On Holy Thursday after dinner, in the absolute silence of the convent, while everyone was retreating to their rooms, I felt a strong urge to go visit him. In the six years spent at his side, it was the first time this happened after nine in the evening! I entered his room… Fra Elia was in ecstasy… his mouth was slightly open… his lips were covered with what looked like a white foam and his eyes were glassy… I was frightened thinking he was about to die… I ran outside and shouted to his brother Antonio to come up… in a few moments he was beside me… and only then did we realize that an extraordinary event was taking place… Fra Elia stuck out his tongue and moistened his lower lip, and at that precise moment, we saw a pure, perfect host forming on his mouth, the same size as those we are used to receiving from the priest. A clear, whole, and pulsating host, which in his attempt to swallow it, Fra Elia repeatedly showed us by opening and closing his mouth, protruding and retracting it at the same time. The host had formed by itself, in just a few moments, transforming from white foam into what Christians call the bread of life. As always, I had my camera with me, but I didn’t dare do anything to avoid disturbing those moments of intimacy with the Lord.
That night I couldn’t sleep and I had many questions: I wondered why I felt that before closing this book, I would have to wait for Easter. Perhaps because I needed Fra Elia to confirm the shocking revelations of the previous year. But what man generally thinks never corresponds to what God disposes, and indeed nothing happened that I expected. Probably a Prophet does not need to repeat. What has been said was already forever engraved, both in my mind and on paper. No, a great miracle had to happen this Easter, and the Lord wanted me, to testify to the truth of His greatness and power. The Lord materialized in the form of the Eucharist, in Elia’s mouth, in his bed of pain. These eyes saw, in the presence of a witness, what Christ said to his apostles: – This is my body… I am the bread of life… whoever believes in me will have eternal life… – Antonio and I, petrified and astonished, stood there watching with hearts filled with indescribable feelings that cannot be called emotions. Much, much more. We were in the presence of god made man, miraculously becoming Christ and eucharist, and this Eucharist was the only food for Elia in the last forty days… the bread that allowed him to live, that sustained him and made him stronger and more determined than ever. And this immense miracle of faith wants to remind the world that at every holy mass, the same mystery is repeated and that god is alive and true in the consecrated host.