By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer

A man from Derry, Ireland is revealing for the first time how he was miraculously healed of life-threatening kidney problems after being touched by a glove worn by St. Pio of Pietrelcina. He comes from the same town where a woman who suffered a near fatal brain hemorrhage was also healed by St. Pio.

The Derry Journal is reporting that John Glenn, who now lives in California, was only 10 years old when he was rushed to the hospital after both of his kidneys collapsed. Doctors were baffled by his condition, which did not respond to numerous treatments. He was eventually moved to Belfast City Hospital where he spent weeks undergoing tests.

“I had biopsies and was in an incubator,” Mr. Glenn explained. “When the doctors came in to see me, they were dressed in masks and surgical suits. At one point, medics thought I might have leukaemia or even cancer. In fact, they were so baffled by my condition at one point they even thought I may have picked up a disease from the racing pigeons that I kept with my father.”

At around the same time, everyone in his hometown was talking about a glove worn by Padre Pio to cover the bleeding stigmata in his hands.

“Someone, who I cannot remember, brought the Padre Pio mitt to my home and rubbed it all over my back and kidneys,” Mr. Glenn said. “I spent a further ten weeks in Belfast going through different tests. My kidneys healed over that time and to this day I know I was cured by the mitt of Padre Pio.”

Mr. Glenn says that while his family were religious and regular Sunday Mass goers, they never spoke much about his miraculous recovery.

“We all believed it was the mitt that healed me,” he said, “but it wasn’t something that we talked about to everyone else.

“I’m 44 now, and to this day I believe it was the mit of Padre Pio which made me better. I never go to sleep without saying a prayer to him and giving thanks. I live a happy and healthy life in California.”

Mr. Glenn comes from the same Irish town where a woman named Ann Mulrine was healed of a near-fatal brain hemorrhage after being blessed with Padre Pio’s glove.

The event occurred 27 years ago when Mrs. Mulrine collapsed while pregnant with twins. At the time doctors told her husband Sean that his wife had suffered a brain hemorrhage and had no more than a half hour to live.

Faced with the prospect of losing his wife and two unborn children, he was advised to sign forms which would keep his wife alive by ventilator until the twin boys reached 38 weeks of age.

Doctors insisted Ann was clinically dead but Sean refused to give up hope and sat by her bed praying the rosary.
“One night I looked up the corridor and I saw this figure coming around the corner and I ran towards it and said: ‘Excuse me, you’re looking for me,’” Sean said.

“I had never met the man in my life, I didn’t know who the man was; don’t ask me why I said that. He said: ‘I’m looking for a man called Mulrine.’ I said: ‘That’s me.’ The man’s name was Michael Murray and he and his wife ran the Padre Pio Centre for Northern Ireland.

“He said: ‘I got a phone call about half-an-hour ago from a lady who said for me to take the glove of Padre Pio to Sean and Ann Mulrine in the Royal Hospital.'”

The glove was placed on Ann’s head. Despite all the tubes, she moved her hand and brought the glove to her face, blessing herself three times.

Doctors were astonished, and the next day Ann opened her eyes and began to talk. She was taken off the ventilator and a week later gave birth to two healthy boys.

Sean and Ann Mulrine were so transformed by what had happened they began a Padre Pio prayer group and now run the Padre Pio Centre for Northern Ireland, which is affiliated to the monastery at San Giovanni Rotondo.

The Mulrines are planning a final trip to San Giovanni this summer, which will be their last opportunity to enerate the exhumed remains of St. Pio before his is re-interred after his Sept. 23 feast day.

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