The case of Gemma di Giorgi baffles doctors. Born in the Sicilian town of Ribera on Christmas day, 1939, her mother noted that Gemma seemed different to other children.
Looking into the eyes of her little girl, Gemma’s mother noticed that her eyes seemed abnormal and malformed. Gemma’s mother took her to doctor after doctor, and they diagnosed that she had no pupils, and that there was no medicines or surgery that would cure her. Her parents concluded that they would have to pray for a miracle, they had a relation who was a nun and she recommended that they get in touch with Padre Pio. Gemma’s grandmother entreated the nun to send a letter to Padre Pio on behalf of her blind granddaughter.
After sending the letter, the nun had a dream where Padre Pio appeared to her and asked her, "where is Gemma for whom so many prayers are being offered that they are almost deafening?"
In the dream, the nun presented Gemma to Padre Pio and he made the sign of the cross over her eyes. The very next day, a letter arrived from Padre Pio. He wrote, "Dear daughter, rest assured that I will pray for Gemma. I send you my best wishes."
The ‘coincidence’ of the dream and the letter coming one after the other – stunned the nun who contacted Gemma’s family and persuaded them to take Gemma to see Padre Pio.
It was not a very easy trip to go from Sicily to San Giovanni in those days. We should remember, at this point in the story, that it was the 1940s, and Italy had not yet recovered from the wreckage done to the infrastructure during World War II.
In 1947, Gemma and her grandmother set off for San Giovanni Rotondo. Gemma was 7 at the time. While they were on the way, mysteriously, inexplicably and unexpectedly, Gemma began to see…she could see the sea and a ship. When she told her grandmother, she took this as a sign and began to pray.
A miracle had clearly taken place, but Gemma’s grandmother was still under the impression that they needed to ask Padre Pio’s intercession, and to do so in person. When their journey ended and they reached San Giovanni Rotondo, Padre Pio saw Gemma approach, and said hello to her. He had never been introduced in ‘real life’ to Gemma, but knew who she was, the minute he clapped eyes on her.
The little seven-year-old Gemma entered the dark confines of Padre Pio’s confessional. Contrary to her grandmother’s wishes, Gemma never said anything of her eyes to Padre Pio, but he touched her eyes with the bloody part of his hand, and drew the sign of the cross on her.
Gemma’s grandmother was disappointed and emotional that Gemma had neglected to ask of Padre Pio a grace for healing her eyes. Tears streamed down her face, and so she went to confession to Padre Pio, and asked him to intercede on Gemma's behalf and said, "I asked the grace for Gemma and I told Padre Pio that Gemma was weeping because, in her confession with him she had forgotten to ask this grace. I will never forget 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 she sees." I understood then that Padre Pio was alluding to the sea and the ship Gemma had seen during the trip and that God had used Padre Pio to break through the darkness that covered Gemma's eyes."
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That same day, Padre Pio gave Gemma her first Holy Communion and (again) he made the sign of the cross over each of her eyes.
