Recently my friend Mary Ann and I were chatting about our journeys back to the Church. Hers began with a visit to a young girl in Worcester, Audrey Santo, around whom numerous mystical experiences have occurred.
The Santo family home has continued to have mystical phenomena occur, even since Audrey’s death in 2007.
Audrey’s Life
In 1983 Audrey was three years old when she nearly drowned in the family pool. She was in a coma-like state for 20 years, during which Eucharistic miracles occurred, and statues and images of the Blessed Mother wept oil in her presence, among other miracles. She died in 2007 at age 23, and her cause of canonization is now open.
After four months in the hospital, Audrey was unable to speak or sit up, and had only very limited movements. She was in a coma-like state known as Akinetic Mutism. She wasn’t expected to live more than a few months, and doctors urged her mother Linda to place her in a nursing home. But her mother refused to institutionalize her and brought her home. A bedroom was set up for her right off the kitchen so she could be part of her family’s life, in spite of needing a feeding tube, continual turning, and other round-the-clock care. The Catholic family converted the home’s garage into a chapel where they and visitors would pray.
Audrey developed the stigmata, the five wounds of the crucified Christ, spontaneously appearing on her body. At times statues in her room began to weep. Little Audrey baffled the medical experts. She never got bedsores despite remaining in bed for so many years. Visitors would frequently smell roses in Audrey’s bedroom or in the chapel with no flowers present. On several occasions, the two gold engraved angels on the tabernacle door wept fragrant oil. The liturgical vessels (chalices & ciboria) as well as crucifixes, and religious pictures in Audrey’s room wept or secreted an oil mysteriously. During Holy Week each year, Audrey seemed to suffer during the hours of noon to 3:00, based on observations of her heart rate. Three of Audrey’s nurses who were of different faiths converted to Catholicism after caring for her.
A total of six consecrated hosts either bled or secreted oil in Audrey’s presence. An independent commission that investigated this phenomenon on behalf of the Bishop of Worcester in 2004 found no fraud and offered no explanation as to the cause or appearance.
Amazing Incidences
As word got out about Audrey and the amazing incidences in her presence, visitors flocked to the house They were welcomed for Mass in the chapel and often into Andrey’s room, where they could pray for her intercession alongside her bed. This is how my friend Mary Ann encountered Audrey. Although completely silent, Audrey would often gaze at visitors, turning her head towards them, and appearing to hear them.
Many later claimed they received physical or spiritual healing. Letters came from all over the world asking for prayers to be read to her. Each letter was read to her by her mother, a sibling, or one of her nurses. Audrey would seem to listen attentively to each letter, and many people claim that they were healed either physically or spiritually because of her prayers. The prayerful and the curious flocked to the family home, where they were welcomed into the chapel and often into the family’s home to visit with Audrey herself.
In spite of tremendous challenges in transporting her severely disabled daughter, Linda brought Audrey to Medugorje, praying for a miracle for her. There in St. James church, visionary Ivan Dragevoic knelt down beside Audrey in the apparition room. Ivan said the Blessed Mother spoke to him and gave him a message for Audrey, which he said: “was between the Blessed Mother and the girl.” Audrey became very animated when she was given this message, and seemed to “have almost purposeful movements as if she was trying to get up, trying to speak…but then that was it. I don’t know what happened,” Linda said. Audrey did not receive a miraculous healing, but other people continued to report miracles surrounding Audrey.
During her remarkable life, the crowds continued to come to the family’s house. An annual August celebration was moved to the family’s parish, Christ the King in Worcester, to allow for more people, and even once to the College of the Holy Cross when over 8,000 participated in Mass with Audrey and to seek miracles through her presence.
The Missionary Image of Our Lady of Guadalupe made many visits to Audrey’s home. During a Mass celebrated by a Bishop during the first visit of the Missionary Image on January 1992, the host began to bleed. During another visit, the Guardian of the image, Dan Lynch, knelt near Audrey’s face, told her he loved her and asked her to please offer all of her sufferings. A tear fell from Audrey’s eye.
The Missionary Image returned to Audrey’s home for the anniversary of her drowning in August 1994. The Image began to profusely weep tears of oil. On March 28, 1995, the image again returned. The host that had bled in 1992 and that had been reserved in the chapel since 1992 began to bleed again.
On Good Friday, 1996, the tabernacle in Audrey’s room began bleeding, prompting the Bishop to state his plans to open an investigation.
Father Rene Laurentin, the world-famous Marian expert, stated that within Audrey’s home reigns “a deep peace where conversions and healing sparkle.”
When beloved Audrey died in 2007, hundreds came out for her funeral, including about two dozen priests and deacons, with Bishop Robert McManus of Worster and Bishop Daniel Reilly (Bishop Emeritus) present Rev. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy, and Melkite Catholic priest Director giving the homily. Bishop McManus remains a friend and visits the family frequently, and will be the main celebrant at her anniversary Mass on April 24th.
Mary Ann’s story:
I was a cradle Catholic and strayed from my faith in college. Years later in 1998 I went to the dentist for a routine visit, and a suspicious tumor was found on my tongue. The dentist said it didn’t look good and referred me to an oral surgeon. I walked out of there stunned. I threw my cigarettes away and drove around crying, wondering what would happen to my 7 year old daughter. When I got home, my daughter was watching TV and said, “Don’t change the channel” when I walked in the room. It was a show about about a little girl in Worcester, MA I’d never heard of before who was surrounded by many healing miracles. I sat down to watch it with her and was fascinated by Audrey Santo.
