Padre Pio was born May 25, 1887 in Pietrelcina, Italy, a small country town located in southern Italy. His parents were Grazio Mario Forgione (1860-1946) and Maria Guiseppa de Nunzio Forgione (1859-1929). He was baptized the next day, in the nearby Castle Church, with the name of his brother, Francesco, who died in early infancy. Other children in the family were an older brother, Michele; three younger sisters: Felicita, Pellegrina and Grazia; and two children who died as infants. 
Religion was the center of life for both Pietrelcina and the Forgione family. The town had many celebrations throughout the year in honor of different saints and the bell in the Castle Church was used not for ringing the hour, but for daily devotional time. Friends have described the Forgione family as "the God-is-everything-people" because they attended Daily Mass, prayed the Rosary nightly and fasted three days a week from meat in honor of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. Although Padre Pio’s grandparents and parents could not read and write, they memorized Sacred Scripture and told the children Bible stories. It was in this lovely family setting that the seeds of Faith were nurtured within Padre Pio.
From his early childhood, it was evident that Padre Pio had a deep piety. When he was five years old, he solemnly consecrated himself to Jesus. He liked to sing hymns, play church and preferred to be by himself where he could read and pray. As an adult, Padre Pio commented that in his younger years he had conversed with Jesus, the Madonna, his guardian angel, and had suffered attacks by the devil.
Padre Pio’s parents first learned of his desire to become a priest in 1897. A young Capuchin friar was canvassing the countryside seeking donations. Padre Pio was drawn to this spiritual man and told his parents, "I want to be a friar… with a beard." His parents traveled to Morcone, a community thirteen miles north of Pietrelcina, to investigate if the friars would be interested in having their son. The Capuchins were interested, but Padre Pio would need more education than his three years of public schooling.
 | In order to finance the private tutor needed to educate Padre Pio, his father went to America to find work. During this time, he was confirmed (September 27, 1899), studied with tutors and completed the requirements for entrance into the Capuchin order. At age 15, he took the Habit of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin on January 22, 1903. On the day of his investiture, he took the name of Pio in honor of Saint Pius V, the patron saint of Pietrelcina, and was called Fra, for brother, until his priestly ordination. |
A year later, on January 22, 1904, Fra Pio knelt before the altar and made his First Profession of the Evangelical Counsels of Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience. Then, he traveled by oxcart to the seventeenth-century friary of St. Francis of Assisi and began six years of study for the priesthood and continued his development in community life toward the profession of his solemn vows. After three years of temporary profession, Padre Pio took his final vows in 1907.
Then on August 10, 1910, the much-anticipated day finally arrived. The twenty-three year old Fra Pio was ordained a priest by Archbishop Paolo Schinosi at the Cathedral of Benevento. Four days later, he celebrated his first Mass at the parish church of Our Lady of the Angels.
Within a month of his ordination, (September 7, 1910), as Padre Pio was praying in the Piana Romana, Jesus and Mary appeared to him and gave him the wounds of Christ, the Stigmata. For Padre Pio’s doctors, the wounds created much confusion. He asked Jesus to take away "the annoyance," adding, " I do want to suffer, even to die of suffering, but all in secret." The wounds went away and the supernatural life of Padre Pio remained a secret...for a while.
On November 28, 1911, Padre Agostino, who was a contemporary, friend, and confidant, was advised that Padre Pio was ill. He rushed into Padre Pio’s room to care for him. Padre Agostino observed what he thought was a dying man and rushed to the chapel to pray. When he finished praying, he returned to Padre Pio’s room and found his friend alert and full of joy.
This was the beginning of Padre Pio’s documented ecstasies – all of which were "edifying, theologically correct and expressed a deep love for God. "
Due to Padre Pio’s on-going ill health, he was sent home to recuperate and was separated from his religious community from the end of 1911 – 1916. During this time, the Capuchin Constitution required a friar who was sent home because of illness had to maintain his friar life as much as possible. Padre Pio did this. He said Mass and taught school.
On September 4, 1916, Padre Pio was ordered to return to his community life and was assigned to San Giovanni Rotondo, an agricultural community, located in the Gargano Mountains. Our Lady Of Grace Capuchin Friary was approximately a mile from town and was not easy to reach. The Capuchins had a reputation for their holiness and simple life. When Padre Pio became a part of the community at Our Lady of Grace, there were seven friars.
