The miraculous recovery of a baby boy in 2001 may have paved the way for the canonisation of Blessed Dun Gorg Preca, but, it was an unexplained healing of a civil servant's detached retina that first put him on the road to sainthood.
In 1963, just months after Dun Gorg died, Charles Zammit Endrich went to Censu Tabone, an eye specialist who later became the President. Diagnosing the detachment of the retina in Mr Zammit Endrich's left eye, Dr Tabone decided to perform surgery on the patient.
In his testimony, given in June 1981, Mr Zammit Endrich said that during the operation held at a private residence, while being fully aware of what was happening around him as he had only been given local anaesthetic, he saw Dun Gorg's face emerge from a small frame that carried a picture of Christ.
The patient said he lifted his arm to reach out to Dun Gorg, an action which was witnessed by people assisting Dr Tabone during the operation.
According to Dr Tabone, the operation was a success, but some four months later Mr Zammit Endrich's retina detached once more, which meant that he needed another operation.
Remembering the vision, Mr Zammit Endrich spoke to Carmelo Spiteri, a member of the Society of Christian Doctrine, from Senglea, who gave him a piece of shoe lace that had been worn by Dun Gorg. On the eve of the operation, while watching television, Mr Zammit Endrich's sight suddenly improved.
When he examined Mr Zammit Endrich, Dr Tabone was extremely surprised to see that the retina was normally attached to the eye, and so decided not to operate again.
"I have been a practising ophthalmologist for 35 years and I have never seen something like that. Nor did I read that something of the sort happened," Dr Tabone told the Church commission in an interview in 1981, concluding that he could not explain the phenomenon scientifically.
Other witnesses claim that other people had been healed by Dun Gorg during his lifetime.
Francis Saliba, who became the superior general of the Museum society in 1967, said that Dun Gorg often spoke to the members of the society about the case of a certain Pia Farrugia.
At the time, Ms Farrugia had been diagnosed with cancer and was about to undergo an operation. Dun Gorg gave Ms Farrugia's brother a badge of the Museum with the words Verbum Dei caro factum est, and said she should place it on her body.
When Ms Farrugia was already in the operating theatre, she claimed that all her pain suddenly disappeared and that the operation should not take place. The surgeon decided to carry out further tests and the operation was never performed. Ms Farrugia was 24 at the time, and died at 64.
Dun Gorg himself had fallen seriously ill before he was ordained, according to early members of the society. A certain professor Meli had told his mother it was unnecessary to buy him any chalice or priesthood garments as one of his lungs was seriously infected.
The saint never specified what his first reaction was when his parents informed him of the doctor's advice, but said he had prayed to St Joseph to cure him.
In the run-up to the canonisation of Blessed Dun Gorg Preca at St Peter's Basilica on Sunday, The Times is carrying a series of articles based on interviews carried out during the canonisation cause. The first was run yesterday; the third and last will be carried tomorrow.