Such for many years was Pelligrini's miserable condition. About the year 1877, on the 22nd of May, the feast of St. Rita, to whom he had great devotion, when he was entering his house after hearing Mass at the saint's altar in the church of the nuns of St. Cosmo, he fell to the ground, deprived almost entirely of sense. He was put to bed, and the doctor immediately sent for. On his arrival the doctor instantly saw the very grave state of the man, prescribed some remedies, of which, however, almost no use could be made, and ordered the last Sacraments to be administered. After being anointed, Pelligrini became so ill that he lost all strength and the use of his senses, and was hardly able to breathe; his face became corpse-like in its pallor as he lay motionless in bed. In this state he passed two days, and on the third day the doctor was of opinion that he would not live till evening. Meanwhile a lay sister of the convent, who was sister of the sick man's wife, sent to ask how he was, and in sending an answer his wife requested the nuns to light the lamp at the saint's altar and offer prayers for her husband, who was in his last agony. The request was immediately attended to by all the community. Little over an hour passed when Pelligrini, as if waking from a profound lethargy, opened his eyes, began to move his arms, and, calling his wife, said to her, 'I am cured. Blessed Rita has made me well.' He then began to tell how the saint had appeared to him, had touched him on the forehead, shoulder, and breast, and assured him that he would be cured, and that after only a day or two of weakness he would be entirely well. He also gave the same account of the vision to others who came to see him, and the fact proved that the saint had miraculously saved him from imminent death. The next day he left his bed completely cured, as Rita had told him he would be. He was able to eat and digest his food as well as any person of strong robust health, and all those chronic ills that afflicted him for so many years were instantaneously and entirely eradicated, and his deafness and lack of vision also were entirely gone. He could see as well as if he had never been shortsighted, and could detect the least noise, and although he was seventy years of age he had regained full vigour and strength. Many people went to see Pelligrini, who seemed as one raised from the dead to a new life, and who was filled with a new strength. All who saw him gave glory to God and to Rita for so wonderful and surprising a fact. After ten years, when he was eighty years old, he was examined by doctors, and found perfectly healthy and full of vigour. CONCLUSION