With the outbreak of the war, only three friars stayed at Our Lady of Grace; the others were selected for military service. At the beginning, his responsibilities included teaching at the seminary and being the spiritual director of the students. He spent his free time reading the Bible and handling correspondence. When another friar was called into service, Padre Pio became in charge of the college.
In August 1917 Padre Pio was inducted into the service and assigned to the 4th Platoon of the 100th Company of the Italian Medical Corps. During this time he was very unhappy. By mid-October he was in the hospital, but was not discharged. Finally, in March 1918, he was dismissed and returned to San Giovanni Rotondo.
Upon his return, Padre Pio became a spiritual director and had many spiritual daughters and sons. He had five rules for spiritual growth: weekly confession, daily Communion, spiritual reading, meditation and examination of conscience. In explaining his spiritual growth rules, Padre Pio compared dusting a room, used or unused on a weekly basis, to weekly confession. He suggested two times of daily meditation and self-examination: in the morning to "prepare for battle" and in the evening to "purify your soul." Padre Pio’s motto, "Pray, Hope and Don’t Worry" is the synopsis of his application of theology into daily life. A Christian should recognize God in everything, offering everything to Him saying, "Thy will be done". In addition, all should aspire to heaven and put their trust in Him and not worry about what he is doing, as long as it is done with a desire to please God.
In July 1918, Pope Benedict XV urged all Christians to pray for an end to the World War. On July 27, Padre Pio offered himself as a victim for the end of the war. Days later between August 5 -7, Padre Pio had a vision in which Christ appeared and pierced his side. As a result of this experience, Padre Pio had a physical wound in his side. The experience has been identified as a "transverberation" or piercing of the heart indicating the union of love with God.
A few weeks later, on September 20, 1918, Padre Pio was praying in the choir loft in the Church of Our Lady of Grace, when the same Being who appeared to him on August 5, appeared again. It was the wounded Christ. When the ecstasy ended, Padre Pio had received the Visible Stigmata, the five wounds of Christ, which would stay with him for his remaining 50 years.
By early 1919, word about the stigmata began to spread to the outside world. Over the years countless people, including physicians, examined Padre Pio’s wounds. Padre Pio was not interested in the physicians’ attempts to explain his stigmata. He accepted it as a gift from God, though he would have preferred to suffer the pains of Christ’s Passion without the world knowing. God used Padre Pio – especially the news of his stigmata – to give people hope as they began to rebuild their life after the war. Padre Pio and his spiritual gifts of the stigmata, perfume, prophecy and bilocation was a sign of God in their midst and led people back to their Faith. So life at the friary and the Church of Our Lady of Grace began to revolve around Padre Pio’s ministry. A room and priests were designated to handle the correspondence and the remaining friars heard confessions. San Giovanni Rotondo began to be filled with pilgrims. Since there were no hotels, people slept outdoors. A normal day for Padre Pio was a busy nineteen hours – Mass, hearing confessions and handling correspondence. He usually had less than two hours to sleep.
As his spiritual influence increased, so did the voices of his detractors. Accusations against Padre Pio poured in to the Holy Office (today the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith). By June 1922, restrictions were placed on the public’s access to Padre Pio. His daily Mass time varied each day, without announcement to diminish the crowds, and he was ordered not to answer correspondence from people seeking spiritual direction. It was also rumored that plans were being developed to transfer Padre Pio. However, both local and Church authorities were afraid of public riots and decided that a more remote and isolated place than San Giovanni Rotondo could not be found.
Despite the restrictions and controversies, Padre Pio’s ministry continued. From 1924 – 1931 various statements were made by the Holy See that denied the supernaturality of Padre Pio’s phenomena. On June 9, 1931, the Feast of Corpus Christi, Padre Pio was ordered by the Holy See to desist from all activities except the celebration of the Mass, which was to be in private. By early 1933, Pope Pius XI ordered the Holy See to reverse its ban on Padre Pio’s public celebration of Mass, saying, "I have not been badly disposed toward Padre Pio, but I have been badly informed."
