Exclusive | NJ teen set on priesthood had vision of Virgin Marybefore histumor miraculously shrank

While most 4-year-olds were speaking to Elmo, Lil’ Dominic Auricchio was talking to the man upstairs.“I had a dream and God came to me,” the now 13-year-old recalled to The Post.“He told me to be a priest, and then I went into my mom’s bedroom .

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it was the middle of the night ..

.and ever since then I’ve wanted to become a priest,” he said.The rising eighth-grader at Holy Trinity School in Westfield, NJ, has kept his commitment to the cloth — alongside other aspirations.“He came home one day and said, ‘I think I’m gonna be the first priest astronaut,'” his mom Maria recalled.“It’s now priest slash Marine.

I want to become a Marine first and then join the priesthood,” said Dominic, whose father, Neal, is a Marine who served two tours in Iraq and was awarded the Purple Heart.Dominic began suffering from headaches in December 2022, and an MRI revealed a large mass on his brain.“He went on medications and we were debating on what we were going to do.We didn’t want obviously to do surgery if we didn’t have to .

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because of where it was, they would have had to cut into bone,” Maria said.Months later, in May 2023, Dominic said the Virgin Mary appeared in his bedroom to assure him he’d recover.“She was dressed just like we imagine her ..

.and she told me that everything would be OK,” said Dominic.That June Dominic had a CAT scan, and “they called me and said, ‘There’s no reason to move forward with the surgery,’ and now it’s like nothing,” Maria said.“Now, when he has an MRI, it appears as just a very small blip.” Throughout the harrowing health scare, Dominic remained a devout Catholic and was “praying non-stop,” he said.On the ride home from school one afternoon after the diagnosis, Maria heard her son talking to God in the backseat.“He’s just going, ‘I’m just too young to die’ .

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very like matter of fact and calm,” she recalled.The teen serves as an altar boy at St.Helen’s Chu...