PADRE PIO'S REVELATIONS ABOUT THE INFANT OF PRAGUE: CHRISTMAS IS A PARTICULARLY GOOD TIME TO ASK HIM FOR GRACES

December 1952, San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy. 

Katharina Tangari
Katharina Tangari was a matron of Naples and a spiritual daughter of Padre Pio's. She was an intrepid lady with dark, penetrating eyes and a face that instructed as to her strong, determined personality. In the chill of December she traveled to San Giovanni and sought our her spiritual father, Padre Pio for confession. But she was not at San Giovanni for herself, rather Katharina Tangari had come on behalf of a neighbor of hers, a young mother who was in much anxiety. Katharina appealed to Padre Pio to help the distressed mother of a little girl. Padre Pio gave Katharina a beautiful picture of the Infant of Prague, and told his dark-eyed daughter that Christmas time was, "particularly suitable for asking for graces". He blessed the picture, and counseled Katharina to entrust everything to the Child Jesus.

This revelation is of spectacular import to us in these days of Christmas, the Divine Infant of Prague is particularly well-disposed to our requests at this time, and not just on Christmas Day itself, but for the entire feast of Christmas which runs for many days. If ever you are thinking of making the 9 hour novena or the 9 day novena, this is the best, most "suitable" time of the year. 

As for Katherina and the distressed mother, Katharina bestowed the picture of the Infant of Prague on the young mother who gave her will to having confidence in the intercession of the Infant of Prague. The reason for the young mother's anxiety owed to her little girl's health trials. Her little girl, Claretta had been a mere infant of one years old when it was discovered her left leg was shorter than her right leg, and she was diagnosed with congenital dislocation of the thighbone and almost a total lack of a joint on the left thighbone. The doctor's pronounced the little girl would be disabled for the rest of her life. On behalf of Claretta, Katharina went to San Giovanni to ask Pio to intercede for a miracle. This was the first occasion she brought Claretta's case before Pio, and he smiled and assured, "On St Joseph's day!" Sure enough, Claretta enjoyed a cure on the feast of the St Joseph and the doctors soon saw that the joint on her left thighbone had developed. But Claretta's mother was too worried to invite her daughter to walk, and she ignored the advice of the doctors to let her little girl walk normally.

So she stubbornly held her daughter in her arms and she was filled with more and more fear of letting her daughter stand on the ground on her own two feet. It was for this reason that Katharina went to Pio and asked him to intercede to relieve the mother of her distress, for which he produced the picture of Infant of Prague and revealed that Christmas is the most apposite time to ask for favors. After the distressed mother "entrusted everything" to the Infant of Prague, she was filled with a new confidence and she was joyful as she watched her little girl walk towards her and later scamper around the house as a spring lamb.

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A wonderful account of Claretta's miraculous cure and her mother's release from fear was done by Maura Roan McKeegan for Catholic Exchange, which is a far more detailed account than I have done. Please pop over and read Padre Pio and the Christmas Graces of the Infant of Prague. Maura Roan McKeegan found the story where I did, in Katharina Tangari's Stories of Padre Pio which has been available to an English-reading audience since 1996. I think the Holy Spirit may be moving certain writers to write about certain spiritual truths simultaneously, because both Maura and I were inspired to reveal Pio's revelation this Christmas of 2019.

Katharina Tangari's Stories of Padre Pio is a little diamond of a book, and I have drawn on her eye-witness testimony of a man who made a pact with the devil but converted through Katharina's and Pio's efforts for my own book on Padre Pio. Here I am with my copy of Tangari's book and my statue of the Infant of Prague.

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