Padre Pio’s faculties were progressively restored. First, the confessions of men were allowed (March 25, 1934) and then women (May 12, 1934). Although he had never been examined for a preaching license, the Capuchin Minister General granted him permission to preach, honoris cuasa, and he preached several times a year. In 1939 when Pope Pius XII was elected pope, he began to encourage people to visit Padre Pio. More and more people began to make pilgrimages.
In 1940, Padre Pio convinced three doctors to move to San Giovanni Rotondo and he announced plans to build a Home to Relieve Suffering. As Padre Pio expressed to Pope Pius, " …a place that the patient might be led to recognize those working for his cure as God's helpers, engaged in preparing the way for the intervention of grace." The doctors were excited about the building, but were fearful that this was not the time to begin such a project with Europe being on the brink of another world war.
These fears did not stop Padre Pio and the project began. After the war, Barbara Ward, a British humanitarian, came to Italy to write an article on postwar reconstruction. She attended Padre Pio’s Mass and met one of the physicians who came to San Giovanni Rotondo to work with the Home to Relieve Suffering. Upon learning of the project, she asked that the Home to Relieve Suffering receive a part of the funds designated for reconstruction. Consequently, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) gave a grant of $325,000 for the project. The building opened its doors on May 5,1956. A year later, Padre Pio announced plans for a medical and religious center where doctors and interns could further their medical studies and Christian formation.
With the opening of the hospital, Padre Pio was truly now an international figure and his followers greatly increased. To accommodate all the pilgrims, a new, large church was constructed.
In the mid-1960s, Padre Pio’s health began to deteriorate, but he continued to say Daily Mass and hear fifty confessions a day. By July of 1968, he was almost bedridden. On the fiftieth anniversary of the stigmata (September 20,1968), Padre Pio celebrated Mass, attended the public recitation of the Rosary and Benediction. On the next day, he was too tired to say Mass or hear confessions. On September 22, he managed to say Mass and the attendees had to struggle to hear him. Just after midnight, in the early morning hours of September 23, Padre Pio called his superior and asked to make his confession. He then renewed his vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. At 2:30am, Padre Pio died in his cell. As he foretold, Padre Pio lived sick but died healthy, with the stigmata healed.On September 26, 1968, over a hundred thousand people gathered at San Giovanni Rotondo to pay their respects to this holy man. He was buried in the crypt prepared for him in the Church of Our Lady of Grace.
Padre Pio’s Daily Life as a Capuchin
3:00 a.m. His day began. He liked to spend several hours in prayer and meditation before Mass.
He would not celebrate Mass prior to 5:00 a.m.
Celebration of Mass – could last up to 2 hours
Padre Pio would bless, meet, and talk to people in the sacristy while vesting
After Mass and removing his vestments, Padre Pio would proceed to the choir on the balcony above the small church and make prayers of thanksgiving.
Then he heard confessions. – all morning (would take a morning break) and several hours in the afternoon12:00 Noon – would have lunch in the friary refectory
After lunch would go into the garden for 30 minutes of recreation
Would then take a short siesta
Pray a rosary
Early afternoon joined the community for afternoon Office
Would have private prayer time in the choir, sometimes for 2 hours
Would then work on correspondence
Mid Afternoon – resumed hearing confessions
4:30 p.m. Vespers and Benediction
Go into the garden for ten or fifteen minutes
At supper would join his community for juice and a cracker (By 1950, he was eating only an ounce of food a day.)
At sundown he would bless the people underneath the window of the choir
In the evening he would confer with other priests, deliver a lecture in town, or work on more correspondence
Late in the evening Padre Pio joined the community in Compline, the Night Office
The rest of the community would go to sleep, Padre Pio would study Scripture and pray
Nightly he would visit Padre Agostino’s room and get his blessing
Go to his room and read the Bible until 12:45 a.m., until it was time for Matins.
Then he would join 20 friars in the choir
At 1:30 a.m. would lay down
"Every Holy Mass, heard with devotion, produces in our souls marvelous effects, abundant spiritual and material graces which we, ourselves, do not know...It is easier for the earth to exist without the sun than without the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass!" Padre Pio
Padre Pio and Christ's Priesthood
The greatest feature of Padre Pio's life is its perfect conformity to Jesus Christ the Priest. To understand what this means it is necessary to first understand the Priesthood of Christ.
