Thanks, Don Angel!
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THANKS,DON ANGEL!
“With you I have met serenity.
Today I still embrace it
With the desire to live”
Frank Predieri
This gift comes to you
from the Sky:
Don’t leave it forgotten
In a drawer or to the dust
Of a shelf.
After having read it
Give it to those who need it
This is the desire
Of the one that, from the Sky,
has guided me for its
layout and realization.
In a technological society such as ours, that has thought us to have an explanation for everything that surrounds us, it seems that there is not set for miracles. So when we come upon events whose origin don’t appear justifiable by the knowledge in our possession, we not only remain surprised, but we often end up to ridicule or remove them from our mind. The world – as we know – is full of charlatans and maniacs that try to attract the attention of the unprovided ones to draw personal interests, even selling off coarse mystifications of truth and ‘inflating’ episodes that otherwise would not have anything of exceptional. Considering such reprehensible behaviours, it is developed, in various measures, a certain distrust toward those who speak of parapsychology and para-normal phenomenons or, however, of events that transcend the human experience. I too admit to be enough sceptic in this sense and that sometimes I look at certain episodes with hypercritical spirit. Nevertheless, it is impossible to deny that around us inexplicable facts sometimes verified. I hold therefore useless and pretentious to liquidate everything simply saying “I don’t believe it” or “they are all lies”, especially when stories like the one described in this book are proposed to us. Then we should just remain in respectful silence.
More than a story, however, this book is a friendly talk, through which Franco Predieri recalls the stages of his dramatic history and the meeting with he who he defines his “savior”, Don Angel Fantoni. The form is very simple, almost colloquial, so much that to the reader it seems to be in front of a friend
that, with great serenity of mind, makes him participate to his deepest emotions.
It is an action of love and thankfulness toward a “special” person, that has helped many suffering ones through his unconditional altruism and dowry.
The author in fact speaks to us of his prodigious recovery from a serious illness, diagnosed with a spine-chilling clarity by the physicians, which about thirty years ago without half terms, had preannounced his imminent end.
Predieri still has the whole sanitary documentation from which it emerges that, in that terrible period, he himself considered his own ineluctable death sentence. If one can exclude all of the possible natural explanations of his recovery, it will not remain other than to speak of a miracle – work of a saint.
But is “holiness” possible in today’s life? “The spiritual qualities are visible as far as the mountains of the Himalaya” as is read in the Dhammapada, the Buddhist Gospel. Nevertheless, so not to risk to shipwrecked among the disarming superstructures of our century, we should strive ourselves to change the key of reading of reality, paying attention, for example, to certain meaningful coincidences, that we often neglect. Concluding, we think, therefore, that man is more complex than how he appears and that the “inside” the is not so uprooted from the “outside”.
Maria Fantacci
PRESENTATION
I have decided to publish this book to show gratitude and thankfulness to he who I retain to be the most important figure of my life: Don Angel Fantoni.
Here on Earth, he has been a father to me, a true father, and I owe him my return to life.
In this book it is narrated my miraculous recovery and it also tries to illustrate the figure of an extraordinary priest and charismatic.
Around thirty years ago, when I was about twenty-year old, I seriously got sick and it was diagnosed me brain cancer. For everybody, I was sold out and even my last rites / extreme unction was/were imparted to me.
I was suffering too much, and I attended death to come with anxiety, almost as a liberation, when God wanted to put me in the prodigal hands of Don Angel Fantoni, that slowly brought me back to life, pulling me out from the darkest desperation and moulding me into a new man, both outside and “inside.”
I will also try to illustrate some sensations that I have felt in youth and that have somehow “prepared” me to meet Don Angelo.
My writing doesn’t have any literary claim and I’m not searching for personal merits or prays that, sincerely, don’t think to have.
However it’s strong in me the need to remember – or to present – the figure of this humble and good man, an authentic servant of God that has dedicated all of his life to fellow men.
It’s not easy to describe the personality of Don Angelo or it’s not easy to speak about it and others before me have done it in a more admirable way.
One of those has been Don Redento Becci, a priest himself that wrote a book in 1983 “il fluido di un prete di montagna” (The fluid of a mountain’s priest), in which some prodigious testimonies of recoveries were brought upon, among these mine.
I would like to quote a phrase that Don Redento has written in his book and that touched me: “A new publication on Don Angelo would be useless and empty if it didn’t pursue the goal to illuminate, to build, to turn into good those that read it.” 1
And it is really this purpose that I appointed to myself. With my modest work, I desires that those that don’t have the fortune or the opportunity to know of him get to do so and, more important, to bring some hope in the hearts of those people that are surrounded by the deepness of the dark as it has been for me once.
God is distributor of every good and as He has let me to meet Don Angelo He can help whoever to raise again from an illness both physical and moral, and to put him on a good road where one can meet the people that can radically change life.
1 R. BECCI, Il fluido di un prete di montagna, Marciano, (PG), 1983, p. 20
Nevertheless I hold to specify that, despite this good and benevolent priest has helped bringing me back to life, the real and only craftsman of my recovery has been the Lord.
Don Angel has been the mean, the extraordinary way that God has used to realize his marvellous works, but, as such, we must be thankful to him that has dedicated his life to the good of human been, without never forgetting this great and absolute certainty: it is God that does miracles.
It was Don Angelo that always repeated me this lesson just because he saw my devotion to him.
“I am not nothing and no one!”, he loved saying with holy humility; and in respect and thankfulness to his person I confirm it because this fundamental truth will be clear to you.
Today, for divine grace, I still feel, inside me, its powerful and secure voice that recommends, scolds and it reassures me.
What a stupendous comfort for me!
I don’t know how to show it and many won’t believe me.
I understand very well such incredulity but, as I love to say, for everyone arrives a moment in which a point of view can be modified by knowing and looking at new and constructive experiences.
And whether you believe me or not, Don Angelo, from the stupendous dimension where he is now and where the endless light of God is resplendent, has suggested me to write this book and to give it to all those people that, animated by a lively interest, desire, through my experience, to deepen such delicate and fascinating thematic.
I have received much from God through his Angel servant and all was free.
Today I also desire to give something in Their name. I could now quote a sentence of Matteo’s Gospel: “You have received free and free you should donate.”
What I do is little thing, but consider that these pages have been written using hands and eyes that I should not have, and all thanks to Don Angelo.
In fact, when I first met him, on December 9th 1971, I was dying, almost blind and half -paralyzed since I not only had cancer but also sclerosis with plates.
Almost thirty years later, even if I use crutches, I can walk and I feel happy.
I’m firmly convinced that Don Angelo is still close to those people he helped during his terrestrial life, but he is also ready to give his help to all those people that ask him to intercede for them with God.
Thanks to this extraordinary man that has honoured me with his long friendship, I bless today those terrible moments in which I saw myself irremediably lost and to which I have been able to give a sense.
I saw death standing by me and this has been for me a sublime lesson of life.
I’d like to conclude repeating to you all what Don Angel has thought me: “don’t ever despair, but always say “is Your wish done”.
The author
My sincere thanks to the Ms. Maria Fantacci, Aurora Puccetti, Elizabeth Piccini, Gabriele Mangiacane, that with theirs disinterested collaboration and generous friendship have made the publication of this book possible.
DON ANGEL
A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY
Don Angel, whose name was Francesco, was born on May 2nd, 1903, in Freggina in the Casentino, a small fraction of Bibbiena.
He lived his adolescent in a big family: he had nine brothers. His father was a builder, his mother, even if she originated from a rich family, took personally care of her children. Besides these normal occupations she was also a tailor, a midwife and a “healer”.
“All the sick people of the country every day came in procession to my house. They wanted to see my mother [.]. She knew some secret recipes able to recover the most terrible evil. Oh, they were not written recipes. They had been handed down to during the centuries, from person to person and they had come up to mine mother. My mother with decoctions and ointments cured the pains of such people”.
