Prayers for the dying had begun when her friend arrived

ROME, 1897 AD — In Rome in 1897 AD, a priest was saying the prayers for the dying over Violanta Moretti. Her lungs were inflamed, and her doctors could do nothing more for her. Her friend, Josephine Alessandrini, was bringing her dust from a grave. It was the grave of Saint Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows, at Isola, in the Abruzzi.

St. Gabriel had joined the Passionists, a religious order, and was studying to become one of their priests. He died of tuberculosis at their house at Isola in 1862 AD. The Passionists want the Church to declare him Blessed. Sick people in many parts of Italy already pray to him.

A grave shut for thirty years

St. Gabriel was buried in the crypt of the church at Isola, and nobody opened his grave for thirty years. In October 1892 AD, men sent by the Bishop of Penne opened it, as a first step toward declaring him Blessed. About four thousand people covered the hill to watch. They found only his bones. The bones were moved to a new tomb in the chapel of St. Paul of the Cross.

Two days later, Father Germanus went to see Mary Mazzarella. He was the Passionist priest in charge of the case. Mary Mazzarella was twenty years old and lived in Isola, and she had been ill with tuberculosis for nearly three years. Father Germanus hung St. Gabriel’s crucifix around her neck. He also fastened on her the leather belt that had been taken from St. Gabriel’s grave. After three days of prayer she woke up cured. She walked barefoot to the tomb with her family, and everyone in Isola walked with them.

After that, people began to use dust gathered from the grave, and some of them were cured. A young man from Morgia was swollen by an illness called dropsy. He put some of the dust on himself at the tomb, and he was cured that night. A woman near Ascoli Piceno mixed some of the dust into water. She washed a cancer with it once, and the cancer healed.

By 1896 AD, 380 amazing events had been written down, and people gave St. Gabriel the credit for them. That year Father Germanus wrote an account of them. He wrote that he would set down only “what has been seen with the eyes, and as it were, touched with the hands.” In 1897 AD, the register kept at Isola counted about ninety people who were fully cured. Each of them was cured in an instant.

The room in Rome

Back in Rome, the priest was still saying the prayers for the dying over Violanta Moretti. Josephine Alessandrini came into the room with some of the dust from St. Gabriel’s grave. She gave it to her friend. Violanta Moretti took the dust, and she got well on the spot, in perfect health.