Christ's Priesthood
The entire Old Law, with its institutions and rituals, was a preparation for, and foreshadowing of, the New Covenant of Jesus Christ. Foremost among the properly religious institutions was the spiritual leadership of Jewish worship, with its three-fold division of High Priest, Priests and Levites. The role of the Priest was to accomplish the ritual sacrifices commanded by God, in thanksgiving for His blessings, in expiation for sin and in petition for needs. These sacrifices ranged from the bloody expiatory victims (lambs and bullocks) to the unbloody offerings of incense and cereal (grain). They were most notable for their sheer quantity, offered again and again, day after day, on behalf of Israel, and Israel alone.
However, while commanding these sacrifices God makes clear that he does not need them and that they do not in fact satisfy for sin (Ps. 40:6, Hosea 6:6). Through His prophets He tells of a time when an acceptable sacrifice will be offered by His Suffering Servant (Is. 53:11), and that this Sacrifice will be perpetuated among the Gentiles from end of the world to the other (Mal. 1:11).
Furthermore, with the change of victim (from lambs to the Lamb) there needed to be a change of priesthood, from one fixed in time by bodily descent, to an eternal priesthood that transcended time and was thus spiritual. This priesthood was already anticipated in Scripture and foretold by King David to be present in his descendant, the Messiah.
Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine, and being a priest of God Most High, he blessed Abram with these word: Blessed be Abram by God Most High, the creator of heaven and earth ... (Gen. 14:18-19)
The LORD says to you, my lord: "Take your throne at my right hand, while I make your enemies your footstool." The scepter of your sovereign might the LORD will extend from Zion. The LORD says: "Rule over your enemies! Yours is princely power from the day of your birth. In holy splendor before the daystar, like the dew I begot you." The LORD has sworn and will not waver: Like Melchizedek you are a priest forever." (Psalm 110:1-4)
The author of the Letter to the Hebrews explains it this way.
Every high priest is taken from among men and made their representative before God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He is able to deal patiently with the ignorant and erring, for he himself is beset by weakness and so, for this reason, must make sin offerings for himself as well as for the people. No one takes this honor upon himself but only when called by God, just as Aaron was. In the same way, it was not Christ who glorified himself in becoming high priest, but rather the one who said to him: "You are my son; this day I have begotten you"; just as he says in another place: "You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek." In the days when he was in the flesh, he offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered; and when he was made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, declared by God high priest according to the order of Melchizedek. (Heb. 5:1-10)
Thus it was that on the night before He consummated His Sacrifice on the Cross He conferred this Priesthood on the apostles, taking bread and saying,
This is My Body which will be given for you, do this in memory of me.
and taking wine and saying,
This cup is the new covenant in My Blood, do this in memory of me.
Thus, He not only fulfilled His promise to give Himself as spiritual food and drink to His disciples (Jn. 6: 54-55), elevating them to eternal life, but left the New Israel of His Church a priesthood which could sacramentally re-present His Sacrifice offered "once for all" (Heb. 10:10) on Calvary "until He comes again" (1 Cor 11:26, Mal. 1:11).Padre Pio's Conformity to Christ the Priest
It is into this priesthood, whose gifts are bread and wine and whose priest and victim are one and the same, Jesus Christ, that Padre Pio was ordained on 10 August 1910. The Church teaches that at the supreme moment of the sacramental re-presentation of Calvary in the Mass that the ministerial priest acts in persona Christi (in the person of Christ), showing forth in a mystical way the death of the Lord by the separate consecration of His Body and Blood.
To this Holy Sacrifice, offered visibly by way of signs - bread and wine - but presenting the invisible and eternal sacrifice of Christ (Heb. 10:14, Rev. 5:6), Padre Pio dedicated His most intense acts of piety, and obtained from the Father perfect conformity to the crucified Lord. So, close was this conformity that he lived it out even outside of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, through the immolation of the service of the confessional, dedicating long hours to the reconciliation of sinners, through a ministry of intense sufferings offered on behalf of others, through enduring the assaults of the devil that his spiritual children might not, and through the mystical conformity of the stigmata, the wounds of Christ's crucifixion, as the first priest in the history of the Church to do so. In all these ways Padre Pio was both priest and Victim like our High Priest Jesus Christ.