“My mother recited the S. Rosary every day and, together with her husband, raised her children and deeply educated them to the Christian values.”
Angel was a precocious child, intelligent and curious toward all that surrounded him. His strong intelligence distinguished him from other children ever since he attended elementary school.
His teacher remembered him as “the child that went to school every 3 days”, but he always brought good votes in all subjects; the only mole was the behaviour for its vivacious and uncontrollable character. Character that he also maintained during his teen years, in fact, he was always in the middle of other town boys . But although the company loved him, he never forgot his duties of a good Christian; when he was six year-old he assembled his companions to explain them the catechism and to make sermons.
At the end of primary school , the priest of the country, monk of the near convent of Camaldoli, convinced him to enter the college of Buonsollazzo. He entered there at seventeen, but before finishing the studies he lent military service in the 6° Heavy Artillery and, he was dismissed with the degree of lieutenant in 1924; immediately after he started school again and enrolled in the college of Fano Montegiove and there he received the sacred orders.
On March 26th 1929 was ordered sub deacon from Mons. G. Zanchini; on the 21st of December of the same year he received the diaconate from Mons. Mignone, Bishop of Arezzo, and then, on March 18th 1930, the priesthood.
The young man withdrew himself from the outside world; he chose the contemplative life in the hermitage of Camaldoli. Here he was teacher of the secular brothers, definer of the General chapter and up to 1938 he also dealt with the emigrants of Camaldoli.
The strong economic crisis, that in that year crossed its family, was the reason that he definitely left the hermitage to pass to secular clergy and then he was sent in a parish on the French – Italian border, where he developed esistential and moral activity besides a propaganda in favour of Italy. They were the years 1938-39 and the French authorities didn’t like what he was doing, so he was forced to return ho his country.
Here he was sent to Vecchiano in Pisa as chaplain, then he was moved to Cardoso of Stazzema, in the province of Lucca, as steward of Saint Maria Assunta.
His arrival was welcomed with distrust by the population, but soon, because of his way of thinking and doing things, he conquered even the most reluctant and hostile ones and brought them to his church and clergy.
Every evening he was surrounded by the local youth and he taught them the catechism while drinking a glass of wine or laughing together.
However there was also the problem of the restoration of the parsonage and church.
In fact the parsonage, due to the carelessness of the preceding priests, was in bad conditions and it could not be his shelter. Don Angel didn’t despair and so started to restore it. When the works were finished, he passed to the restoration of the room of the venerable Company of the SS. Sacrament. All its expenses were paid by Don Angel and amounted in 7.350 liras, that was a considerable amount at the time!
Later, he built the new cemetery, and all the dead ones were moved from the old one to the new. Also the parish churches demanded some restorations, so he constituted an executive committee and the project of reconstruction was prepared by an engineer from Stazzema: Gianni Osman. They were made radical works, the church, undressed of its Baroque mannerism, and the fresco were done by the painter Pierini and the huge expenses were paid partly by the State, partly by Don Angelo and the remainder by the population.
The church was inaugurated on October 1st, the day of our Lady of the Rosary.
He also dedicated his time to catechism, to preaching, he solemnized the religious feasts and, in order to succeed in his project involving the whole population, he created moments of complete socialization to the insignia of faith.
When Italy was involved in the Second World War, and particularly after September 8th 1943, he had sad and binding moments.
The partisan, among which some of his parishioners, constituted in Stazzema a subcommittee of Liberation sheltered in Don Angel’s parsonage.
Our Priest was prodigal of material and moral helps, putting his own life at risk. He got provisions and medicines; he brought religious comforts in the shed farms and even in the caves, where the population was sheltered.
In order to avoid raking and slaughtering, like those perpetrated in the near country of S. Ann of Stazzema, he collaborated with the Germans receiving their trust and livestock to butcher.
He continued this double game, always thinking about the safety of his parishioners, until the coming of the American troops liberated them.
This is what he narrates us:
“I was taken by four German soldiers and tied up to a chestnut tree. This was their revenge and then I was sneered. Since the bindings were not too complicated, I was able to free myself and then I went to the room of the synod. In the meantime the partisan came and started madly to shoot with the machine guns, they imprisoned the four German soldiers. However they were little guarded so they succeeded in returning among their cameratis. Three days after my country was invaded by machine guns and armed wagons. All the houses were searched, they captured 18 women, a priest of the Servants of Maria and an old 86 year old man, called grandfather, and 24 children.
When I ascertained the danger, I told my mother that I had to go out. She tried to dissuade me.
But since I had the responsibility of the parishioners I went to deal with the three captains which, despite my generosity to offer myself to free the others from the slaughter, they answered me saying: ‘nothing to do, because you have the permission of the general and therefore you are our comrade!
After animate discussions, I succeeded in freeing the old one with the 18 women; I didn’t succeed in saving the priest because they had seen him with the partisan. However the conditions were that I had to find 15 prepared men ready to work under the Tot. Well, from 11p.m. to 1 a.m. at night I went house to house to persuade the men to go and work for the Germans.”
After the war, in October 1948, he was transferred to Verniana, a small parish in the province of Arezzo.
He didn’t just manifest his love toward fellow man bringing the word of God and love in the most arid hearts, but also through the facts, assuaging the pains and the sorrows of ill people.
In 1938 he realized that in presence of sick people his body suffered strange phenomenons. He realized that associating his feelings to the person that was before him, he could diagnose with certainty the sickness by which the other one was affected.
Because of the “bio-radiations” that he was able to transfer, he was able to perceive the type of illness and the organs or tissue that was touched and benignly influence them.
In an interview released to Sandro Majer, in which the journalist asked him if he had studied medicine, since he had competence in diagnosis and cares, and Don Angelo answered this way:
Ever since I was a child, staying very close to my mother, I have always manifested a great interest for medicine. With the time my passion became a real mania. I spent many days reading essays of anatomy, pathology, pharmacology, surgery. I attended hospitals, observed the successes and the failures of the official medicine. Then in 1938 I suddenly realized to be in possession of a strange fluid. That is, every time I drew myself near a patient, my body suffered strange phenomenons: I had shivers, and blood suited to the head.
The feelings were not always the same. To every evil corresponded a different feeling. This way, after a couple of years, with my fluid, I could recognize all illnesses. Even those that the physicians couldn’t discover, I was able to do it with my fluid. Then I’d say to the patient, this is your sickness, you must take this medicine, have your physician prescribe it.”
The news of his abilities rapidly travelled around. Many sick people from everywhere that had lost every type of hope turned to him to be cured and not just common people but also famous ones:
“In my career,” he affirmed in an interview for Today Illustrated magazine on April 2nd 1969, “I have already recovered nine million people, among which Gino Bartali and many other Honourable. I receive hundreds of letters a day and thousand of patients arrived every month to my office.”
The thousand of letters that Don Angelo received from those whom he saved all ended with the same sentence: “Thanks, Don Angelo, to have recovered me.” But his activity as a “healer” wasn’t well seen from the official medicine, therefore the order of the Physicians of Arezzo reported him for unauthorized exercise of the medical art. The enquirers also attributed him the crime of continued fraud and illegitimate profits.
The report went on and one day the judge instructor and a chancellor went to Verniana to effect the questioning. They were just introduced when Don Angelo scrutinized them and diagnosed to each of them the illness from which they were affected. The two diagnoses were shown true, so much that the judge instructor became his patient and acquitted him in inquiry.
But the order of the Physicians didn’t surrender and the sentence was grasped by the Attorney of the Republic.
Don Angel defended himself specifying that he had never made real diagnoses, but that he had perceived only different feelings according to the disease that afflicts the person and besides he had never pretended remunerations in money.
The juridical accident caused a reaction from the Church and the Bishop of Arezzo prohibited him to receive the sick people.
There was a popular reaction and the Bishop was forced to withdraw everything he had said, recommending him not to prescribe medicines.
The echo of his notoriety and his troubles grew day by day, so that the Saint Congregation of the Council also intervened prohibiting him to continue his activity, and he feared a transfer.
