Padre Pio!

St. Padre Pio was born Francesco Forgione on May 25, 1887 in the small farming town of Pietrelcina, Italy. His family was  devoutly Catholic, attending daily mass and praying the rosary together. Padre Pio had 4 living siblings and 3 who had passed away. Pio was a very good child and at the age of five he dedicated his life to God. He loved to pray and as a young boy he could see and talk with Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and his guardian angel. But even as a boy, St. Pio had to battle the devil and this    continued throughout his life. Padre Pio was also ill most of his life, but his love of prayer and the Blessed Mother carried him though.

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.” At 15 years old, St. Pio entered into the Capuchin Order, where he studied to become a priest. On August 10, 1910, the twenty-three year old Fra Pio was ordained a priest and a day later celebrated his first Mass. When Padre Pio said mass, sometimes it would last for hours because he would experience a very deep love and union with God. What seemed like 5 minutes of prayer to him, would actually be hours! One day, about a month after being ordained, he was praying and Jesus and Mary appeared to him and gave him the wounds of Christ in his hands and feet, the stigmata. At first this was hard on St. Pio, because he didn’t want people to see the wounds or be afraid but soon after he accepted this special gift from God. Years later he received all 5 wounds of Christ, and claimed that the most painful was his right shoulder, where Jesus carried His Cross. Many people accused St Pio of faking this stigmata and this caused him unwanted attention and frustration, yet something more he could offer up to Jesus.

By the time Padre Pio was 33 yrs old, his piety and love of Jesus was very well known. People would travel from all over to   attend mass or go to confession with St. Pio. It was reported that he could read souls in the confessional. St Pio had many extraordinary gifts and charisms including the gift of healing, bilocation, prophesy, miracles, discernment of spirits, the supernatural ability to go without food and sleep, the gift of tongues (the ability to speak and understand languages he had never studied), the ability to read souls, the gift to see angelic forms, and the sweet fragrance which came from his stigmata.

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 his motto 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.

St. Pio life was filled with piety, service, and dedication. All his actions were for the Glory of God! He even founded the Home to Relieve Suffering. Pio calls it “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.”  On Sept. 23rd, 1968 at the age of 81, St. Padre Pio died, repeating his final words, JESUS, MARY, until his final breath.  Pio was canonized by Saint John Paul the Great on June 16, 2002. Today, his grave in Italy is visited by 8 million pilgrims per year, second only to Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine. St. Pio…pray for us!

Learn more about St Pio and check out this video!