Love of Neighbor
by Most Rev. Paolo Carta, Bishop Emeritus of Foggia
Introduction
"To oppose the barbarity of hatred and violence we proclaim the Civilization of Love." This is the solemn statement of Pope Paul VI. "Padre Pio and the Civilization of Love" was the theme of our first meditation, contemplating and admiring Padre Pio in the fundamental aspect of the Civilization of Love, or rather love for our Lord, in its threefold dimensions of love for the Person of Christ, for the Mother of Christ and for the Church of Christ.
Let us now meditate on the second aspect, the second requirement, the second characteristic, that of the Civilization of Love or love for the brethren.
It is the great commandment of fraternal charity given by Jesus, who said: "I give unto you: a new commandment that you love one another, as I have loved von. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" - Jn 13,34.
Saint John, Apostle and Evangelist, warns in his First Letter 4,20: "If any man says I love God, and hates his brother; he is a liar.... And this commandment we have from God, that he who loves God, also loves his brother - if we love one another God abides in us, and his charity is perfected in us."
And Paul VI specified who the brother is that we must love, giving as motto for the Day of Peace 1971 "Every man is my brother."
Therefore the Civilization of Love is built on love for our Lord and love for neighbour. Padre Pio who was a sublime model of love for our Lord, was also a most shining example of love for the brethren and he put himself generously and heroically at their service to relieve their bodies and souls and save them.
Love for Neighbor by Giving Relief to their Bodies
The Home for the Relief of Suffering that was wanted by Padre Pio and built prodigiously by him is wonderful evidence.
And precisely because this work was inspired by evangelical charity for his neighbour, he had the noble and delicate thought of not wanting to call it a hospital or a clinic. He wanted to call it "home," because the home gives a sense of family, the home is the centre where hearts are united in love where there is concern for everyone, but with preference for the suffering members. And he wanted to call it Home for the Relief to indicate the aim and the trust that the sick person would find comfort, relief, and a serene recuperation of physical and moral energy.And he wanted to call it Home for the Relief of Suffering because the word suffering has a Christian sense and brings to mind the suffering of Christ in his Passion, in which the sick person participates intimately, giving to his sufferings a high spiritual and supernatural value.
Built by offerings that came from all parts of the world; carried out with the most modern standards, equipped with all the equipment of advanced science and advanced technology, rich with the assistance of zealous Capuchin priests and an excellent order of nuns, Apostles of the Sacred Heart, the Home for the Relief of Suffering will sing for centuries of the immense love Padre Pio had for his brethren in need of health care and religious and moral assistance, in serene and welcoming surroundings animated by the charity of Christ.
To those who pointed out to him that the Home for the Relief of Suffering was too luxurious and refined, Padre Pio replied: "Too luxurious? But if it was possible I would make the Home in gold because the sick person is Jesus, and doing everything for our Lord is doing little."
Before the inauguration, the periodical The Home for the Relief of Suffering wrote: "The Home was born from an ideal of love: that is to contribute towards relieving the sufferings of the human being under the sign of Christian charity; the true, the only charity which takes no notice of the difference of caste or political party, of religion or race, of nobility and wealth. Uniting, in particular, the rich and the poor, abolishing every hateful difference of treatment. The poor man, the very poor man is our brother: we owe him the greatest consideration. Charity, in the Home, will be specially directed to the poor, without making him feel his poverty. It will be a gentle charity, not humiliating but fraternal."
The ideal of love, the Home requests that the doctors bear in mind this exhortation of Padre Pio's of 6 May 1956: "You have the mission of curing the sick; but if you don't bring love to the sickbed, I don't think the medicines will be of much use. I have experienced this: my doctor - when I was ill in 1916-17 - my doctor, when curing me, first of all gave me a word of comfort. Love cannot manage without words. How can you express it if not with words that relieve the sick person spiritually? Bring God to the patients, it will be of more worth than any other cure.