In the same period, after two years of inquiry, the trial and the Magistrate of Arezzo was celebrated and it condemned Don Angelo to one and a half year of imprisonment and a fine of 300.000 liras for “fraud” and unauthorized exercise of profession.”
Against such sentence an appeal was introduced by the District Attorney and by the defending lawyers.
So he could return to his parish and continue to assuage the pains of so many desperate people .Don Angel was then acquitted for lack of evidence.
He was a fervent devotee of the Madonna, in fact his mother affirmed that he had been born for intercession of the Madonna of the Stone of Bibbiena since when he was born he weighed seven kilograms and the birth took place in only three minutes. Besides he was the only one of her numerous children, that she could breast feed.
Our Don Angelo consecrated his life, the integrity of the priesthood and the exercise of the parish office to the Virgin Maria, and he also promoted its cult among his parishioners. To testimony his devotion he was welcomed to Verniana, with solemn celebrations, the image of the “Madonna of the Good Viaggio” ( Madonna of the good travelling), a work of the painter Luisa Miliavada, dated June 4th 1978.
During the ceremony Don Angelo exhorted the believers to grow toward her devotion, being sure that all the spiritual graces and storms come to us from the Lord by Her intercession.
Even Don Angelo was not immune to the graces of the Holy Mary, but here are his words that describe with his own words this experience:
“I always had a limited sight but there was a time when I was completely blind. I had been visited by many important eye doctors from France and Switzerland and all unanimously diagnosed that my blindness depended from the diabetes.
During the pilgrimage to visit the Madonna I dreamt the Madonna that was saying to me: “what are you waiting to go Rome to the Clinic Quisisana for a more accurate visit?” So I left, without any delay, for Rome.
I was visited by a note oculist and he said that I needed surgery.
…[.] on November 9th, pushed by a sudden call, I returned to the clinic where they immediately analysed the blood and the day after I was operated. I was anesthetised at eight a.m. and its effect had to last up to 8p.m. but at 2,30 p.m. I woke up and (I don’t know why) through a small opening in the bandage, I saw the light.
I will always remember that day as the great day when I received the grace of the Madonna.
At 7,30 p.m. the doctor came to make the medication and found me recovered with no sign of surgery.
However, for precaution, they bended me again living ,purposely or for distraction, a small hole, and from there I saw so much light as I had never seen before. The next morning I was medicated and declared recovered so that I was able to
happily return to my parish and I thanked the Madonna to whom I attribute this miracle.
On November 26 th 1977 he was named “Domestic Prelate of Your Holiness” by the Pope, but the official conferment was given on June 4 th 1978 day of the incoronation of the Madonna del Buon Viaggio (Madonna of the Good Trip).
He died on August 28th 1992 at the age of 89; 89years spent for the well of others and suffering with them. Before dying he recited a prayer to the One that he always adored and in whom he always believed.
OH SWEET CELESTIAL QUEEN
UNDER YOUR SAINT PATRONAGE I RECOMMEND
MY SOUL:
OH BLESSED SWEET SS. VIRGIN IMMACULATE MARIA,
MOTHER OF GOD AND MINE,
LET ME ALWAYS BE WITH YOU AND WITH YOUR DIVINE
CHILD JESUS,
AND GOD OF MINE, IN TIME AND IN ETERNITY’
MAY THIS BE THE WAY I HOPE
AND SO BE IT.
OH SOAVE E CELESTE REGINA
SOTTO IL VOSTRO SANTO PATROCINIO RACCOMANDO
L’ANIMA MIA:
OH BEATA DOLCE SS. VERGINE IMMACOLATA MARIA,
MADRE DI DIO E MADRE MIA,
FATE CHE IO SIA SEMPRE CON VOI E COL VOSTRO DIVIN
FIGLIO,
GESU’ E DIO MIO, NEL TEMPO E NELL’ETERNITA’
COSI’ SPERO E COSI’ SIA
Aurora Puccetti
Per ricordare op. cit., p. 30.
I help myself reading my own writing published in the book “The fluid of a mountain priest.” (By Don Redento Becci, Ediz. Falini 1983.) it is a book born many years ago, written by a good friend of Don Angel, Padre Pio of Pietralcina. Don Angel was bashful, he didn’t like publicity , but he was convinced that someone had to write about him and gave the charge to Don Redento Becci, his collaborator and friend.
In the volume different testimonies of extraordinary recoveries were brought, among which mine.
It really was Don Angelo to ask me to do it and I could not refuse him. Even if my nature is prone to reservation, with this gesture I felt to express a sincere and lasting “thank” to the man that gave me the desire to live again. It was for me a way to affix a seal to my sincere friendship and gratitude to Don Angelo. Something that will remained “forever.”
It’s true that memories are forever, and the proof is that after thirty years I still remember very well the words that Don Angelo said to me:
“Franky, do you want to do me a favour?”
“What a stupid question, Big Angel, does a mother that wants a piece of bread from her son has to ask for it? Tell me everything.”
“Write some pages about you life and say how it changed from the day you met me. My kids will publish it.”
“am I able to write an article? If I were to write it I would also want to report the name of some physicians. Do you guarantee me that I won’t have consequences?”
“ don’t worry , everything will be ok, this article will go around the world.”
It might be true, I thought, maybe he exaggerates, but I can’t say no to him, I can’t do it now and I’ll never do it in my life.
It was 1976 and I began to write what follows.
“During a soccer game I suddenly fell, without any apparent reason. It wasn’t the first time that happened but it was extremely strange the pain that I felt on my left eye and this pain made me almost totally blind. I decided to go to the First Aid of the hospital in Bologna. My eye sight was perfect (10/10) on the right eye and on the left eye had gone down 2/10; I was hospitalized. The following days I was submitted to many examinations and visits. Then one evening they said to me: “ tomorrow you will be transferred to the Belluria’s Hospital for other exams.” I was debated. Up to that day I was like
an impenetrable rock and so I felt confused and unprepared to face that new permanence in hospital.
At the Belluria’s hospital I was lodged in a passage and I passed the following days doing painful examinations, lumbar injections and neuma – encephalon. They tortured me until they made their diagnosis: Brain Cancer , surgery or a few weeks of life. My father was recovering in Bologna from a bad heart attack so I had preferred not to tell him about my hospitalization, but at that point his presence was necessary. I was seeing the end of my life and I also felt sorry for the person that I already considered my wife. We had already prepared all the documents for the marriage and the apartment was fixed as I always desired, I liked my work and I earned well so we could have been the reincarnation of happiness……
When my father came by my bed I confessed him the truth about the diagnosis and I expressed him my wish not to be operated. He looked at me with fixed eyes and then went to the physician, Dr. Gaist, that repeated him with other words, what I had already told him: “brain cancer, without surgery he will live maximum two months.” My personal physician Dr. Stifano agreed with my decision to refuse surgery so I was dismissed from the hospital by my own will. I received my “last rights” and left the hospital much older then when I went in also accompanied by the thought that “ I was finished ”.
I no longer had the will or the desire to do projects, because I no longer saw a future, it was precluded. One evening in a restaurant, I had a bad surprise: I staggered and fell. What was happening to me? Was the athlete already dead? I was once again recovered in the neurological hospital of Bologna and its manager Dr. Ambrosetto, besides the cancer diagnosed : “multiple sclerosis with plates and disseminated neuritis”.
As time passed relapses were more and more insistent just like the rhythmical sound of water drops that fall with disrespect.
