Sacred Heart Catholic Church at 302 West 11th Street, Elgin, TX 78621 US - Saint Padre Pio

Biography

 

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 4^th Platoon of the 100^th 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.

 

His Mass

Essentially connected with Padre Pio's share in Christ's Priesthood was his share in the Lord's sacramental immolation in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Remarkable in the Gospel accounts is Our Lord's longing to celebrate the Pascal Mystery of Holy Thursday and Good Friday.

 

There is a baptism with which I must be baptized, and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished! (Lk. 12:50)
I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. (Lk. 22:15)

 

Padre Pio was likewise eager. He would often awake by 12:30 or 1 a.m., asking whoever was caring for him if it was time for Mass yet. He would sit in his chair for several hours saying the rosary and preparing for Mass, finally going down to the sacristy around 4 a.m. for his immediate preparations. These would last until 5 a.m., when he would ascend the Altar for Mass like Jesus ascending Calvary.

During the course of the Mass Padre Pio would cry almost continuously. To an inquirer about this he said,

 

I don't want to shed small tears. I want to shed a flood of tears. Don't you see the great mystery of the Mass?

 

Maria Winowska, who has written a biography of Padre Pio (Le vrai visage du Padre Pio - The True Face of Padre Pio), described his Mass in this way:

 

The Capuchin's face which a few moments before had seemed to me jovial and affable was literally transfigured. . . . Fear, joy, sorrow, agony or grief .... I could follow the mysterious dialogue on (his) features. Now he protests, shakes his head in denial and waits for the reply. His ell. tire body was frozen in mute supplication....

Suddenly great tears welled from his eyes, and his shoulders, shaken with sobs, seemed bowed beneath a crushing weight. . . . Between himself and Christ there was no distance....

I defy those who have been at San Giovanni Rotondo to attend Mass as mere spectators....

One Friday I saw him panting, oppressed as a wrestler at bay trying in vain with swift tosses of the head to shake off some obstacle which prevented him from uttering the words of Consecration. It eventually resembled single combat from which he emerged victorious but broken. On other occasions after the Sanctus great drops of sweat poured from his forehead, bathing his face which was distorted with sobs. Here was truly the man of sorrow at grips with the agony.

 

This mystical Mass of Padre Pio could last for three hours, during which time Padre Pio not only experienced the Passion but also prayed for and saw in God all those who had recommended themselves to him. In time this length declined, until the years before his death it lasted about an hour.

 

This length of Padre Pio's Mass was not always appreciated, however. During his early priesthood, when for convalescence he was sent home to Pietrelcina, the length of the Mass represented a real burden to the farmers and shop-keepers who attended the parish church of St. Pius V. They loved Padre Pio, but their livelihood was being endangered. When this was mentioned to the pastor, Fr. Pannuello, he took care of the problem in a most unusual way. Standing at the back of the Church one day he made a mental command to Padre Pio to limit his Mass to 30 minutes. After that the Mass no longer was a burden for the parishioners. Such was Padre Pio's obedience and God's indulgence of the human authority He left His Church.

Owing to the era in which he lived the Mass which Padre Pio offered was according to the Missal as it existed before the Second Vatican Council (the so-called Tridentine Mass, named after the Council of Trent). When the new Rites began to appear in the mid 1960s (finalized in 1969 after his death) Padre Pio continued to celebrate the old. It has been alleged by some that this was due to his dissatisfaction with the liturgical changes. However, this was not the case. Already over 80 years of age and going blind, the only practical way for Padre Pio to offer the Mass was to pray the one he had been celebrating for 50 years. This same privilege was granted by law to all elderly priests. Later on, Padre Pio would also be given permission to sit during the entirety of the Mass, being unable to stand for long periods.

 

Confessor

Flowing from the Side of Christ on the Cross was the grace of reconciliation between God and Man (Rom. 5:8-11). Thus, on the evening of the Resurrection Our Lord appeared to His Apostles and said,

 

Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, Receive the holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained. (John 20:21-23)

 

Padre Pio's conformity to the Pascal Mystery of His Lord necessarily including the ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:18-20), its fruit. Toward that end he dedicated many hours of the day to the confessional, both in the mornings and the afternoon.

 

According to the practice common then he heard the confessions of men and women separately. The men's confessions he would hear in the sacristy, essentially in the open with a portable grill, while the women's would be heard in the church in his confessional.