The Home for the Relief of Suffering was solemnly inaugurated on 5 May 1956, Padre Pio's name day. I was Bishop of Foggia at the time and I went to Amendola airport to meet Cardinal Giacomo Lercaro, who was to preside at the celebrations. During the speeches I was sitting next to Padre Pio and I admired his humility as his name was praised sky high. During the Cardinal's speech he said: "On Thursday, when the Bishop and the priests wash the feet of the twelve poor men, the following words are sung: where there is charity and love, there is God.' This morning the thought struck me that this beautiful, clear sentence could be reversed: 'Where there is God, there is charity and love.' Where He passes, what He touches, where He comes... carries this note, this unmistakable seal of charity and love. Have you noticed this at San Giovanni Rotondo? Yes. The whole world has noticed it. Here God is; obviously there had to be charity and love!
That the Home for the Relief of Suffering was born of Padre Pio's love for the suffering brethren, glowed also from the words with which on that day he, Padre Pio, presented the work which caused universal admiration. Amongst other things, he said: "I thank the benefactors from all parts of the world who have co-operated. This is the creature that Providence, helped by you, has created. Admire it and together bless our Lord God. A seed has been placed on earth that He will warm with his rays of love. A new army made up of renunciations and love is about to arise to the glory of God for the comfort of souls and of infirm bodies."
On the first anniversary of the inauguration Padre Pio said to the benefactors: "May our Lord be praised. The Home for the Relief of Suffering has already opened its arms to several thousands of infirm bodies and spirits. God has warmed the deposited seed with his rays of love. From today we take up the second stage of the journey to be accomplished. The Home will have to increase the number of beds."
And the number of beds increased in his lifetime. And the number of beds increased after his death. And the number of beds is presently eight hundred and with the new wards this year there will be one thousand beds. (There are now 1,200.) In 1977 the sick admitted and cured have reached the number of 18,360; and from the opening of the Home - May 1956 to 31 December 1977 the patients who were admitted are exactly 306,785. Of this number not a few received medical care free of charge, because they were still without a medical scheme or old-age pensions.
A nun said to me: "But who can count the sick of soul who came to this hospital and went back to their families reconciled with our Lord and sincerely convinced and determined to stay in his grace? The Home of Padre Pio is always available and has open arms at all hours and for every necessity of suffering bodies and souls. The Home has been created for them and we are here for them always available with a heart bigger than the sea, following in the Padre's footsteps, ready to give even our lives to save the Home that. is under such attack."
At this point it is no longer home but city. And it is a city where the Civilization of Love triumphs.
LOVE FOR NEIGHBOUR TO RELIEVE SOULS
But Padre Pio's contribution to the Civilization of Love is even more abundant and generous in the heroic service of giving relief to souls.
The influx of the sick in body is impressive at San Giovanni Rotondo. Far more intense is the rush of the sick of soul.
They came from all parts of the world. They waited days and days for their turn, for their moment of grace and blessing: it was the moment of their confession to Padre Pio. After which they left happy, to tell everyone of the privilege they had received and to keep in their hearts all their lives the memory of the Padre's words sealed in Confession. Never can I forget the holy words he told me the first time I confessed to him, exactly fifteen days after my solemn entrance to Foggia as Bishop. Words of encouragement that went to the bottom of my heart and accompanied me for all of my twenty three years as Bishop, seven in Foggia, sixteen at Sassari with Apostolic Administration of also two other dioceses, Alghero and Ozieri.And that is the other marvelous aspect under which his figure emerges gigantically before us, Padre Pio the confessor. Or rather, Padre Pio martyr of the confessional.
I am a witness of what happened here around him. Every time I came here I saw a crowd famished for that divine grace that purifies souls, sanctifies and raises them up and rejoices them by virtue of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. And I have seen Padre Pio looking at that crowd moved with the same sentiments that animated the Heart of Jesus when He said: I feel pity for this crowd." And I have seen him tired, worn out, languishing and continuing to hear confessions for hours and hours from morning to night, men and women, the sick and the healthy, the rich and the poor, priests and laymen, coming from far and wide.
At the end of a day in the confessional, he wrote: "My work is always assiduous. And it is now one o'clock after midnight that I write these few lines. It is now nineteen hours that I have been working continually. Never mind!"
And he exercised the ministry of confession for the duration of fifty-eight years!
