Staff photos/Nancy Behrens Kissed with a miracle: Alexis Mavromanolis, 7, was in a coma for 16 days at birth in 1996. After the glove of Padre Pio was placed on her head, she emerged from the coma. Her mother, JoAnn Mavromanolis, 29, embraces her Sunday during Mass at Our Lady of Pompeii. Staff photo/Nancy Behrens Walking side by side, Peg O'Brien, 72, Johanne Bylone, 68, and Judy Fries, 69, show their devotion to Padre Pio on Sunday during the procession commemorating his 1968 death. Padre Pio is represented Sunday by a statue during a procession in his honor, which made its way from Cornucopia and Dante avenues to Our Lady of Pompeii Church.

VINELAND -- Were it not for Padre Pio's miraculous intercession on her behalf, Alexis Mavromanolis might not be alive today.

Or she might be brain-dead, as doctors had predicted, if she managed to emerge from the coma that imprisoned her for the first 16 days of her life.

Seven years later, Alexis may live with cerebral palsy, but that hasn't erased the timeless smile from her face.

She can walk with the help of others and attends Easter Seals Society in Lansdale, say family members. She also has a way with computers, adds 9-year-old cousin Demetrios.

"Everything the doctors said she wouldn't do, she does," said mom JoAnn Mavromanolis, 29, of Limerick, Pa.

She owes her daughter's miraculous recovery to Padre Pio, she said. A few hours after a nurse placed Pio's glove on her daughter's head, Alexis emerged from her coma.

Padre Pio was a Cappuchin priest who died in 1968. He was canonized St. Pio of Pietrelcina last year for his miraculous cures.

As a humble show of gratitude to the saint, Mavromanolis, her daughter and relatives sat among the throngs packing Our Lady of Pompeii Church in Vineland for a Sunday morning service in Pio's honor.

The pews could not contain about 1,000 people at the church's second annual Sunday service commemorating Pio's 1968 death. So many people were there, they spilled into the aisles and church foyer.

The family of Salvatore Alcaro, 77, of Williamstown hoped their presence at Sunday's service would bring a miracle for their loved one.

Alcaro suffered a brain aneurysm and is on a breathing machine at Kindred Hospital in Philadelphia.

"We want him back breathing on his own," said Concetta Meagher, 37, of Williamstown. "We just want this one small miracle for him."

The Rev. Peter Saporito, pastor of St. Padre Pio Parish, characterized the devotion to the saint as "very strong," he said.

Our Lady of Pompeii church and St. Mary's Church in Vineland and Joseph's Mission in Richland were joined under the Padre Pio parish name earlier this year.

"Padre ... was a very simple man, and the people here are very simple, but full of faith," he said. People can further relate to him because he died relatively recently.

The morning service began with a procession that stepped off at Cornucopia and Dante avenues. Followers carried a statue of Padre Pio and a bloody scab said to have belonged to the saint.

There also was a float bearing a photo of Mother Pauline, who founded an order of nuns in Brazil and was beatified in 1991. She has a number of local relatives. Followers were also able to touch Mother Pauline's encased finger bone.

A new Padre Pio statue fresh from Italy was unveiled this week outside Our Lady of Pompeii.

The church also debuted another treasure: a cloth that Padre Pio used for his bleeding heart wound. Pio bore the stigmata of Jesus Christ.