But the continuous acute head pain and the perspective of a premature end hadn’t yet finished me. I kept dragging trying to survive in the best way possible, but something happened that threw me in the darkest desperation: After nine years of living together, everything was ready and on April 25th 1971, Sunday, despite my illness, I would have had to pronounced the so long awaited “I Do”, but the Monday before , April 19th,1971, I was hospitalized again in neurology. This changed the wedding programs and on Sunday, the Sunday in which we should have gotten married, “she” came to see me in the hospital , she came by my bed and said good bye to me. I still ask myself if I suffered more the day I was given the last right in the hospital of Belluria or when I tried to give a meaning to those words full of tears that seemed false and “circumstantial”. Even the medical staff was wordless when the tried to help me for an avoidable nervous crack full of tears and cold icy sweat. The physician of turn was angry due to the way she got rid of me. “ not this way – he said – not now!” That doctor was right. Her abandonment
prostrated me completely, bringing away the last thread of hope and the last desire that remained in me that helped me going on.
Dismissed from the hospital, even if I was in bad physical conditions, I started working exaggeratedly again; the more I worked the less time I had to think. I worked hard gratifying myself and trying to forget, but my physical conditions and my empty house constantly brought me back to the same real truth: NEURITIS+CANCER+SCLEROSIS = THE END.
It was the first time in my life that I felt lonely and abandoned by everyone, even God! “ what have I done to deserve this life that I now hate? It’s yours, you can have it back!” I kept saying cursing.
It might have been Manzoni that said that God doesn’t punish with the bad things that happen but those bad things are there to redeem you, and this is right. I was always more lonely and I couldn’t understand the great luck I had. But I understood this later. I vegetated mixing swearwords to tears, the world had collapsed on me and I wasn’t doing a thing to deserve to live. I worked, drove the car even if I was almost completely blind and even with fog. It was suicide. I didn’t have the touch anymore, the taste, the strength, the equilibrium, the sense of smell. But God wanted to forgive me for those indiscretions, and today I ask His forgiveness, but the last months in 1971 he wanted to write the ending of my drama. I was hospitalized in the neurological department of the hospital of Modena when my aunt Norma Torri came to visit me and recommended me: “ wear the same undershirt for a couple of days and, at the same time, keep your photo in contact with your skin. I’ll bring everything to a priest, he not only will make a perfect diagnosis of your sickness, but he will use his special fluid that has already given many miraculous results.” I accepted. I had nothing to loose. My aunt went to that priest and, once she came back, she referred: “ Don Angelo said that your sickness is a myelitis and that you will recover. He recommends you to be calmer and he wants to see you.” So I asked: “how much money did he want?” “ Nothing” was her answer. I considered it all very strange: the diagnosis , no remuneration and all the stories that my aunt told about him. I love parapsychology and I already knew about the existents of other charismatics and of para-normal phenomenons. That priest awoke my curiosity and interest and I said to myself: “ before I die I’d like to experience meeting an atypical type of person and to converse with a scoundrel looking straight into his eyes.” God forgave that idiot that cursed him and on December 9th, 1971, day of my birthday, I met Don Angelo. When I saw the church’s square full of cars coming from all over Italy, and even buses coming from foreign countries, I was amazed. I went into a house that was chilly cold and, after waiting my turn behind many other people, I arrived in front of his office’s door. A person realized my difficulty in standing up and offered me his place to sit. I don’t know what happened to me and I don’t know what I felt, but I remember that, for the first time after a long time, I spoke to God: “ please, let him receive me!”. My turn arrived and I went in. All the other visits
lasted a few minutes. I was fortunate enough to stay with him for more then an hour. Before I opened my mouth to speak, he said: “good morning, sit here next to me, I’ve been waiting for you!” I looked at him with mixed emotions, a bit of curiosity and mistrustful suspect. I had a very weak voice and I was the image of a very ill and tired person. I let him talk so to evaluate his personality. He continued: “ you has suffered a lot but you will recover.” I looked at him the same way a boy looks at a man that has candies in his pocket, and I asked him: “How can you say this?” “ you should just calm down and you will star running again, but, let me repeat, it is necessary that you will calm down. Tell me why, before going to sleep at night , you drink alcoholics and why do you take so many tranquilizers? ” it seems that I was looking myself at a mirror, and in front of a mirror you can’t do anything else other then accept yourself. He said again: “many people have hurt you, but you should remember that God forgave and you must imitate him. To stay calmer you must not care about anyone or anything. Some more time will pass and you will meet a woman that is a real “woman”, just like you desire. You will have a family and many children, all healthy . you will work in a bank. Give time to time. Now let’s talk about the cancer.” Annulled, bewildered, dismayed, almost in trance I asked him: “ but where is this cancer?” he touched the back left part of my head and said: “yes, yes, there is a cancer there , but don’t worry because it isn’t in your head but in the head of the person that has said such thing. You will recover, relax.” Just a few months later he told me that he had lied so not to dishearten me more then I was. The cancer was there but he knew that I would recover. The first time we met he red things of my past and present that no-one had told him and all this was extremely easy for him. He wasn’t neither a thief nor a scoundrel, he was just a Saint that dressed himself with honest poverty. I fallowed my instinct and I embraced him, I held him tight and kissed him and I re – kissed him. I asked him: “how do you repute those abnormal abilities you have?” He answered with another question: “even you have a sixth sense, so?” he opened his arm, and with his silence he wanted me to understand how foolish it is in certain cases to ask why. We embraced each other, we returned to prayers, and then he said recommending me: “every week write a phrase to me, please.” Ever since, if I haven’t written to him it was only because we had spoken on the phone. I often remembered him to God and so he did with me, but he also game me his special fluid. In a year I saw him five times and every time he would show me the exploit of that love that at the beginning surprised both of us. As a true ill-mannered I called him by his first mane, since his figure had caused a split personality in me: Don Angel and Angel. The first one was a holy and worthy person that God had wanted to give to men, the second one was for me the grandfather, the father and a friend. He knew how much I loved him and he returned this sentiment. In past I have suffered and today God, through Don Angel showed me how sweet life is, giving me the chance to enjoy a flower, a rock, the joy of bathing or writing a
letter. Ever since God has given me Don Angel’s care and affection, I live a second life and I look at my past life with much commiseration.
A year after our first meeting Don Angel said to me: “in a year we made giant footsteps and soon you will recover just as I had promised you.” My condition now are more than satisfactory and I am mostly glad of the fact that every day that passes dies in me a piece of the child to leave space to the man. I live in the same house that one day I would have wanted to burn and at night my bed is no longer empty because I fall asleep in peace’s company. I work in bank without great fatigue, because I know that it is a miracle if today I can do it. There are people that have seen me when I only had two months to live, blind and paralyzed, Don Angel has conquered me and has made, of that pseudo-wreck, a person that proclaims to the world: “Never despair, but is always said ‘is done Your wish?”.
I’m able to give testimonial of all that has been said, in faith.”
That is how my testimonial ended then. But, since that day many things have become better, thanks to that extraordinary charismatic man.
I’ve decided to publish this commemorative book not just to confirm my graces toward Don Angel Fantomi, my benefactor and friend to whom I owe the return to serenity and the desire to live, but also because he has done me an explicit invitation that I have welcomed with immense pleasure.
One could ask me what has happened since Don Angel is no longer with us because he died in 1992.
First of all, for me, he is always alive; as before and more than before.
Not only because I believe in the survival of the spirit after death, but also because, through unknown ways that I would not know how to define and that I leave to the examination of experts in subject, he still communicates with me, suggesting me answers, giving me suggestions, reproaching me.
And where is written that death is the end of everything? With Don Angel it seems the complete opposite since I feel him closer today than when he was with us on earth.
I think that not believing in all this conceals the fear to discover a truth that is preferred to refuse. That truth is called Paradise.
Over the prophetic threshold that all will inevitably cross after having exhaled the last breath, there is a place – if of place one can speak – mysterious and fascinating that welcomes all and where neither injustice nor pain exist anymore. A place, where the word “death” doesn’t have the meaning that we attribute to it and every anxiety is dissolved by the immense light of the Lord.
I’m perfectly aware of the fact that not everyone believe this like I do and that they believe in a total end, definitive, with the loss of the physical body.
Fortunately I believe that death is only a passage to another more pleasant life than the earthly one. This thanks to my dear Don Angel that keeps on speaking to me from his world of peace and love.