As far as I know in the story of the Church he has probably beaten all the records of resistance in the confessional. in the Cause for the recognition of the heroism of- his virtues for his beatification and canonization, this is certainly his major title of glory, this is the test of his sanctity, this is the most brilliant example that he has left for priests in the whole world in this present century and for centuries to come.
How can this heroism be explained? With love. With love for neighbour. Like Saint Paul, Padre Pio could say: "For the charity of Christ presseth us" 2 Cor 5,14.
In his letters we find splendid traces of this love for Christ that drove him to sacrifice himself, to give himself, for the good of the brethren and the relief of souls.
For our mutual edification, I extract some passages of various letters to his Spiritual Director.
"I am consumed with love for God and love for my neighbour."
"I am rapidly transported to live for my neighbour."
"I have worked, I want to work. I have prayed, I want to pray; I have wept and I want to weep always for my brothers in exile."
"I love souls as I love God."
"You must know that I do not have a free moment: a crowd of souls thirsting for Jesus fall upon me so that I don't know which way to turn. Before such an abundant harvest, on one hand I rejoice in the Lord, because I see the ranks of elect souls always increasing and Jesus loved more; and on the other hand I feel broken by such a weight."
"There have been periods when I heard confessions, without interruption for eighteen hours consecutively."
"I am overloaded with work, because I hear confessions all day and often at night hundreds of thousands of people. I don't have a moment to myself. But God helps me effectively in my ministry."
"I feel the strength to renounce everything, so long as souls return to Jesus and love Jesus."
Sometimes he treated penitents severely, but they were superficial, hypocritical penitents.
He sometimes refused to give absolution but he did this because he did not tolerate perseverance in evil, and because with the gift of scrutiny of hearts, he saw clearly in consciences and discovered the bad dispositions.
There was also a sin, the gravity of which made Padre Pio let fly, obliging him to condemn inexorably: the sin against maternity, the malicious limitation of children. This was a crime - a crime against life at its source - which he felt atrociously; he who had given his own life as a complete gift to our Lord.
In the biographies of Padre Pio we read of extraordinary happenings such as miraculous cures, and the mysterious perfumes that many perceived, from the day he received the stigmata to the day of his death. There is talk also of bilocations, that is to find oneself in two different and distant places at once. In this way General Cadorna, Supreme Commander of the Italian Army replaced after the defeat of Caporetto by General Diaz, in a moment of dejection, saw in front of him a friar, with bleeding hands and a gentle expression. On going to San Giovanni Rotondo he recognized Padre Pio in that friar.
In this way the well-known actor Carlo Campanini, spiritual son of Padre Pio, stated that he had seen him one day entering his house in Rome.
But quite frankly I have never given much importance to these phenomena. For me the phenomenon number one is the downright miracle of his love for the brethren manifested above all by superhuman resistance in the confessional for the relief of souls.
Love for Neighbor by Offering Himself as Victim
In my opinion, the supreme and sublime manifestation of Padre Pio's love for his brethren is constituted by his offering of himself as a victim for the conversion of sinners and the salvation of humanity.
The offering of a victim signifies offering himself to God with a full and perfect disposition of accepting any suffering and even death to obtain extraordinary graces.
On 29 November 19 10, he wrote to his Spiritual Father:
"I want to ask your permission for something. For some time past I have felt the need to offer myself to the Lord as a victim for poor sinners and for the souls in Purgatory. This desire has been growing continually in my heart so that it has now become what I would call a strong passion, I have in fact made this offering to the Lord several times, beseeching to pour out, upon me the punishments prepared for sinners and for the souls in a state of purgation, even increasing them a hundredfold for me, as long as He converts and saves sinners and quickly admits to paradise the souls in Purgatory; but I should now like to make this offering to the Lord in obedience to you. It seems to me that Jesus really wants this. I am sure that you will have no difficulty in granting me this permission" (Letters I).
On December 1910 Padre Benedetto replied:
"Make the offering of which you speak of and it will be most acceptable to the Lord. Extend your own arms also on your cross and by offering to the Father the sacrifice of yourself in union with our most loving Saviour suffer, -groan and pray for the wicked of the earth and for the poor souls in the next life who are so deserving of our compassion in their patient and unspeakable sufferings" (Letters I).
