Healing of Father Juan Manuel Gutiérrez

Confirmed complete Achilles tear on October 31, 2017; surgery scheduled. Prayed novena to Pier Giorgio Frassati beginning November 1. Experienced warmth at injury site during novena; stopped wearing brace. Orthopedic surgeon found no gap on November 15, 2017 — tear undetectable. Surgery cancelled. Full recovery confirmed.

Juan Manuel Gutiérrez was born in 1986 in Texcoco, Mexico. He emigrated to the United States at nineteen to join his father in Omaha, Nebraska, and shortly afterward returned to the Catholic faith he had lapsed from during childhood. He felt called to the priesthood, enrolled at St. John's Seminary in Camarillo, California, and was studying for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

On September 25, 2017, Gutiérrez tore his right Achilles tendon while playing basketball with fellow seminarians. An initial hospital visit found no broken bones and he was told it was likely a pulled muscle. On October 31, 2017, an MRI confirmed what had been missed: a complete tear of the Achilles tendon. Surgery was scheduled to reattach the ligament — a repair a complete tear requires, as it does not heal on its own.

On November 1, 2017 — All Saints' Day — Gutiérrez was in the seminary chapel after Mass, reviewing the MRI results. He felt an unexpected interior prompting to pray a novena to Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, a saint he had no prior personal devotion to. He had no brace on. During the nine days of prayer, he experienced what he described as a gentle, increasing warmth around the area of the injury. He stopped wearing the brace. He added a spontaneous promise to his novena: that if anything unusual happened, he would report it to whoever needed to know.

On November 15, 2017, his orthopedic surgeon performed the Thompson test — a standard diagnostic for Achilles integrity in which the calf is squeezed to observe movement. There was no pain response. The surgeon pressed directly on the site of the confirmed tear and found no gap. "You have no gap," the surgeon told him. "You must have somebody up there looking after you." The surgery was cancelled. Gutiérrez resumed normal activities, including sports, without difficulty.

Around fall 2020, while attending a seminary class on the causes of canonization taught by Msgr. Robert Sarno — a retired official with nearly forty years at the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints — Gutiérrez described the healing after class. Sarno recognized its significance. Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles authorized a formal investigation in fall 2023. On November 25, 2024, Pope Francis signed the decree formally recognizing the miracle. Gutiérrez was ordained a priest and was serving as associate pastor at St. John the Baptist Church in Baldwin Park, California, at the time of Pier Giorgio Frassati's canonization on September 7, 2025.