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| Photo by Andreas Solaro/AFP |
News excerpt from Aleteia.org
Born in May 2002 in Milan, little Pietro is the fifth child of Walter and Adele. At his birth, the doctors found that he was suffering from a lung malformation. The infant was doomed. The parents then asked Father Antonio Sangalli, a Carmelite, to baptize him right away. At this critical moment, the priest slid over a picture of Thérèse de Lisieux's parents, the Martins, who had lost four of their own children.
Walter and Adele decided to trust in the Lord and confide in Louis and Zélie Martin. And the incredible happened. (Full story here.) Although the doctors predicted he had only a few hours to live, a month later the small Pietro began to show signs of improvement. After a few weeks, he was officially cured.
The Alençon Shrine is dedicated to the Martins. Every year on July 12, it organizes a pilgrimage around this exemplary couple. The family of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus lived in Orne until Zélie's death in 1877. It was then that Louis Martin decided to move to Lisieux with his daughters, near his beautiful family. In Alençon, for obvious reasons, people are interested in news related to the Martins and Thérèse.
And, after the healing of little Pietro Schilirò which made it possible to beatify the couple on October 19, 2008, this is another story that brought joy in recent weeks: Pietro's meeting with Pope Francis on March 29 at the Vatican, at the audience with the deaf and blind. (Pietro has been deaf since age 3.) And the meeting was not trivial. While we know about Francis' attachment to the saint of Lisieux, the meeting also overwhelmed the little boy who had received the miracle from Thérèse's parents.
Read more: Miracle Boy