In an apparition of 12 March 1913, Jesus speaks and complains of the ingratitude of men and adds:
"My son, I need victims to calm my Father's just divine anger; renew the sacrifice of your whole self and do so without any reserve." And Padre Pio writes: "I have renewed the sacrifice of my life" (Letters I).
Padre Agostino encourages him like this:
"I know that you once offered yourself as a victim for sinners. Jesus accepted your offering and He has given you the grace to bear the sacrifice entailed. So have courage a little longer, for the reward is not far off" (Letters I).
He receives encouragement even from Heaven. Here are his words:
"Jesus, his beloved Mother... continue to encourage me and they keep on repeating that a victim properly so-called must lose all his blood" (Letters I).
"Did I not tell you that Jesus wants me to suffer without any consolation? Has He not asked me and chosen me to be one of his victims? Our most sweet Jesus has really made me understand the full significance of being a victim.
"It is necessary to reach the 'Consummatum est' (it is finished) and 'In manus tuas' (into your hands)" (Letters I).
After he had received the stigmata he always appeared as someone bent under a heavy weight. There was someone who pointed it out to him saying: "Padre, you suffer so much, why did you have the imprudence to offer yourself as a victim for all humanity. You, Padre, carry the Church on one shoulder and on the other the corrupt world convulsed by evil." He replied: "Pray that I will not be squashed."And on another day to someone who asked him how much he suffered, he replied: "As much as one can suffer who has taken the burden of all humanity. Pray for the one who carries the weight of everyone! Everyone's cross!"
Padre Mondrone of La Civiltà Cattolica commented: "Like Jesus he went about stooped and with great difficulty, from one fall to another, under the weight of the cross, of course, also because of his physical condition horribly tortured and bleeding. But tired above all because 'supra dorsum meum fabricaverunt peccatores' (the sinners ploughed my back)".
That back was loaded with the sins of the whole world from the first to the last, because they all had to be atoned for as everyone had offended God's Majesty. This was the real and most unbearable weight carried by Jesus' victim. In this way he lived his mission of Cyrenean for everyone, crushed by the sins of the world, in the confessional, crushed by the sins of the world at the altar. An abundance of grace flowed from Padre Pio's bleeding hands: from the hand that absolved in the confessional from the hand that offered bread and wine at the altar.
Victim in his lifetime, Padre Pio accepted death as a victim in complete clearness of mind, gently repeating the Names of Jesus and Mary. He died in the middle of the night, at 2.30 on 23 September 1968.
"Consummatum est!" It is finished!
CONCLUSION
Padre Pio has therefore written luminous pages in the story of the Church of the Civilization of Love with his love for our Lord and his love for his neighbour.
And to his spiritual children and whoever visits his tomb, he repeats with his example, the message, the invitation, the exhortation to be in the world witnesses and carriers of the Civilization of Love that has for foundation the evangelical command of charity, for source the Heart of Christ, for scene of action the whole world, for conclusion the triumph of love in unending centuries in Paradise. You also must receive this message of holy love with open hearts. Keep it in your heart as the spiritual fruit of your pilgrimage to Padre Pio's tomb. Spread it around you, in your families, in the world of work, in the schools, in social life and together with me address him this supplication with all your hearts.
Dearest Padre, we are happy to have come here on a visit with a spirit of faith and love.
We were moved at your tomb, we have admired this stupendous shrine built by you to the glory of Our Lady of Grace, we have devoutly followed the Way of the Cross placed on the mountain and we have rejoiced in contemplating the Home for the Relief of Suffering.
In a little while we will be leaving. But a part of our heart remains here with you. For the rest of our lives we will remember the days we spent here with you as days of grace, of blessings, of holy joy. We will speak of you to those we meet and we will exhort them also to come to you. We will carry your message of love to everyone.
But you, dear Padre Pio, pray for each one of us, for our personal sanctification, for our eternal salvation, for our families, for the sick, the children, the youth and the elderly.
Pray for our country so that hatred is extinguished, violence ends, fraternal love flourishes, the fruitful collaboration between social classes comes about and days of prosperity and serenity arise especially for the poor.
Pray above all for the Church, so that it accomplishes its mission of evangelization and promotes humanity for the advent of the Civilization of Love!
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