Ave Maria - ST PADRE PIO

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ST PADRE PIO

"Far be it from me to glory except in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Gal 6:14)

Before one of the largest crowds ever to fill the Vatican area, Pope John Paul on 16th June 2002 made a saint of Padre Pio. Hundreds of thousands of people from around the world thronged St. Peter's Square and all the streets in the vicinity. Pope John Paul II, who is said to be particularly devoted to the Franciscan Capuchin monk who died in 1968 at the age of 81, presided at a solemn ceremony to canonize one of the 20th century's most popular Roman Catholic figures.

"The proof of love is to suffer for the one you love." - Padre Pio

Like the Apostle Paul, Padre Pio of Pietrelcina placed at the centre of his life and apostolic work the Cross of his Lord as his strength, his wisdom and his glory inflamed by love of Jesus Christ, he became like him in the sacrifice of himself for the salvation of the world in his following and imitation of the crucified Christ he was so generous and perfect that he could have said: 'I have been crucified with Christ: it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me' (Gal:2:20). And the treasures of grace which God had granted him so lavishly he unceasingly passed on through his ministry, serving the men and women who came to him in ever greater numbers, bringing to birth an immense host of spiritual sons and daughters.

This worthy follower of St. Francis of Assisi was born on 25 May 1887 at Pietrelcina, in the Archdiocese of Benevento (Southern Italy). His father Grazio Forgione, was a farmer who lived on his own work. His mother, Giuseppina Di Nunzio, was a woman of great mercy. He was baptized the next day and given the name Francesco in Our Lady of Angels, the ancient parish church in Santa Maria degli Angeli, located in the upper part of Pietrelcina, called the 'Castle'.

At the age of 12 he received the sacrament of Confirmation and made his First Holy Communion.

"In the spiritual life you must take one step forward each day in a vertical line-from the bottom up." - Padre Pio

On 6 January 1903, at the age of 16, he entered the novitiate of the Capuchin Friars at Morcone, where on 22 January he took the Franciscan habit and the name Brother Pio. At the end of his novitiate year he took simple vows, and on 27 January 1907 made his solemn profession.

After he was ordained a priest on 10 August 1910 at Benevento, he stayed at home with his family until 1916 for health reasons. In September of that year he was sent to the friary of San Giovanni Rotondo and remained there until his death.

For Padre Pio, faith was life: he willed everything and did everything in the light of faith. He was assiduously devoted to prayer. He passed the day and a large part of the night in conversation with God. He would say: "In books we seek God, in prayer we find him. Prayer is the key which opens God's heart". Faith led him always to accept God's mysterious will.

"Pray, hope and don't worry." - Padre Pio

For the first time in 1915 (he was 28 years of age and had been a priest for five years) Fr. Pio told his confessor that he had been experiencing the scourging and the crowing of thorns for years.

On August 5, 1918, a mysterious personage, pierced his heart with a lance, leaving him with an open bleeding wound. The same appeared again on September 20 and gave him his wounds in his hands and feet. They would stay with him till his death.

On October 22, 1918, Padre Pio wrote to his spiritual advisor, Padre Benedetto, describing how he received the stigmata. "On the morning of the 20th of last month, in the choir, after I had celebrated Mass, I yielded to a drowsiness similar to a sweet sleep.
All the internal and external senses and even the very faculties of my soul were immersed in indescribable stillness. Absolute silence surrounded and invaded me. I was suddenly filled with great peace and abandonment which effaced everything else and caused a lull in the turmoil. All this happened in a flash.
"While this was taking place, I saw before me a mysterious person similar to the one I had seen on the evening of 5 August. The only difference was that his hands and feet and side were dripping blood. The sight terrified me and what I felt at that moment is indescribable. I thought I should die and really should have died if the Lord had not intervened and strengthened my heart which was about to burst out of my chest.
"The vision disappeared and I became aware that my hands, feet and side were dripping blood. Imagine the agony I experienced and continue to experience almost every day. The heart wound bleeds continually, especially from Thursday evening until Saturday.
"Dear Father, I am dying of pain because of the wounds and the resulting embarrassment I feel in my soul. I am afraid I shall bleed to death if the Lord does not hear my heartfelt supplication to relieve me of this condition. Will Jesus, who is so good, grant me this grace? Will he at least free me from the embarrassment caused by these outward signs? I will raise my voice and will not stop imploring him until in his mercy he takes away, not the wound or the pain, which is impossible since I wish to be inebriated with pain, but these outward signs which cause me such embarrassment and unbearable humiliation" (Letters 1, No. 511).

The wounds that Fr. Pio bore in his body, were not an ornament. They were a source of severe continued physical pain. Yet that was bearable. Next to unbearable was the psychological agony he underwent because of repeated investigations, interviews, suspicions, objection, and limitations in his ministry imposed on him. This could be an eye opener for those who accuse the Church of inventing or boosting the supernatural for special interests! For Fr. Pio it was all part of a life-long night of agony in the Garden of Olives... (The wounds that Padre Pio bore gave a fragrance of flowers that filled the entire room.)

