In a book, The Diary of Lucia Fiorentino, a hidden mystic who lived in San Giovanni Rotundo, Italy, it’s revealed that Lucia, who lived a life of stigmata, visions, and other mystical gifts–(but a hidden life)– was well-known to a fellow and far better-known and vastly more renowned mystic.

That mystic was Padre Pio.

The two were acquainted with each other—it turns out–had met even before the saint permanently moved to San Giovanni.

Even before that, more remarkably, in 1906, at age seventeen, Lucia had predicted that such an august saint would come to this place that seems like it’s in the middle of Italian nowhere. She was, in a fashion, a female “John the Baptist .”

As Lucia recorded in her diary: “One day, while I was praying for the conversion of souls, an imaginary vision came to mind. I didn’t understand anything about these things because my confessor had never spoken to me about them. He was easy with me.

“I saw in the vision a tree of immense size in the atrium of our Capuchin convent, and I heard a voice tell me, ‘This is the symbol of a soul who is now far away but will come here. He will do much good in this village. He will be strong and well-rooted like this tree, and regarding all the souls who come–both from here and from afar–if they take refuge in the umbrage of this tree, they will be freed from evil (that is, those who shall come to this worthy priest for light will find forgiveness and remedy for their sins).

“If they humble themselves before this worthy priest, they will receive counsel and the fruits of eternal life. And woe to those who despise his counsel and his way of acting, for the Lord will punish them severely in this life and in the next. His mission will extend throughout the world, and many will come and take refuge in the shade of this mystical tree to receive the fruits of Grace and forgiveness.”

Added the mystic, who was two years younger: “I wondered about this in my mind and asked myself, ‘Who will this worthy priest be?’ And since a priest from our town was out of residence, I imagined it was him, since he was so good.

“But I didn’t think of it anymore and left it to the Lord to let things come about in their own time.”

As they did when Padre Pio arrived in San Giovanni Rotondo on September 4, 1916.

He was initially sent there for a period of rest and recuperation, but he eventually remained there for the rest of his life, except for a brief period of military service during World War I.

One of seven friars, he would become the greatest and most well-known saint of the Twentieth Century without ever leaving the small town that has now ballooned into a huge place of pilgrimage, a second Assisi.

[resources: The Diary of Lucia Fioernetino: Mystic, Visionary, and Early Spiritual Daughter of Padre Pio]