/پیو پیترلچینای قدیس /پادره پیو/پدر پیو /

One of Padre Pio’s missions was to “make the cross of Jesus Christ visible”. Christ took on the human form in order to make the invisible visible. This revelation of God did not end with His Ascension, for upon His return to His Father, Our Lord sent the Spirit of Holiness. Since then, every century has had its share of saints whose perfect lives in imitation of Christ seem to renew His Incarnation. The exterior life of some saints sometimes espouses that of Christ so perfectly that they relive His Passion in their own flesh.

On September 20, 1918, as he was praying before a crucifix hung before the monks’ choir, rays of light from the crucifix pierced his hands, feet and side like arrows. The young 31-year-old Capuchin did not know it yet, but for the next fifty years, until September 20, 1958, he would bear the visible marks of the Passion of Christ that he relived every day.

One of Padre Pio’s missions had begun: that of making the cross of Jesus Christ visible, of enlightening souls as to the reality of the sacrifice renewed on the altar and reminding priests and faithful of the priest’s vocation as a victim: “Unless the grain of wheat dies, it will not bear fruit.” “Do as you have seen Me do.”

Born on May 25, 1887, into a peasant family, little Francesco Forgione was the fourth of seven children. His parents had a very simple life and lived in a poor home in Pietrelcina. They were solid Christians and hard workers.

As a young boy, Francesco was already favored with visions and extraordinary phenomena. From his earliest years until the end of his life, Padre Pio was used to receiving visits from angels, Marian apparitions and.... being subjected to diabolical violence. At first, the child thought all other boys his age experienced the same things.

Beware, dear reader, for this is where devotion to Padre Pio could go astray. As the spiritual authors explain, extraordinary phenomena are not sanctity; they sometimes, and even often, go hand in hand; they can occur without sanctity, but they must be carefully distinguished from it. If Padre Pio is a saint, it is not because of his bilocation and other exceptional phenomena, but because of his heroic virtues.

And little Francesco practiced heroic virtue from the very start. Did his mother not find him sleeping on the ground, with his head on a rock? His piety was solid, his obedience absolute, his diligence in his studies and duties more than admirable, and his friendship exemplary.

At the age of fifteen, a strange vision implicitly revealed his future to him: an angel invited him to fight against a giant much stronger than him. Reluctantly, the young teenager fought and won. With this divine commemoration of David and Goliath, Providence announced to Francesco the violence of the battles to come.

A few weeks later, on January 22, 1903, at the age of fifteen, he entered the Capuchin novitiate of Morcone, and took the name Fra Pio da Pietrelcina.

His mother was there, but his father was in the United States, working to pay for his children’s studies. For seven years in all (3 and then 4), this admirable father was separated from his no less admirable wife and his dear children in order to provide for them all.

The young novice’s studies continued until 1909. The young monk proved serious, studious and satisfactory, but not brilliant. Towards the end of his studies, he rapidly ascended the sanctuary steps; after receiving the first minor orders in 1908, he was ordained a deacon the following year in July 1909.

But health troubles came to try the young monk. He had to interrupt his studies and even the convent life and was ordered to go rest at his family’s home in Pietrelcina. This temporary rest would last…seven years. Despite this difficulty, he was ordained a priest in the cathedral of Benevento on August 10, 1910, and celebrated his first Mass in Pietrelcina on August 14.

Separated from the other Capuchins, and a prey to terrible interior trials, he corresponded regularly during this period with Fr. Agostino, his spiritual director, who told him to write down his interior combat and the extraordinary graces he received.

One superior planned to send him away to live as a secular priest, but he was told to return to the convent in 1911. The devil was furious, and he attacked and beat the young mystic so violently that the guardian of the convent, moved by a very Franciscan inspiration, ordered Padre Pio to ask for the grace to be tormented… in silence from then on. This grace was granted that very evening, to the great joy of the Capuchins who were a bit tired of the noise and the villagers who were beginning to be a bit worried.

But Padre Pio’s weak health soon forced him to return to Pietrelcina. The doctors had a hard time finding a diagnosis. One of them even announced he would not last more than a week.

He left Pietrelcina again to go to Foggia, where the air did not suit him at all. On July 28, 1916, he was advised to go to San Giovanni Rotondo to rest for a few weeks. He would remain there until his death…

From 1918 to 1921, the priest’s apostolate grew and the doctors who observed his wounds were convinced of their inexplicable nature. Pope Benedict XV even went so far as to say that “Padre Pio is one of those men God sends to the earth once in a while to convert nations.”

The year 1921 changed the course of events. An ecclesiastical conspiracy of corrupt priests living with women and presided over by a bishop who practiced simony was influential in Rome. The bishop of Manfredonia, the diocese the convent of San Giovanni Rotondo belongs to, even claimed he had seen Padre Pio put on perfume and powder and pour nitric acid on his wounds to deepen the stigmata! And the canons of San Giovanni Rotondo, at least some of them, gossiped about the juicy profits the Capuchins were making off their “stigmatist”. The worst is that they were taken seriously.

Worried by these episcopal claims and canonical revelations, Rome was wary… of the Capuchins. A difficult period followed for Padre Pio, as the apostolate entrusted to him was little by little taken away. There was even talk of transferring him to another convent. This was enough to stir up the locals, who were determined to keep and defend their “santo”. A rebellion was not far off. Thinking he was going to leave this little village perched on the headland of Gargano, Padre Pio wrote this touching letter, whose final words are now engraved in the crypt where he used to be buried.

“I will always remember this generous people in my poor and assiduous prayer, imploring for them peace and prosperity; and as a sign of my affection, being able to do nothing else, I express the desire that as long as my superiors do not object, my bones will be laid to rest in a tranquil corner of this ground.”