Two years of suffering and persecution passed due to my brother’s illness. On the night of February 25th, a very cold night, my mother knelt by her bedside as she always did before going to bed. Overwhelmed with affliction and tired of the insults she faced because of Gino's illness—which even her own mother (my grandmother) attributed to her new faith in God—she prayed and told the Lord that if He did not answer her that night, she would argue with Him. She cried in prayer, pleading with God to show her grace by healing her child.
After crying for a long time, she lay down, and while she was in a half-sleep, she heard a sweet and beautiful voice calling her, saying, “Maria, arise and invoke My Name, and I will grant you grace.”
She obeyed and got up, even though it was very cold; her heart was filled with the warmth of the Holy Spirit. She knelt beside the child’s cradle and began to pray to the Lord with all her heart. She called out to God, saying, “Lord, You know my name, and I am certain it was You who called me and told me to invoke Your Name, and that You would grant me grace. I beg You, Lord! Act tonight, make Yourself known to those who do not know You! You are the True God, the Living God, the King of Kings, the Healer of Healers, do Your will, free me from this ordeal, Lord, I pray. Restore my son, make him as he was before, or take him with You!”
As she prayed and cried, my father shouted, “Will you stop it! Haven’t you had enough of praying to the devil?”
Instead of stopping, she invoked the Holy Name of the Lord with even greater intensity; and while she prayed, she heard a sound coming from the cradle: it was like the sound of a piece of wood breaking, immediately followed by a loud cry of pain from the child. My mother, with her eyes still closed in prayer, thanked the Lord. She was certain that God had acted. She then stood up and looked into the cradle, where she saw her child perfectly healthy, just as he was before his illness. With great joy, she picked him up, hurried to my father, and said, “Look at the great miracle the Lord has done tonight!” My father was so astonished that he couldn’t speak for over an hour. Glory to the name of our great God!
My mother then wrapped the child in a blanket and went outside; she began knocking on the neighbors’ doors, shouting, “Open up! See the great miracle the Lord has done!” The neighbors, before opening, said to themselves, “Poor Maria, ever since her son got sick, she’s gone completely mad!”
But, driven by curiosity, the neighbors opened their doors one by one, and they saw that indeed, the Jesus they had often mocked had performed a great miracle that night! Glory to God, for He is the True and Living God!
That night, my mother made a vow to the Lord, saying, “From now on, whatever illness may afflict my body, You will be my Doctor and my medicine.”
That day, God not only healed the child, but He also saved my father from the sickness of sin, as well as most of our extended family. The Lord also saved many of our neighbors, and by His grace, the conversion of souls did not stop there but continued for a long time. Just as the Lord worked through the apostles the more they were persecuted (Acts 19:20), my mother’s faith grew stronger the more she was insulted and scorned. The glory for all of this goes to God, who in such adverse circumstances saved and baptized souls with the Holy Spirit.