Stripping himself of his material body, dressed again of a bright suit, and in his new dress he guides me, recommends me, he doesn’t make me feel lonely.
It’s beautiful to feel him close, to hear him and to be able to speak to him.
I know how much my words can arouse distrust and incredulity, and I leave everyone free to think what one wants.
I know, however, that time has come for me to testimony about not only what has happened to me in the past, my recovery, but also what I today live as a protagonist.
I would like to precise something. The nature of my contact with Don Angel is strictly ed exclusively spontaneous. I never thought to “evoke” the spirit of Don Angel, because I well know his attitude towards certain “ spiritual practises” that he strongly condemned.
My contacts with him are involuntary, they arrive to me unexpectedly, but always at the opportune moment. Sometimes, I don’t deny that I’ve thought of him intensely, waiting for an answer that has arrive, punctually, “inside” me infusing me the type of peace that only he who has proven it can understand. Don Angel communicates with me in a way that only God knows and that, I want to confirm, has nothing to do with the “ spiritual practises” that the church condemns.
The prudence, in certain cases, is never too much and I understand the severity of the Church in judging easily he who draws near to certain practices prohibited by the Bible, but today, luckily, many priests, even with a lot of prudence, have opened the possibility of communication with the “other world”. Among these, father Zaccaria Bertoldo and father Ulderigo Pasquale Great, this last one has recently been guest in Pisa and he will still be there for a series of lectures on the theme. But the dark times of the Church are now far and sad memories. The times in which just a simple suspect of entertaining any kind of relationship with spirits was enough to end up under trial and be condemned by the Saint Office. Of those days remains alive and sad the famous story of Giovanna d’Arco, the maid of Orleans that “saw and heard” presences around her and with whom she communicated. She “saw” without asking to see and her phenomenons were all spontaneous, but her sincerity wasn’t enough to save her: she was accused of a diabolic profession and she was condemned to burn alive. Later she was recognized innocent and, about five hundred years after, she has been raised to the honours of the altars. Better late than never, and even for the Church times have changed. Other errors have been made in a less dramatic way, and still today we continue to do some, but “errare humanum est, sed perseverare…”.
Don Angel was very hostile to “spiritual practices”, that he defined as the work of the demon, but he openly admitted the existence of another world with which one communicates. He was able “to see” and “to speak” with “spiritual presences”, to them he asked suggestion and help and so how could he deny to others chosen by God – and only by Him – such faculties? Besides all this he knew perfectly the date of his death and to confirm this I want to tell a brief episode.
One day he happily told me: “you know that they have given me other two years to live?” I knew that he was speaking of his invisible friends with whom he was able to communicate! Many times, when I asked him some advice, I
saw him going apart some meters from me and, with the maximum simplicity, he would talk to them and them he would refer back to me their illuminated opinion! He gave me many advices, he thought me a lot about many arguments that involved my spiritual life and my practical one. I had no hesitation to face any problem, because he always showed himself as a man with all of his limits. At the same time he knew how to show me a kind fatherly wisdom that every time left something new in me, as if his person emanated a light that transcended from him, that didn’t originate from him, but from someone greater then him, GOD. I liked everything of him, even when he was angry, because through his abrupt reactions one could perceive his great charisma.
Even Jesus, many times, used strong words when he referred to the Fariseis, and He surely didn’t use kind ways to throw out the merchants from the temples.
Even Don Angel at time was abrupt with me and with others. Once, since he wasn’t feeling good he sent away all the people that had come to him for a consultation and then he set himself apart in his room.
Regardless of his legitimate need to remain alone and to rest, I wanted to follow him up to his room. I thought ” Don Angelo cannot say no to me!”. As he saw me, it cast me a gruff and severe glance, he offended me and pushed me away. Because of my precarious equilibrium, I fell down. “I have just had a heart attack – he shouted – go away, ill-mannered!”.
I felt shattered, I saw the dark in front of me and I went toward nothing. I wrote him a letter asking his forgiveness for my enswathed behaviour and he sent me an invitation.
When I saw him he exclaimed: “ Here is the one who is never satisfy!, come her and embrace me!”
Then he added: “pray for me and forgive me, please!” I answered that I had nothing to forgive to a saint, but he rapidly answered: “ I’m not a saint!. You are a Saint!”
I remained very surprised of his affirmation.
“ me a Saint, and why?” I asked him. He answered: “Yes, you are a saint, because you didn’t do a thing to those that have done bad to you, but you have prayed for them and you have forgiven them. I’m a sinner and I wait your forgiveness and your benediction.”
His words bewildered me!
Sometimes one lives moments in which the awakening is feared and one abandons oneself at the ecstasy of a dream that is friendly. This was one of those moments. Only a true saint could involve that way. He asked to me to pray for him…!
But I think that what was beautiful of his sanctity is that two fundamental aspects of his been , that is his deep dedication to God and his humanity with his limits, melted together harmoniously.
I believe to be a fortunate man. I met the joy of walking again and of seeing with my eyes, even with some difficulties, but, believe me, after the risk to remain paralyzed, it’s wonderful!
to Franco with affection and respect. Signed Angelo Fantoni December 8th 1975.
I understood what life means when I grazed death, and I’ve done it thanks to a friend that is a Saint, someone like Don Angel.
When I was very young, about eighteen years old, I felt that someday I would have met a special person and that from that person I would have received good things. But I need to be more precise, to go a bit back and tell an episode, rather, some episodes, that concern me. I was three years old when something happened to me that marked me forever. I premise that this episode has been reported to me by my parents, since, when it happened, I was too small to remember it. My mother, still remembers that day with live emotion. One day my parents went on a trip on the shores of the Rhine river and they brought me with them. Once arrived to the place, they started speaking and dealing with their matters, while I, together with other two children, started me playing with a small plastic duck that I made floating on the shore of the river. To a certain moment a let the little duck go and it was
taken away from my course. I tried to lengthen my arm, but it was too much short to reach it. I leaned out too much and lost the balance falling in the river. I was too small and I didn’t know how to swim. My mother saw my cap with “Forza Coppi” written on on the water, she started looking around till she saw me floating up ahead in the river. She began to shout and my father, even without knowing how to swim, reached me and succeeded in bringing me to shore. . I was I deprive of senses and I didn’t breathe anymore. It was practised me mouth to mouth respiration until when it reopened the eyes and started breathing again. The first thing I said was: “Mom has the Madonna saved me?”. Who had inspired those words to a three year-old child that who didn’t yet have such a religious education to be able to justify it? Unfortunately for my mother, the memory of that day is still alive and painful, despite almost fifty years have past. I have completely forgotten it, because often a strong shock can give amnesia, but I thinks about having really had a “contact” and to have been really saved by the Virgo Maria to which my mother was very devoted. I have read of people that, after having wakened up from the coma or to have been in point of death, have returned to the life acquiring para-normal faculties and, this, could have also happened in my case. Ever since I was a teen ager, in fact, I often surprised me my ability to make forecasts of facts that punctually happened. I jealously guarded this secret, I confided only with my fiancée that, after a while, she confessed to be afraid of it. Perhaps she was right, in fact I sometimes was able to foresee events of my future life, so much that once, going out of the sporting field where I had played a game, I told her: “see the strength that I have in this right leg? It’s my best leg, yet one day will come that one my left one will be able to sustain me.” “why?” she said “are you going to break your leg again?” “No,” I rapidly answered “I will go into a hospital an they will diagnosis me brain cancer; don’t worry, I will not have surgery. They will torture me and I will go out of that hospital with serious moving problems and I will be almost blind. If I won’t be killed by the pain that that cancer will cause and because of the various test that they will do me, and if I won’t kill myself. On December 9th 1971, I will meet someone that will change my life. You won’t be there because you’ll come to the hospital and you’ll say good bye to me. I’ll go away to live alone and I will stay that way for many years…..”. my girlfriend listened to me frightened. I made forecasts on her that, for obvious reasons I will skip, and that all came true. I had seen everything or almost everything, even my meeting a special person that would have meant much to me. I didn’t know his identity, only later on it will be revealed in been Don Angelo Fantoni. Many are the episodes that I could tell.
