who played merry-go-round with other little girls, in a small institution that it bears the clear name of the Immaculate Conception.

Those who look at it from a distance, if they know nothing, cannot perceive anything extraordinary; but if we approach and talk about Gemma of the things of her class, or of the parish priest who made her welcome or of the nuns who have close to her, we find in the words, in the gestures, none of the voices themselves, something particular ... Perhaps ours was the simple impression of those who already "knew" Gemma's story ... It certainly seemed to him that he had a joy of a particular taste in enjoying the colors and shapes; that his whole being was still taken, after so much and so long darkness of the infinite joy of light.
Gemma was born blind, and grew up in the small peasant house amid the silent pain of her parents.

He was close to her with that love to keep without boundaries that makes every concern maternal twice, the grandmother Maria who led her by the hand, spoke to her about the life from which she was relegated far away, about the shapes, the colors.

Gemma knew the things that did not touch the hand, of the voice of grandmother Maria: the cart with which she heard the Argentine rattle, the altar where she prayed, the madonnina of the church, the boat swinging in the sweet sea of ​​Agrigento ... The world, in short, was for her made of sounds she listened to and the shapes that suggested her the love of grandmother Maria.
She was one year old when Gemma Galvani was sanctified and the little girl was consecrated to her with a greater thirst for faith, the more her poor eyes seemed desperately dark, because without pupil.

A year later Gemma began to see the light: it reaches the first great miracle, what the sacred text contains in four infinite words: and the light was.
He could better understand his grandmother's explanations: but the doctors remained relentlessly skeptical and everyone ended up convinced that this matter of light seen by Gemma was a pitiful fruit of the family suggestion.

In 1947 Gemma was eight years old, she was beginning to feel more deeply the drama of his disaster; his words were more discouraged, his questions more desperate.
Grandmother Maria took her hand one day and took her on an old smoky train.

She talked at length about the too many things she saw, many new for her too, she also spoke of the Strait, of the Madonnina messinese, while still addressing a silent prayer before getting on the other train that was to take them both to San Giovanni Rotondo by Padre Pio.

The grandmother finally fell asleep exhausted holding Gemma by the hand and did not notice to run in the land of Foggia on the other sea that I had never seen.
Suddenly Gemma's voice gradually took her away from her torpor: the little girl spoke slowly, thickly, of things she saw and the old woman in sleep, followed her speech as a good comforting fantasy ... Then one suddenly he jumped up with his eyes wide open: Gemma shouted to see a large boat with smoke on the sea and grandmother Maria also saw, in the blue Adriatic, a steamer moving quietly towards the port.

So it was that an ordinary train, full of sleepy people, busy distracted, people with their heads full of taxes, bills, debts and big gains, were shouted.
It was a rush to all sides and the alarm bell rang shortly: Gemma saw!
Nonna Maria wanted to go to Padre Pio anyway: she arrived without saying anything to anyone and with Gemma by the hand she queued, patiently waiting for her turn.

Grandmother Maria must have something of the nature of St. Thomas the Apostle: she watched over her granddaughter for fear of being wrong.
When Padre Pio arrived, he immediately called Gemma and confessed her first. The girl knelt down and spoke of the great little things of her soul and Padre Pio replied with the immortal and divine ones: neither the one nor the other found the time to take care of the body, nor of the eyes they now saw ...

Grandmother Maria, when she heard that Gemma hadn't spoken to Padre Pio about her eyes, she staggered; he said nothing, took the turn again, waiting to confess.
After the acquittal, he raised his face through the thick grate of the confessional looked at the dark figure of the friar for a long time ... The words burned on his lips ... Finally he said: "My granddaughter, you don't see us ..." He did not go on fearing to tell a big lie.

Padre Pio looked at her with bright eyes and a flash of amorous malice: then he raised his hand and said casually: "What do you say, the little girl sees us ...!".
Grandmother Maria went to take communion with Gemma without giving her hand, watching over him carefully. He saw her move with an uncertain uncertain step of a neophyte, looking at the big and the little things with an inexhaustible thirst ...

During the return trip, grandmother Maria was so worried that she was sick and had to receive her at the Cosenza hospital. To the doctor she said there was no need to visit her; rather her granddaughter had eye pain.
There was a great deal of card movement some difficulties, but the doctor ended up bending over to Gemma: “but she is blind. It is without pupil. Poor little one. No way".

Science had spoken quietly and grandmother Maria watched, looked wary, suspicious.
But Gemma said she saw us, the confused doctor took out a handkerchief, then went away a little and showed his glasses, then his hat, finally overwhelmed by the evidence, went away screaming. But grandmother Maria was silent said nothing of Padre Pio.

Now Nonna Maria was quiet; when he got home he got busy right away for Gemma to go to school to regain the lost time; she was able to send her to Naro from the nuns and she stayed at home with mom and dad and the photograph of Padre Pio.

This is the story of two eyes without a pupil, which perhaps one day came from within the light of a clear soul of a child by force of love.
A story that seems removed from an ancient book of miracles: something out of our time.

But Gemma is in Naro who plays, who lives; grandmother Maria is in the Ribera house with the image of Padre Pio. Anyone who wants can go and see.

Hercules Melati