To this task he brought an advantage that few confessors have, the ability to read hearts. Padre Pio's charism enabled him to know when someone was being deceitful in confession or simply had forgotten a serious sin, perhaps through lack of an adequate examination of conscience. In such cases he was able to tel the penitent exactly what they did and when, as well as any relevant circumstances. This drew many hundreds a day to him, moved by the grace of sincere repentance and the knowledge that Padre Pio could guide them with the wisdom of God in the spiritual life.

 

He also drew those who did not believe in his gifts or who intended to test the Padre. These were invariably unmasked, often in harsh ways. In the end they often repented, made a sincere confession and renewed their lives, despite their initial intentions.

 

Bilocation and Odor of Sanctity

The phenomenon of bilocation is one of the most remarkable gifts attributed to Padre Pio. His appearances on various of the continents are attested by numerous eye witnesses, who either saw him or smelled the odors characteristically associated with his presence, described by some as roses and by others as tobacco. The phenomenon of odor (sometimes called the odor of sanctity) is itself well established in Padre Pio's case. The odor was especially strong from the blood coming from his wounds. Investigation showed that he used absolutely no fragrances or anything that could produce these odors. The odors often occurred when people called upon his intercession in prayer and continue to this day.

 

Among the most remarkable of the documented cases of bilocation was the Padre's appearance in the air over San Giovanni Rotondo during World War II. While southern Italy remained in Nazi hands American bombers were given the job of attacking the city of San Giovanni Rotondo. However, when they appeared over the city and prepared to unload their munitions a brown-robed friar appeared before their aircraft. All attempts to release the bombs failed. In this way Padre Pio kept his promise to the citizens that their town would be spared. Later on, when an American airbase was established at Foggia a few miles away, one of the pilots of this incident visited the friary and found to his surprise the little friar he had seen in the air that day over San Giovanni.

 

 

As to how Padre Pio with God's help accomplished such feats, the closest he ever came to an explanation of bilocation was to say that it occurred "by an extension of his personality."

 

Stigmata

On the morning of the 20th September 1918, after having celebrated Holy Mass, the priest Padre Pio retired to the choir stalls for his usual thanksgiving. The place was S. Giovanni Rotondo and the church, Our Lady of Grace.

 

Outside in the small piazza the morning was similar to most other mornings on the Gargano. The friary, lying at the foot of the mountain, high above the village, seemed isolated and remote, altogether cut off from the world. Peace and quiet hung heavy in the mountain air filling the huge spaces with indescribable serenity and calm.

Chirpings of birds, muted and subdued, coming as if from far off and the monotonous drone of a myriad of flying insects were sounds to accentuate the silence of the place. They adorned but did not disturb it. Already the clear lines of morning were fading and merging into the heat of midday. High up, a blazing sun seared the massive garganic granite, sending all creatures hurrying to the cool oasis of shuttered rooms.

 

Only a few old folk long accustomed to this midday furnace moved slowly about, entering the small church to say their devotions, then emerging and making their way across to the ancient yew-tree dominating the middle of the piazza to rest silently in its shadow. A day like other September days with little hint that it could be any different from those which had preceded it or from those which must assuredly follow it.

 

For the young priest, however, just then kneeling in the chapel of the church, this morning was to be very different, a fateful morning like no other, containing within it a destiny, a summons whose imperious and exalted demands he would attempt to fulfill to the end. Here inside the church the silence was very great. Not a sound penetrated the thick walls from outside as P. Pio, oblivious to everything except the memory of his recent Mass, slowly prostrated in loving adoration before the outspread, bloodied figure on the crucifix.

 

With that marvelous facility possessed by the mystics by which all external objects are abandoned he withdrew into himself, his spirit yielding to the peacefulness which invaded his whole being, a peacefulness, he later wrote, "similar to a sweet sleep". In this absolute silence he prayed, mind and heart totally wrapped in the burning love which consumed him like some incurable fever. A sweet calm heralding the forthcoming storm.

 

What happened next can best be told in the simple, unadorned words of P. Pio writing to P. Benedetto little more than a month afterwards:

 

"It all happened in a flash. While all this was taking place, I saw before me a mysterious Person, similar to the one I had seen on August 5th, differing only because His hands, feet and side were dripping blood. The sight of Him frightened me: what I felt at that moment is indescribable. 'I thought I would die, and would have died if the Lord hadn't intervened and strengthened my heart which was about to burst out of my chest. The Person disappeared and I became aware that my hands, feet and side were pierced and were dripping with blood" (Ep., V. 1, no. 5 10, p. 1094).

 

P. Pio had just received the visible stigmata. There was nobody about. Silence settled once more round the brown robed figure now lying huddled on the floor.