Stigmata is spontaneous manifestation of bloody wounds on a person's hands, feet, forehead and back - similar to the wounds of the crucified Jesus with corresponding and intense sufferings. (These are called visible stigmata.) Some only have the sufferings, without any outward marks, and these phenomena are called invisible stigmata. St. Catherine of Siena at first had visible stigmata but through humility she asked that they might be made invisible, and her prayer was heard. This was also the case with St. Catherine de' Ricci, a Florentine Dominican of the sixteenth century, and with several other stigmatics. Those who describe stigmata categorize these experiences as divine or mystical. Healing is usually reported within a few hours after the wounds appear. Some people who suffer from stigmata report feels of sadness, depression, weakness, their body in physical pain, prior to the bleeding. The blood will pour forth from openings on the body for an unknown amount of time -then just as suddenly disappear and heal. The openings can be just in one area of the body - such as the hands or feet - or in several areas of the body at the same time. The person is almost always in pain and discomfort when this occurs. Though some people feel stigmata is psychosomatically induced. This is rarely the case. Stigmata can affect women as well as men. The blood may be of a different type than the person who is having the experience. (The first recorded Stigmata was in the year 1222. His name was Stephen Langton of Canterbury, England.)

Moments of rapture which gave him strength and consolation were those he experienced in the celebration of Holy Mass, even though his wounds became more active and painful then. From 1960 on, he had to cut down on the time he spent celebrating Mass, from one and a half hour to half an hour, just because of the drain of physical resources he felt. After Mass he had to be accompanied and helped along to reach the sacristy.

"Always remain close to the Catholic Church, because it alone can give you true peace, since it alone possesses Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, the true Prince of Peace." - Padre Pio

His letters to his spiritual directors reveal the ineffable sufferings, physical and spiritual, which accompanied him all through life. They also reveal his very deep union with God, his burning love for the Blessed Eucharist and Our Blessed Lady.

From May 1968, the scabs that covered his wounds began drying up and slowly falling off. The last left his wounded body clear on September 20: three days before his death. From his youth, his health was not very robust, and especially in the last years of his life it declined rapidly. Silently, his imminent end was announced. He died peacefully on 23 September 1968 at the age of 81, surrounded by his confreres, his hand clutching his beloved rosary, his last words: "Jesus ... Mary." An extraordinary gathering of people attended his funeral. His body was entombed in the crypt of Our Lady of Grace Church.

On 20 February 1971, barely three years after the death of the servant of God. Pope Paul VI, speaking to the superiors of the Capuchin Order, said of him: "Look what fame he had, what a worldwide following gathered around him! But why? Perhaps because he was a philosopher? Because he was wise? Because he had resources at his disposal? Because he said Mass humbly, heard confessions from dawn to dusk and was - it is not easy to say it of one who bore the wounds of our Lord. He was a man of prayer and suffering.

"On this earth everyone has his cross. But we must act in such a way that we must not be the bad, but the good thief." - Padre Pio

On Feb. 16th, 1973, the Archbishop of Manfredonia, Mgr. Valentino Vailati, consigned the documentation to the Sacred Congregation for the Causes of Saints so as to obtain the "nihil obstat" for the beginning of the process of his Beatification. On March 20, 1983, the process for Beatification has begun. And on May 2nd, 1999 Pope John Paul II beatified Padre Pio in St. Peter's Square.

Historically, the first saint favoured with the wounds of Christ was St. Francis of Assisi. After him not a few were similarly privileged, but not all were declared saints. Padre Pio was the first stigmatized priest in the history of Church.

Are not such wounds a sign of sanctity? Not necessarily. Once proved genuine, the wounds - stigmata, to use the technical word - are considered as a special gift of God to the person who bears them, for reasons that He knows best; but that alone would not qualify a person for beatification. That could be said also of other privileges, like the gift of miracles. Incidentally, only miracles worked after death qualify a candidate for sainthood. Miracles worked during life are not considered.

"How terrible war is! Jesus suffers in each injured man" - Padre Pio

Fr. Pio was favoured with many other humanly speaking unexplainable gifts, like the gift of reading the mind of people, of prophecy, of bilocation, which means being in two different places at one and the same time. We could fill a whole library and still miss many details. But all this loses glamour when compared to his personal sanctity: his patience, humility, candour, love for forgetting self and doing good to all in need which were an overflow of his consuming love of God.

From the hundreds of stigmatics there are 62 saints or blessed bearing the stigmata, 30 of whom are mentioned below:

St. Francis of Assisi (1186-1226);

St. Lutgarde (1182-1246), a Cistercian;

St. Margaret of Cortona (1247-97);

St. Gertrude (1256-1302), a Benedictine;

St. Clare of Montefalco (1268-1308), an Augustinian;

Bl. Angela of Foligno (d. 1309), Franciscan tertiary;

St. Catherine of Siena (1347-80), Dominican tertiary;

St. Lidwine (1380-1433);

St. Frances of Rome (1384-1440);

St. Colette (1380-1447), Franciscan;

St. Rita of Cassia (1386-1456), Augustinian;