I started praying again after many years, asking God to heal me. I felt in my soul I was being led to see Audrey, even though I lived in VT five hours from her. That week when an oral surgeon took a biopsy, he too said the tumor looked suspicious. The next day I got up early determined find out for myself what was happening around this child Audrey. I drove the five hours and went into the chapel, a converted garage at the Santo home.
There were lots of statues and holy pictures, including a 3×4′ picture of Our Lady. It was just a black and white poster pasted on a piece of masonite. I noticed there were dried tracks of tears down her face. I spoke to the Mother of God for the first time in a very long time, saying I’d been selfish all my life, rarely thinking of others, never went to church, and had done many wrong things. I had turned my back on her and her Son, and if she would grant me this healing miracle and give me an extension on this earth to raise my daughter I would do anything she asked of me..
Suddenly I noticed fresh tears of oil streaming down her face! From my pew I stared in disbelief. I looked on the back of the picture. It was just hanging on a nail, with nothing at all behind the picture. I took this as a sign. I prayed some more, and then I wrote my petition out that would be read to Audrey that day at 2:00. Then I drove home, feeling stunned by the whole experience.
The next week when I went for the biopsy results, I feared bad news when the doctor came into the room shaking his head. “I’m very surprised,” he said. “It was just a fibrous tumor, not malignant like I thought.” You can imagine my relief! It was in that moment that my life would turn in a new direction. I went home and thanked God and the Blessed Mother, believing I was granted this miracle through Little Audrey’s intercession. I was still so juvenile in my spirituality I could only marvel at the physical healing.
Little did I know that I’d been given a spiritual healing as well, the gift of faith. I would come to know this as I progressed along my journey. I made a life confession and became a daily communicant, and could not read enough about the Catholic Church!
God prepared me for 5 years and then He brought Fr. Joe Whalen into my life. He asked me early on what spurred my reversion back to the Church and I told him about my experience with “Little Audrey.” He told me about his own experience of miracles when he said Mass in her chapel a few times. “Mary Ann, there was no way to clean the sacred vessels after the Mass, because miraculous oil would keep bubbling up from the bottom of the chalice!” I believe Little Audrey connected me to this holy priest.
I’ll never forget the day I was hit over the head with a Divine 2X4 when God led me to Little Audrey. I will always be eternally grateful to her for her love and intercession. She took me under her wing, and guided me to the Truth.
Among the healings and conversion associated with Audrey, Sheryle Parolisi of Methuen, MA came to Audrey’s beside seeking a miracle for her son. Joey was recovering from extensive injuries suffered in a motorcycle crash. He’d had nine surgeries to repair his battered body, with his pelvis shattered in 5 places and a torn open leg. That day when she got home, her son met her at the door without his cane or crutches. “It was the first time he could walk on his own since the accident,” she says. Joey told his mother, he just had a feeling he could walk, and he did.
I spoke with Fr. Peter Joyce, Diocesan Liaison to the Audrey Santo Foundation. He was asked to take on the role of diocesan priest liaison by the Vice Postulator for Audrey’s Cause of Canonization, Deacon Anthony Surozenski. Clearly, he’s been touched by his own experiences at the Santo family home. He only became acquainted with Audrey’s story after her death.
He detailed the study of two hosts containing blood which were proven to be of human blood. The oil that has been repeatedly found at the bottom of ciborium or chalices has also been studied and found to be an organic compound – not something found at a grocery store.
Each first Saturday of the month Fr. Joyce celebrates a morning Mass in the chapel. Several times, “after anointing people with the oil, I’ve found I have more oil left than before I started. Almost every month, some kind of miracle or healing is reported back to me. Someone has come back to the Church, a couple has been able to have a baby. One woman’s husband had been sick for two years and doctors could find no cause. He’d been in the ER, to all sorts of doctors who had begun saying it was psychological. This woman was holding a vial of Audrey’s oil at her husband’s latest doctor appointment and said, “We need a diagnosis.” Just then the doctor walked in and said they had one. He was then able to be treated. This woman credits Audrey.”
Fr. Joyce shared another story of a woman going through difficult marriage problems. She brought home some of the oil, placed it under the mattress where her husband slept and said her marriage was completely renewed within a month.
“Every so often, God sends to the world that special soul that demonstrates more clearly his infinite love and mercy for mankind,” Fr. Joyce said. “Now I say to anyone who doubts, come and see and learn the story for yourself.”
Even since her death in 2007, these inexplicable phenomena continue to happen on an ongoing basis. Pilgrims continue to come to Audrey’s home from all over. They pray in the chapel before the Blessed Sacrament and are then welcome to visit Audrey’s bedroom and museum with many of Audrey’s personal items. On the first Saturday of each month, a healing Mass takes place (outdoors in summer), with anointing with the miraculous oil that comes from the consecrated host reserved in Little Audrey’s Room. Then there is Adoration in the Chapel, with three consecrated hosts exposed for veneration, one that bled during Mass, another the last host that Little Audrey took communion from, and a third that has blood in the tabernacle in Audrey’s room.
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Prayer for the Beatification of Audrey
Eternal Father, we thank you for the gift of Audrey Santo and for her extraordinary witness to the world that all life, no matter how small, broken, or wounded, remains precious in Your eyes. Grant that she may be venerated as a saint for the glory of God. Hear the requests of all those who seek her intercession, especially the grace for which we now ask… We ask this through Our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
4 thoughts on “Miracles Continue to Surround Audrey Santo”
Good evening my name is Fedela l story of Audrey Santo is amazing with so much miracles my email is Fedela.desantis61@gmail.com thank you for the blessings from her
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Oil mixed with wine cannot become the Blood of the Lord. Oil on consecrated Hosts defeats the purpose of the Holy Eucharist, these must not be distributed to the Faithful.
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