For example. One day I was going to my girlfriend’s when that I saw that on the street some one was preparing a funeral. I was struck by the beauty of the garlands and, particularly, a suspended crown from a tree. I described everything to my girlfriend asking her if she knew the dead one to whom those flowers were offered, but she answered that she didn’t know a thin about it. We went out and I was extremely surprised that there was no sign of all that I had seen few minutes before; I asked information to people that were near by but no-one knew a thing. It was crazy. The next day when my girlfriend went out ….she saw exactly what I had described to her the day before!
I could tell many other episodes but I don’t thing is the case. Some e vents left me bewildered, mute and I would not know how to describe then. I was young and I was thinking about my future dreaming my life with my “her” even if I knew in the bottom of my heart that there wasn’t any future for us. I could forecast, it’s true, but I refused it because it meant to abdicate the thing to which I cared most. My ideal life was living with my wife, in my house and doing a work that I liked. That was all. But, at the same time, I “knew” that things were going to be different. Even this forecasting , unfortunately, will become true a few years later. I have lived some terrible moments that today, however, I bless, if I have had to suffer so much to meet Don Angelo, it has been worth. I remember that, the first time that I met him, I was very happy to ask him what he thought of that fluid of his of which people spoke so much of it and of his unusual dowries. He answered me: “even you are endowed with a sixth sense, do you know? But you have used it in a wrong way and you have had some troubles in varied way. Besides, you, for the rest of your life, will be an eternity rebus for medicine.” According to Don Angelo, in fact, my illness had been determined from the wrong use and of my ability to make forecasts. It was right because often, knowing the course of certain facts, I tried to draw a profit and a personal benefit of it.
For example, how many wins gambling did I do in those times! I didn’t realize, because I was very young, that I was seriously damaging my health. After the fundamental meeting with Don Angelo I understood how much all this was wrong and, thanks to him, I have learned to better manage that unusual gift. Today I see the physicians that observe me in a strange silence way. They don’t pronounce themselves. But the words that Don Angelo pronounced appear me clearer, What is impossible to medicine, is possible to God but this not all accept it.
All the visits that Don Angelo did to the great number of people that crowded his parsonage had the length of few minutes, contrarily I remained with him for more than a hour. I received his teachings, he gave me his “fluid” with his embraces and we prayed together. And this has gone on for over twenty years. The touch of its strong and energetic hands was enough to put again to place certain physical pains.
At the end of every meeting, I embraced him and I recited with him Our Father. Once it was him that wanted to embrace me and, while we were praying, he tightened me very strong on the back, beginning from the shoulders and finishing on the basin. “what did you do?” I asked? At first he prevaricated, then he admitted: “they have made you too many lumbar injections and the vertebrae were at some outdistance among them. Now they have returned to place.”
Indeed from that moment I could stoop without feeling any pain. Then, one day, taken by curiosity, I did a radiography to the backbone and the result of the examination was amazing: there weren’t any trace of injection anymore! And to say that on the skin they are still well visible the scars! The physicians took actions that all this was unusual and strange. I only know exactly what happened that day. How many times have I spoken to Don Angel! Once I went to him with a colleague. At the end of the meeting, he took me apart and said to me: “stay close to him because he has little to live.” A couple of days later my colleague died while sleeping. In front of certain phenomenons
science remains silent, not knowing how to furnish scientific explanation. Only parapsychology can perhaps give answers, but I affirm that in front of certain demonstrations man must surrender to evidence and believe in an unique and merciful God, distributor of many goods. A God that can manifest himself through very special people, people as a humble priest like the on coming from Verniana. That’s haw it was with Don Angel. He was always able to astonish me giving me prove of his authentic and exceptional charisma. I can say that as far as I’m concerned Do Angelo has practiced not just one recovery but many others, may they be physical or moral. Through his strong fluid, I slowly came back to life with serenity and peace. Still today he speaks to me “inside”, he gives me suggestions, he admonishes me and also pushes me to help other. Thanks to his illuminated suggestion, that offers me from the Other World, he has been able to help my sister-in-law tormented by a serious form of hernia to the disk. Don Angel, inside of me, had suggested me to go to find her, to touch her and to pray with her. I did and, within a few days, even surgery was Scongiurata. I’m telling all this not to be admired, since I don’t feel to deserve admiration, but because one can believe me when I say that Don Angel is still alive and he speaks to me. The things that just a few years ago made me incredulous, today find me willing to believe and all this because I had to surrender to certain evidence that are so clear that leave us puzzled.
I thank you and I thank you again, Don Angel!
It was a chance that I knew that he was dead. One day I called to Verniana and someone toldme: “didn’t you Know? Don Angel died!” I was struck dumb. And to remove the word to a logorroico as me is not easy. Those words “cut my wings”, but after the first moments of dismay, I started to “perceive” his presence by me. After sever years from his death I yell: “he is alive, today more than yesterday!” Don Angelo had predicted it, as he had predicted it to many others of his spirituals sons when he said: “ when I die I will change my residence, but nothing will change for you, it will be rather easier to expose your problems to me, because you won’t have to do so many trips to come to see me! You will save time and money and also fatigue.”
He is alive and he is always there ready to help me. The recovery he has done on me is not just or only physical but mainly spiritual, changing a swearword into a prayer. As a matter of fact the greatest work that he has done on me is my conversion to God, to his will and to his designs. I was rebellious, but today I let God make my decision and eve through thousands of difficulties, I feel satisfied and happy. Don Angelo, from his new home, keeps on helping me and giving me his advice and each time he proves to me that he is still very close to me.
About a year ago I fell in the bathroom and I couldn’t stand up any more. I often fell, but this time it was different. How many time felling I would turn to Don Angel that helped me to stand again! But this time was different. I dragged myself into my room and with much fatigue I stretched myself on the bed. I hoped that with a night’s rest all would go back to its place, but I was wrong. I had to calla doctor that asked me to do a radiography.
I was accompanied to the hospital, where, done the debt check ups, the doctors found a fracture of the neck of the femur, therefore urged surgery. As always I recommended myself to Don Angelo.
The doctors declared themselves sceptic about my full recovery and the chances to walk again because of my previous conditions and even I doubted it.
The day surgery was planned I, as I had done in the previous day, asked help to God and to Don Angelo. A few minutes before entering in the operating room I finally heard his voice. “Franky, relax. All will be O.K.. I twill take sometime but you will walk again…”I felt better. Then he added: “ his fracture is old, the last fall has just finished to break the bone completely…”
I didn’t quite understand what he was telling me, but it was enough to make it possible for me face surgery. Well once again he was right. When I went out of the operating room, the physicians declared that it had been a delicate and complicated intervention because the fracture wasn’t just bad, but it was also very old, so much that a bony callousness was already formed. From when I have gone out of that hospital, it began a slow and gradual recovery and today I can walk, even though I’m always accompanied by my two faithful crutches.
Aren’t those miracles?
Even today the medicine is unbelievable and I think about Don Angel , I keep quiet, I laugh and I thank him.
Oh, how has he moulded my life!
Yesterday’s swearer is today’s blessed one; that dead man today is alive, the blind sees, the paralysed, walks, the wounded one looks at his wound with a smile and he keeps on going fighting peacefully.
Lastly I wish to tell you about the first time I decided to pay him a visit to his tomb.
One day I clearly heard his big voice inside me: “what are you waiting to go back to Verniana? and since you’re there go to my tomb.” Many times I had wanted to go there, but I needed the right push; before, when Don Angel was one earth I would leave Bologna almost every month, with whichever weather, to reach him in Verniana. How many times I have risked life because of the bad weather. God wanted to protect me in my numerous trips toward Verniana, where I saw my hopes of recovery realized. I still remember the times when I would monthly go to visit him with my heart full of hope and he was always ready to welcome me in his strong and tired arms. Those memories are so clear and real to me that I still confuse them with reality. Knowing, talking, praying with Don Angel wasn’t a little thing, because he wasn’t just anyone. Every time I felt full of that charismatic strength that since it didn’t come from the man but from God one cannot exactly explain it.
