Vigils Reading – St Pio of Pietrelcina (Padre Pio)

St. Pio of Pietrelcina (Padre Pio)  from Butler’s Lives of the Saints [1]

The most famous stigmatist since St Francis of Assisi was born into a family of agricultural laborers in Pietrelcina, northeast of Naples, on May 25, 1887. In 1903 he received the capuchin habit, taking the name of Fra Pio. Seven years later he was ordained to the priesthood. Not long after this he began to experience pains in his hands and feet, and on September 11, 1911 he confessed to his spiritual director that he had had invisible stigmata for over a year. He also suffered the pains of Christ’s crown of thorns and scourging.

On august 5, 1918 he underwent the further mystical experience of “transverberation” (piercing with the lance), which left him with a wound in his side that bled continually. A month later the stigmata in his hands and feet became visible and remained so until the final day of his life. The Capuchins made no attempt to conceal Padre Pio’s condition, which soon became known all over Italy and was the main cause of both his celebrity and the controversy that surrounded him. As people started flocking to his convent in their thousands, the Vatican, cautious as ever when faced with “private” favors and revelations, had him examined by a succession of doctors. The physical manifestations were undeniable. But were they from God, the psychosomatic effect of a disturbed personality, or even a fraudulent attempt on his part of that of the convent to achieve notoriety?

Huge crowds attended his Masses, during which he went into ecstatic states that could last for two hours or more. In July 1923 he received an order to say Mass in private, but so real was the threat of a violent popular reaction that it was rescinded the following day. Padre Pio himself made no comment on his condition other than that he was “a mystery to himself” but his gifts should produce benefits for others.

His community was able to ensure that they were so used when money offerings started coming in from his penitents and admirers. In January 1925, he opened a twenty-bed hospital that was named after St. Francis and remained in operation for thirteen years.

Throughout this time apostolic visitations continued, as the church authorities attempted to establish the “genuineness” of his stigmata and of his ever-growing ministry. In 1931 he was suspended from all priestly functions apart from saying Mass, which he was required to do in private. However after two years official doubt again yielded to popular enthusiasm, and the restrictions were lifted.

In 1940, with the particular support of Maria Pyle, a wealthy American woman to whose mother he had ministered as she was dying in 1929, Padre Pio was in a position to undertake a more ambitious hospital project. Medical and administrative committees were set up, but the Second World War delayed further implementation of the project until 1946, when a limited company was formed to carry the work forward.

By 1948, when the number of penitents was such that Padre Pio was obliged to establish an advanced booking system, Pope Pius XII and the Vatican were taking a more favorable line. Padre Pio was invited to visit the Pope, who suggested the formation of prayer groups to support the work of the hospital. His vision here was original. The schedule for each day was divided into times for prayer and times for science, and he declared that he wanted the foundation to include an international study center, a hospice for old people, and a cenacle for spiritual exercises, all to be run by a “new militia” in the service of the sick.

In 1959 Padre Pio’s own health deteriorated. Then in August he recovered, apparently miraculously, when a statue of Our Lady of Fatima was brought into the hospital for two days.

He died on September 23, 1968, and doctors who examined his body found his hands and feet unmarked and “fresh as those of a child”. He was beatified and later canonized by Pope John Paul II. In his address the Pope spoke not so much of Padre Pio’s extraordinary experiences but of the long hours the friar would spend in the confessional and of his extraordinary charity, which, he said, “was poured like balm on the sufferings of his brothers and sisters.”

[1] Butler’s Lives of Saints – New Full Edition – September – Liturgical Press – Collegeville, MN – 2000 – pg 216f