Matteo Pio Collella was just seven years old when he contracted a deadly disease. Doctors believed there was no hope for the boy, but he made a full recovery. His cure was the miracle that paved the way for the canonization of St. Padre Pio.
Matteo is the son of Maria Lucia Ippolito and Dr. Antonio Collella, who worked in the house for the relief of suffering, the hospital founded by Padre Pio. On the morning of January 20, 2000, Matteo was seized with high fever, weakness, headache, vomiting, and mental disorientation. At 10 o’clock the child was in school, and Lucia got a cell phone call from his teacher.
She stated that Matteo was slumped on his desk and markedly shaking. Lucia took the child home. The temperature was above 104 degrees Fahrenheit.
The father thought that he had the flu. By the evening, purple spots were spreading all over his body. Matteo was taken at once by his mom and dad to Casa Solievo della Sofferenza.
On the stretcher in the emergency room, he told his father out of nowhere, Daddy, when I grow up, I want to get rich and give everything to the poor. Despite intensive treatment, Matteo went in septic shock with difficulty breathing and irregular pulse. He was placed on a respirator.
Matteo’s heart stopped, and the attending physician had to revive the boy. The attending physician told Matteo’s parents that the intensive treatment was not having the desired effect, and the prognosis was that the comatose child would die soon. The mother went to pray on Padre Pio’s tomb, and while praying the rosary with the friars, she reported that, With my face on the cold granite I saw with closed eye a friar with a beard, who advanced resolutely to a bed and picked up with both hands the small, rigid body of a child, and put him on his feet.
Three days later, Lucia was assailed by a very strong smell of flowers, a penetrating and most pleasant perfume. The child’s condition improved suddenly. Matteo surprised everybody by emerging from his coma.
The mother questioned him if he remembered anything. Yes, I saw myself while I was sleeping from a distance on the bed. There was an old man with a white beard.
He had a long brown habit. He gave me his right hand and said, Matteo, don’t worry, you will get well quickly. The mother showed him a picture of Padre Pio, and the boy identified him all the old man he had seen.
A CAT scan done on January 27th did not show any kind of lesion to the brain of Matteo. On February 6th, two thousand Matteo Pio Collella left the Casa Solievo della Sofferenza completely healed.
Nelson MCBS 
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