 

A long Calvary had just begun and with it the answer to a prayer: the prayer of his profound desire to identify with Christ crucified not only by participation in the priestly apostolate but in some mysterious way in that supreme immolation of Our Lord on Calvary. He had not desired this physical conformity and when he had recovered somewhat from the immediate experience his embarrassment was extreme:

 

"I am dying of pain because of the wound and because of the resulting embarrassment which I feel deep within my soul. . . Will Jesus who is so good grant me this grace? Will he at least relieve me of the embarrassment which these outward signs cause me."

 

Not the wound, not the pain did he wish removed but only the visible signs which at the time he considered to be an indescribable and almost unbearable humiliation.

 

Later, much later, however, he would come to love and cherish these divine marks of predilection, drawing from them that rich source of superhuman energy which from then on marked his apostolate of love and suffering. With Catherine of Siena he could truly say: "My wounds not only do not afflict my body, but they sustain and fortify it. I feel that what formerly depressed me, now invigorates me." His wounds, hitherto invisible but now manifested exteriorly, mark a definitive stage of his soul's transformation into the object loved, namely, the Lord who suffered and was crucified.

 

For the next fifty years they would confound impartial science; their continuous and profuse effusion of blood, accompanied often by the sweetest fragrance, came to be regarded as a prolonged miracle, because, as the experts correctly state, blood for its production requires nourishment while this friar's extraordinary frugality was such as hardly to maintain the life of a small child.

 

The remarkable nature of this miraculous gift becomes more apparent when it is considered how such loss of blood was simply inconsonant with and disproportionate to the stamina and energy with which P. Pio with ever greater activity and zeal conducted his life in all matters relating to the service of God.

 

Such are the bald facts of P. Pio's stigmata. From his correspondence it is clear that very early in his priestly life there were, at least, indications of what eventually came to pass. Writing to P. Benedetto as early as 1911, only a year after ordination, P. Pio described a phenomenon which he had been experiencing for almost a year:

 

"Then last night something happened which I can neither explain nor understand. In the middle of the palms of my hands a red mark appeared, about the size of a penny, accompanied by acute pain in the middle of the red marks. The pain was more pronounced in the middle of the left hand, so much so that I can still feet it. Also under my feet I can feel some pain."

 

This is his first mention of the phenomenon to his spiritual father because, as he says, he was overwhelmed with shame. He simply did not want to talk about it, hoping no doubt that it was a passing thing which would soon clear up and then be forgotten.

 

Four years later, in 1915, his beloved P. Agostino demands certain information in the name of Jesus: When did Jesus first favour him with celestial visions ? Has Jesus made him a gift of his stigmata even though invisible? How often does he feel the crown of thorns and the scourging? P. Agostino asks these questions not out of curiosity but for the glory of God and the salvation of souls (Ep., V. 1, p. 659).

 

In his reply to this letter P. Pio recognizes the express will of God and willingly answers all three questions. To the first he replies that Jesus began to favour "his poor creature" not very long after his novitiate (Jan. 1903 to Jan. 1904); to the second, whether Jesus made him a gift of the stigmata, the reply is affirmative and we learn that from the start the wounds were visible, especially in one hand, but that P. Pio was so terrified in the face of this phenomenon that he begged the Lord to withdraw them.

 

From then on they did not appear again until September 1918 although their pain remained and were felt more acutely under certain circumstances and on determined days. The final question he also answers affirmatively. He experiences the pain of the crown of thorns and the scourging. How often he cannot say except that at the time of writing he has been suffering from them almost once a week for some years (cf. Ep., V. 1, p. 669).

 

The rest is history. News of the event spread like wildfire and by the following year there began that afflux of pilgrims to the tiny friary which has not ceased since. At first in a tiny stream they came, later in the tens of thousands, flocking to glimpse this priest with the wounds of Christ, to assist at his Mass, to kiss those mittened hands and for those who could speak Italian the privilege of confessing to him.

 

In all this, of course, there were dangers. The danger of a "personality cult"; of the possibility of self-induced wounds produced by a morbid, impressionable, temperament; the danger of fraud and deception, deliberate or otherwise, with the intent of leading a credulous faithful astray; that the stigmata was nothing more than an effect of natural causes rather than a supernatural gift; and finally, there was the dangerous possibility of preternatural and diabolic activity.

 

In the light of this, and in retrospect, it is understandable why the Church authorities took a course of action that at the time seemed harsh and cruel but which today can be seen, at least in part, as the anvil on which P. Pio's sanctity was hammered out, put to the test and purified to become the luminous and diaphanous veil through which men glimpsed God.

 

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