Leopold Mandic

Miracles and healings

Three great miracles of San Leopoldo

Four years after his death, the hand of San Leopoldo caresses Elsa Raimondi of Rovigo who, following a very serious tuberculous peritonitis, had very little hope of life. Elsa goes with her family to Father Leopoldo, and they begin the novena. At the end of the novena, the sick woman says she saw the friar and asked him if she could have hope of getting better, the friar reassured her. Meanwhile the disease worsens, Raimondi has now been under treatment for two years and she suffers tremendously, despite the pressure of the disease, she wants to be taken, on 12 September, to the Pilastrello Sanctuary where Mandic's remains are. However, her journey weakens her further and the doctors fear that her life is now in imminent danger and they bring her home. She arrives home exhausted. Towards evening she exclaims: «Have you seen Father Leopoldo?». She gets up, gets dressed, goes to the kitchen, feels full of energy, completely healthy "she is miraculously healed" there is no longer any trace of tuberculous peritonitis in her. Her prayers were answered by Father Leopoldo.

The farmer Paolo Castelli of Vizzago (Como), on the morning of Sunday 4 March 1962, after mass, was attacked by terrible pains in his stomach, he was hospitalized in very serious conditions in the hospital where he was diagnosed with a perforating ulcer. He is operated on urgently in the same afternoon, at the Merate hospital, during the operation it is discovered that he is suffering from a tumor, which has reached such a point as to leave no hope. Paolo Castelli is stitched up and placed in a separate room. Shaken by excruciating pain, he just has to wait for the end. But the wife who is devoted to Father Leopoldo does not give up and begins the novena. After four days of suffering, the man gets worse. The night between Thursday and Friday seems to approach the moment of his death.

In a sea of sweat and suffering he says: "I'm dying ... I'm dying ...". The wife struggles: "You can't die." But it all seems useless. The man's head falls gasping on his chest. The wife abandons the body that she holds in her arms and that falls back; she says: «Lord, your will be done». Incredible at that same moment, it is two o'clock on Friday morning, the man exclaims exultantly: «I am cured». His intestines started working again and, the next day, the doctors can only confirm the prodigious recovery.

Cases officially promulgated by papal decree of Pope Paul VI.

Elisa Ponzolotto should have had a leg amputated but her trust in the Franciscan father led her to refuse the operation, despite her life being in danger. Prayer gave her the presence of St. Leopold next to her bed in the hospital: Elisa saw him and recounts that as soon as the friar left his room, his leg moved to general amazement and was completely healed, even in the opinion of the doctors.

Father Sebastiano da Carrè, aged 56, Capuchin, in the convent of Bassano del Grappa. He suffered from a chronic suppurative form in the right ear for 15 years, with ear pain, headaches, hypoacusia (ie deafness) and recurring vertigo. In 1929 he had already been operated on by prof. Rodighero of a polyp in the ear, but the purulent secretion had never ceased, the chances of recovery were low if any, so Father Sebastiano decided on January 13, 1946 to start a novena with the brothers to Father Leopoldo to obtain healing, at the same time he applied a relic of the Saint to the suffering ear. On the third day of the novena, shortly after midnight, Father Sebastiano saw a very abundant purulent discharge coming out of the sick ear which lasted a few hours, so much so that it markedly stained the pillow and the linen. In the morning the fever had ceased as well as the purulent discharge and the headache. He had been prodigiously healed, not only did he no longer feel any pain but he had also recovered his hearing perfectly from the specialist visit of prof. Enrico Rubatelli otorhinolaryngologist specialist as well as Head of Rovigo Civil Hospital.

Teresa Pezzo di Valdiporro, now a missionary of the Sacred Heart of Verona; it is the night between Tuesday 10 and Wednesday 11 December 1946. The girl is seriously ill at the liver; she was operated on, being in Bovolone with her archpriest uncle, she recovered from very strong pains, a fever of forty degrees, vomiting. The doctor certifies the seriousness of the case. She begins the novena to Leopold and applies a relic over the liver. Between Tuesday and Wednesday the room, already completely dark, seems to light up like day. The girl wakes up and sees Father Leopoldo, the friar gives him the blessing, the girl is immediately healed: She no longer has pain in her liver, the swelling has disappeared, the pain in her leg and arm, the fever has disappeared. Stefano Sguotti from Terrassa Padovana was still a child when on 2 October 1949 he fell from the cart carrying a heavy load of beets and was overwhelmed. To the amazement of those present, he comes out unharmed but his story is extraordinary. He says: «I went under the cart with Father Leopoldo. Neither he nor I got hurt. The wheels first passed over him and then over me.' The wagon weighed about ten quintals. What a prodigy.

Giancarlo Rampado di Loreggia, a six-year-old boy has his stomach half crushed by a wheel of an agricultural tractor. Transported to the very serious hospital, the doctors, given the seriousness, can only support his heart. Giancarlo spends the night in a coma, his parents recommend their son to San Leopoldo, incredibly in the morning he says that a little brother came up to him and said: «Get up, because you have nothing». In fact, he is perfectly healed. Later taken to the Paduan convent of Santa Croce, after seeing the image of Leopoldo he exclaims: «He is the little brother of that night». The attestation was made by his father, Arcangelo Rampado, on March 20, 1969.

Luciano Carli from Puos d'Alpago, a ten-year-old boy, has been suffering from black synovitis for three years which forces him to immobility. The child was taught devotion to Father Leopoldo, whose image is by his bed. The little one often says, addressing the image: «Grandfather, let me heal». On June 20, 1959, the child exclaims: "Mom, my grandfather said that he will make me heal", and refers to a very elementary cure suggested to him by his "grandfather", who he claims to have seen. After eight days of this treatment, the synovitis disappears.

Bertilla Morini from Verona was born with a mandibular malformation in fact she lacks the bone of the right jaw. Her face grows deformed, she will have to wait several years for a transplant to be carried out. Her mother, distraught, turns to Father Leopoldo. One evening, while she recites the novena, she thinks she sees the friar. On the contrary, he takes her hands gently and says: «You don't worry. Don't pay attention to doctors. I'll take care of Bertilla». Incredibly, the little girl soon grows back the missing bone and her face becomes normal.

In February 1982, 21-year-old Fiorella lies on a bed waiting for the blood transfusion to which she is periodically subjected. She suffers from congenital plastic anemia which condemns her to the inexorable blood transfusion every three weeks. On that sad day Fiorella cries the doctor can't locate her vein, the girl's life is in danger and she lives in the nightmare of the hospital appointment and in the uncertainty of her own survival. While the doctor continues to search for the vein with the needle, Fiorella sees the back of the room light up with a warm, sunny, summery light, and she sees a little brother with a white beard dressed in a Capuchin dress at the head of the bed. The friar looks at the girl with an affectionate gaze. At that moment the doctor identifies the vein and operates the transfusion: Fiorella is safe.

Having a patron with God means that man in his fragility still has a great possibility of feeling supported, even by an intervention that comes from God, it means opening a window of hope where we and our strength cannot reach. Where we have to acknowledge our limitations, there is still a possibility for God and this is an experience that enriches our humanity.

Entrusting oneself to the holy confessor is in some way grasping God's closeness to man in that space of mystery and knowing that there is "someone" to whom one can entrust one's thoughts, fears and pain and it is a sign that holiness still speaks to man it is having the perception of God's closeness, a closeness to the most fragile.