The day Mother Angelica and four others encountered an angel
From Spirit Daily
Heading for Mount Gargano in Italy some years back, on the way from Assisi, Mother Angelica, the famous American nun, experienced an extraordinary encounter with an angel. The story was told to us by Bill Steltemeier, a deacon who was with her and is president of the religious network she founded, EWTN. Actually, it wasn't just one angel they happened across, but a carload.
They were about twenty miles from the cave of St. Michael in Gargano (an historic site of heavenly wonders) when Mother Angelica, Deacon Steltemeier, and three nuns found themselves at a crossroads and couldn't decide which way to turn. There was a road to the left and a road to the right. But there were no signs, and it was something of a dead end.
All that was around were the stony hill and occasional livestock.
"I slowed down as I came to the intersection," recalled Deacon Bill. "All of a sudden we saw a car coming very fast from the left. It was speeding. I rolled down my window. I wanted to ask him direction. He slowed down to probably thirty miles an hour. There were a whole bunch of handsome men in that car, three in the front and three in the back -- in this small car. I'm trying to wave at them. They were all looking at us, smiling.
"All of a sudden a young man just jumps out of the back seat on the other side of the car while it's going thirty miles an hour and heads straight for us. The car never stopped! It just kept going. All of a sudden he come out the back. I was just flabbergasted! As he walks to me, I see he is just so handsome and as I'm wondering about how he got out of the car, Mother Angelica is saying, 'It's an angel! It's an angel!'
"I'm just totally surprised. I knew Mother Angelica was saying it was an angel, but I had never seen one. I'm ready to ask him the way to the top of the Gargano when he points to the mountain to the right and says, 'That way to Gargano,' in perfect English. But he was as Italian as anyone I ever saw! He was extremely handsome, maybe 22 and very dynamic, yet extraordinarily young. I knew there was something about him that was different -- just so handsome in a way I had never seen.
"I asked if he wanted a ride. He said he would go back to the intersection -- where there were no houses and no humans for 25 miles. It was desolate -- just livestock on the hillside."
Deacon Steltemeier recalled that the sisters were all excited. Mother Angelica kept repeating, "It's an angel!" They started up the hill, Bill driving, the nuns looking back at the strange young man, this man who looked 22 and yet didn't look 22. As they watched, the stranger walked in a pattern that formed a cross -- 15 feet one way, then up and down. A cross! He did that six or seven times.
All of a sudden the nuns cried out in unison, "He's gone!"
The helpful man had vanished.
[resources: Michael Brown's books]