But let’s go back to my desire or better his invitation to go back to the places to him so dear. One day, last summer, I could finally realize what I desired and together with some friends I went towards the mountain of San Savino. We first stopped at his house in Freggina, a small town on a hill where I was welcomed by some of this family members. Then we went to Partina, a town situated at the bottom of the hill, where in a little cemetery where Don Angel rests.
“excuse me – I asked to a person that was there – where is Don Angel’s tomb?”
“it’s there, at the top, at the end of those steps” was the answer.
I thought that it would have been very hard for me to go up those steps, but I for my great Angel it was worth the effort. Together with my friends and my faithful crutches I went up the steps that divided me from Don Angel and, after a few steps, there he was in front of me. “Hello, big Angel” I said to him- “I finally found you! You thought you could run away from me?”
Right in front us there was a small white chapel with written on “the Fantoni Family”, and even if the gate was closed we could read the epitaph that Don Angel wanted was written on his headstone:
DON’T CRY MY DEATH
I HOPETO BE IN HEAVEN WITH MY PARENTS
I’LL PRAY FOR YOU WHOM I ALWAYS LOVED
IN CHIRST ALWAYS HELPED- SACRIFIED ON EARTH FOR YOU ALL – DEATH IS THE REAL ORGANIST OF LIFE
Such writing doesn’t need any comments but just a respectful silence. Toward such a moral and spiritual man we can’t do any other thing that keep quiet, meditate and pray. So we did. I thought about od and the many wonderful things that he gives us, like that man so dear to me. As I looked to his headstone I felt as he was still there besides me alive and all this was confirmed when my prayers where stopped by his friendly voice that came inside me: “Thanks Franky, for the visit and for the prayers. You are one of the few that have done it but you should also pray for those who haven’t don it and with the prayer I will always be next to you……”
I looked toward the hill that was at the bottom, it was silent prostrated toward the small cemetery, toward the grave of that humble priest, a charismatic figure of incommensurable value. This scenery seemed to be the picture of Don Angel. It was calm, definite, friendly and severe as he was. I was absorbed in my thoughts, when my friend’s attention was captured by something that was there by my feet. One of them bent and it picked up a small object of I don’t know what material, perhaps a mixture of stone and cement. However, independently from the substance of which it was composed, what stroke us in a particular way was the form. In fact that small piece of stone was a small heart that “someone” or “something” had mysteriously carved and left to my feet in front of the grave of Don Angelo. We looked at it surprised, but aware to have received in “gift” that little heart as pawn and memory of an eternal friendship.
We clearly warned all in that small object, of such eloquent form, a concretized gesture of love toward us from the humble priest of Verniana.
“Dear angel. so I turned to him. This heart is your nth gift. Thanks!”. We still gathered us in prayer, then, satisfied and happy, we slowly went toward the exit passing by the white and clean graves.
We continued our trip toward Verniana, where we visited the dear places, in which Don Angelo practiced his mission of priest and charismatic. There I met other people that some way had collaborated with him. People like Agostino Lachi, his collaborator and everlasting friend;Giocondo and Maria, a couple that was very dear to him, owners of a herbalist’s shop in Verniana where
some of Don Angeles natural cures were sold and still today one finds. During the trip back I felt very tired but satisfied of the many unusual sensation ant the meetings . however the only protagonist of the day was Him, Don Angel, that through unknown ways was always standing by me. Going back home I felt the same way I used to when I used to come back after having visited him, tired but happy. Once again the sensation of a complete spirituality , o peace and serenity and it was great to discover, after many years, how to overcome the barriers of the materiality and the body and find ourselves again totally and forever. During our way back we remained in silence, as if we didn’t want to break the spell and I would often look at that little heart that was there on the dashboard of my car.
I felt as if that little heart was a small treasure that I would have jealously guarded because it was given to me by Don Angel.
In the evening, when we departed I felt extremely happy and satisfied because I felt as if I had grown in my faith and in my experiences. The ways of our Lord are infinite and through one of those ways I have met an extraordinary man that brought me back to life.
God prepares a different way for each of us, for some is short, for others long, for others difficult, but on it one can unexpectedly find the answer to our many worries and mainly the way to completely recover our body and our spirit. So, don’t ever despair, because there is always for everyone the hope to free oneself from situations that seem not to have a solution. Dear Angel, let those words written in this book, where even your picture is published, dry some tears and give Christian hope to he who is facing the tunnel of his life.
Caress his picture and, with a prayer, ask him help. I’m sure he will grant it.
Upon each man
And your sons and daughters will become prophets
Your old ones will dream
And the young ones will have visions….
Gioele 3.1
In each one of us, the Spirit manifests himself in many ways, but always for the good of humanity
On receives from the Spirit the capacity to express himself with wisdom
The same Spirit will give faith to one and to another the gift to recover sick ones.
The Spirit gives one the chance to do miracles, and to another the gift to be a prophet…..
1 Cor. 12, 7-10
The experience of those people that live – or survive – the limits of human possibilities, as the handicaps , the chronic sick, certain social categories or tenias that suffer hunger and others. It comes spontaneous at times to wonder what sense have certain existences, yet, if you look at it with a different eye that transcends the pure human reason one can give them a well precise meaning. Such meaning, however can be seen only if one uses certain reading keys that allow to see over the visible and see what one usually doesn’t see if one is in the absolute materialism of reality. Unfortunately, however, this is the attitude in which in many shelter not so much for the categorical refusal of a Transcendent Reality, but because such attitude makes. but only apparently. easier the management of the terrestrial existence. The categorical refusal of the existence of a Life over the terrestrial one is often only a shelter so not to want to think about a continuation in other form and substance that could be extremely hard and difficult; then, trying to simplify, we refuse to see the things through a different interpretative key. That key is the patrimony of those who look for ,shift and, fortunately, sometimes find answers to the many questions that are
so spontaneous to ask oneself such as: “who am I” “where do I come from and where am I going?” or yet if one lives a difficult situation or suddenly looses a dear one: “why has it happened to me?”. Those question don’t have any answer if one doesn’t evaluate then with that interpretive key that allows to give a deep meaning to certain experiences may the be cruel or without an explanation. It is as there was an invisible thread that unites all in a big sketch of which we can perceive only a detail, but if we move on and change our point of view just a bit all can seem clearer and full of meanings because one sees the whole thing.
But can we modify our point of view, if we want to, so that we can see the deep meaning of our existence?
There are different attitudes that countersign human events particularly difficult to accept and, in front of an any catastrophic event that can upsets our existence, we can either find shelter in a closed materialism in which we outlet our rebellion that may often reach certain excesses as suicide, or look out for one any other way that may bring us out of desperation. But there could another attitude – and here comes the reason for Franco Predieri’s story – and that is that the “catastrophic devastating event can bring, at first, to a natural rebellion, but later, on a new and unthinkable way where you can achieve a reading key that is totally different, so, reaching not only the understanding of an agonizing event, but to put it in a projection that transcends the pure human reason.
How often do we hear that after a long and lacerating experience one reaches a deep peace never known before? It is as an unthinkable light comes to clear up the mind of certain humans and after the passage of pain one can acquire new and long lasting wisdom.
This is Franco Predieri’s experience. After the initial rebellion he doesn’t close himself in a deep materialism, but he leaves a small opening through which the Transcendent Light came to clear up his suffering mind and slowly opened the way where God let the charismatic figure of his servant come in, that figure was Don Angelo Fantoni…
When his aunt went to him in his hospital bed in Modena and saw him half paralysed and almost blind, she proposed him to undergo the exam of a gifted priest that had a special fluid, Franco accepted without denying the last chance he had. It’s from his words that come out the little hope that has been ever since the real “push” that has accompanied him toward Don Angelo. One can surely say that if you have nothing to loose you can accept anything, but not always this is the truth, at times it may be easier to surrender than to fight, let go without any thought for hope.
In Franco’s case, even if it was his aunt that at first promotes the initiative that became determinant, one can also say that it was in his attitude to believe without denying previously the chance that from this meeting something could come; this was the reading key of this painful event.
This is also how, today, that same key let’s Franco to see how things really are and that his story is signed of unusual events that can prove everything. As a matter of fact, during his all life many para-normal events have been protagonists and it all may have begun when he was just a chid and fell in the Reno River, a dramatic event that certain has strange undutiful aspects.
His mother saw him float inactive, apparently deprived of life and his father, not knowing how to swim, threw himself in the river and with a great effort brought him back to life.
The elderly mother, almost fifty years later, still remembers that moment with live trepidation and she repeats the first words that her child pronounced as he recovered, words that time cannot cancel: “Mom, has the Madonna saved me!”.
It’s very strange that a child that has not yet received any religious education could pronounce such words. One may also wonder if at such age a child can realize to have been in serious danger of life and have the possession and lucidity to connect the event that saved his life to the figure of the Madonna.
This dramatic event is not to be underestimate; rather it is of fundamental importance for a best understanding of the whole story of a man that, despite the hard experience of life and the consequent physical limitations, today is deeply serene.
We must say that, according to events that have happened during his adolescent, Franco had an experience that in English is defined as NDE Near Death Experience.
Such experience are, today, matter of studies and researches from many para-psychologists and much has been written about this fascinating and yet anxious theme. Many interesting researches have been done by the American doctor Raymond A. Moody that, has written many books on the argument, like “Life over Life” and “New hypotheses on life over life” where different testimonials of NDE are reported.
But let’s see exactly what we are speaking of.
A lot of people in proximity of death, once “returned” to life tell that they have lived extraordinary experiences and to have had ultra mundane visions.
Such “the death’s crisis” can happen for different causes, during surgical interventions, caused by a heart attack or other sudden pathology, or for an accident that brings the subject to a state of coma, after the awakening, they sometimes reported paradisiacal visions and meetings with dead people.
But not only. After such experience the subject can acquire some particular abilities extra sensorial and he begins “to see” and ” feel” para-normal things, fibulas or events. And after a few minutes, once taken back the possession of his own faculties, a different perception of the reality remains.
Not always remains the memory of meetings that have been done when on is between life and death, and in a different dimension, Franco is one of those but, according to some studious, the lack of memories is not essential
because this does not exclude that during a NDE one could have had visions or meetings that they have removed.
That’s why in Franco’s story, the lack of memory of that prophetic day when he was about to drawn and of the vision is not conclusive, considering that the young age and the traumatic event could have contributed to remove it.
Unfortunately, all that has remained as memory, is reported, still today, only by his mother with everlasting emotion.
If we give a meaning to what the child said when he returned to his vital functions don’t exclude a possible meeting with the celestial vision and this could explain to us all the other prediction that he started doing when he was just a teenager and those prediction punctually happened.
He not only had some premonitions on people, but also on himself that were extremely precise so to leave his relatives in total disconcertment.
He predicted, with an extreme precision and many years before, his pathology, the abandon of his fiancée and the fundamental meeting with a special person, then revealed in Don Angelo.
Such unusual abilities that are recognized in many people that have experienced in proximity to death, could also concern Franco, therefore, his clairvoyant dowries could have been determined, during that NDE, from a supernatural contact from which, slowly, his ability would have sprung to forecasts.
Franco’s history is all marked by unusual episodes and it introduces indefinable aspects to which he himself has always tried to give an answer.
None had been able to help him; he confided only with his girlfriend and she could only listen and keep silent, cultivating in her heart a veiled fear. Franco, had predicted his illness, foresaw the meeting with a particular person and, perceiving the fundamental importance of this meeting, even not knowing his identity.
But when every door seemed closed to him sick, almost paralyzed and blind, the attended meeting with Don Angel Fantoni and, from that day, Franco begun to live again. Through that opening that had always been in his heart, God wanted to give him, through the charismatic person, a radical turn to his existence.
It’s not easy to speak of Don Angelo, of him has spoken Don Redento Becci in his book, so doing it again might be restrictive and not useful.
This book wants to be a testimonial of a man that, having seen death’s face, has, slowly and thanks to the portentous fluid of this priest, has returned to life.
Don Angel has slowly moulded Franco into a new man, a serene man that today can give a deep meaning to his painful story.
This publication is the testimonial of a wonderful relationship between Franco and Don Angelo.
It’s the story of a real friendship, based on unshakable pillars of faith and that goes over any reason. It’s a human story, touching, that brings us on the
threshold of an unknown but real World, a dimension that can come to give us a sudden and providential help.
For Franco and his Big Angel, the relationship hasn’t ended with a headstone on a grave where have been deposed the deadly bare of the elderly priest of Verbania.
Their communication continues, it hasn’t stopped and from the wonders of the Invisible World from which Don Angel communicates, gives advices and reproaches Franco through ways that are indefinable to science and that, out of every understanding, exist.
It’s trough those mysterious ways, surely different from the classical human ways, that the two still maintain their relationship and since there is no barrier such as the distance that divided them, their communication is almost immediate.
Franco trough those “interior locutions”, as they are defined by the para psychology, that he still communicates with Don Angelo and such silent communication gave birth to his love toward fellow man that he translates in concrete help toward those who suffer.
This book wants to be only a grateful gesture towards Don Angel, a humble priest from Verniana, but also a seed that could bud and clear the mind and the heart of someone that might feel lost.
If all this would be useful to help just one person than the publication hasn’t been vain.
It has been Don Angel from The Other World that has suggested to Franco to publish this book and give to those that might be interested. A gift that comes from the a Church, yes , but not a earthly one, but as it has been written at the beginning , from a Heavenly one dedicated to all human been that expect something from there.
It seems as if from the other world (hereafter) Don Angelo searches a way to let people speak of him, not to be revered for his humble characteristics and reservations, but because, without his earthly body, he desires to have a bit of publicity, necessary to let to think a bit about the existence of God and the Invisible World from which we could receive some help, even through persons that have charismatic gifts.
Those who knew Don Angelo also know that he was against spiritual practices, but with Franco was different. The communication exists, and even if Franco never looked for it, it is spontaneously born without any of those evocations that the Official Church condemns.
Don Angel exhorted us saying: “Come on sons, death is not death but the passage to a better life that is contemplation of the living God.” These enclose the whole mystery of life and the works of this humble priest that came from a small town in the middle of the mountains and it is through this contemplation that he drew that marvelous fluid that he lavished with generosity on those that needed it.
And Franco, through this fluid matured a deep wisdom, and still today there is a phrase that he often repeats: “the best gift that God has given me is that of having known death.” Only who has passed through a great desperation could pronounce such words. Through his desperation Franco left a small opening and through this opening God’s light cleared up his soul and gave him new hope. Today he is a new man and his story is a hymn to life, to trust, an invitation to abandon oneself in the arms of a Father God, not a God that is cruel and punitive as some describe Him.
Rom that first meeting essential to his existence, Franco learned how to understand the reason for his sickness and to it he grew spiritually and today he lives a life that comforts him, that involves him, but most of all that he loves.
His wish is that this book can go and help to clear the minds of those that need a new Light and also of those that, like him many years ago, are in a deep desperation.
It’s an invitation to let be permeated by the Transcendent Light where the God of Love lavishes mysteries of endless beauty.
A Light that really illuminates up to the last cell and, permits us to understand the sense of things that may appear useless or cruel.
“Don’t despair ”,Franco tellsus with a light smile that shines through his serene face, “but always say: is Your wish done!”
Elisabetta Piccini