SAINT PIO OF PIETRELCINA

 “Padre Pio”

1887 – 1969

Feast Day: September 23

Patronage: none official

Invoked For: forgiveness,  healing of all kind

Symbols: stigmata, crucifix

  “Pray, hope and don’t worry”

            Padre Pio

            With these words Padre Pio was able to make people who never thought of spiritual matters, religious. He is known as the saint of the common people, always consoling, always accessible to those who visited or wrote to him  A mystic who could bilocate and read hearts, he had assured his fellow monks that he would become even more prevalent a force after his death. Today, millions of people a year flock to the little monastery he never left in order to be in his spiritual presence.

            Named for Saint Francis of Assisi, Francesco Forgione was born in Pietrelcina, a small town north of Naples. As a child he experienced many spiritual visions of Christ and the Virgin Mary but never mentioned them to anyone as he thought all people had them. Coming from a devout Catholic family, he entered the novitiate of the Capuchin Friars, an austere division of the Franciscans. He took the name Pio (Pious) and was ordained in 1910. Diagnosed with a form of tuberculosis, he was sent back to live with his family. Since he could not fulfill his duties as a priest he decided to offer himself as a conduit of suffering in the exchange of the salvation of others. While praying in his family’s home, wounds appeared on his hands, feet and side, similar to those inflicted on Christ. Embarrassed, he begged God to take these marks away. His prayers were answered and he was later conscripted into the army in 1916. While there, he fell ill with a fever that rose higher everyday. It is recorded that it broke the thermometer,  rising to 118 degrees, far higher than what would be considered fatal. Sent home to die, he recovered and his Father Superior ordered him to the remote monastery of Our Lady of Grace in San Giovanni Rotondo, Puglia, a province of Southern Italy. 

            While praying alone in the intense stillness of the church on September 20, 1918, he went into a trance like state of “waking sleep”.  He saw Christ standing before him, bleeding from his wounds. Pio was intensely moved and thought his own chest would burst in sympathy, but as he came out of this altered state he experienced excruciating pain. He was inflicted with the same stigmata as Christ and a fellow brother had to lead him away and bandage him up. Though he did what he could to heal his wounds, they never closed up until his death 50 years later. There are other mystical saints who have experienced the stigmata, starting with Saint Francis himself, but Padre Pio became the first ordained priest to have this condition.

            Since San Giovanni Rotondo is very near the Gargano shrine to Michael the Archangel, religious pilgrims began flocking to the monastery to hear Pio say mass. Wanting only to stay in the background and remain an anonymous friar, Pio suffered not only physical agony but psychological and spiritual pain as well. His life of constant prayer was greatly disturbed by the influx of curiosity seekers as well as those who considered him holy. Forced by his wounds to wear half gloves, many reported “the odor of sanctity” on his hands. His mysticism extended  to the confessional where penitents swore that Pio could read hearts. Many were sternly rebuked by him as he recited for them sins that they themselves had withheld or forgotten. After going to him for confession these same people reported feeling overwhelming joy and relief.

            All great mystics write about a period in their lives when they feel spiritually abandoned and God seems distant and unavailable. Saint John of the Cross has called this time in one’s life “the dark night of the soul”. Pio’s trials began in 1920 when Pope Benedict XV opened an investigation into the causes of his stigmata. Concerned about Pio’s cult following, doctors and archbishops were dispatched to interview him. Accusations of fraud and clerical misconduct would follow Padre Pio for the rest of his life as the Vatican launched over 12 future investigations into his conduct. In 1922, under Pope Pius XI, a specialist on stigmatic causes declared Padre Pio to be an hysteric who kept his wounds open with carbolic acid.. Padre Pio was ordered into seclusion and forbidden to say mass in public. A massive demonstration of 5000 people erupted in the village when it was rumored that their beloved friar was going to be moved. The Vatican agreed to leave him in Our Lady of the Angels but issued a decree warning against devotion to the priest as Padre Pio’s gifts were not to be considered of supernatural character. 

            While in seclusion, Pio calmly accepted his situation, he would spend hours of the day engulfed in prayer. Padre Pio has said that at this time he realized his true vocation was to suffer for the souls in purgatory so that they may win early release.  Though it deeply pained him to be under such intense suspicion, he obeyed the church authorities with humility and considered this time in his life a necessity for purging further imperfection from his soul.

             He never left his monastery at the same time people reported seeing him at the sick beds of hospital patrons hearing final confessions or comforting the fatally ill hundreds of miles away.  A fellow monk has written that he saw Pio shivering and murmuring in the middle of an intense heat wave. When he finally seemed to return to consciousness, the monk asked him where he was, “I was giving the last rites in the Alps,” he was told. “It’s very cold there.”

            In 1933 he was granted the privilege of saying mass in public again, but only at 5:30 in the morning. The little church would be filled to overflowing at this hour, people would begin lining up in the middle of the night to attend. Pio ate little and slept only three hours a night. Over his lifetime he heard over a million confessions. Though he could be gruff and angry with penitents he had a devout following. He began a small local prayer group which has since spread worldwide with 400,000 members. 

            During World War II, he promised the citizens of San Giovanni Rotondo that he would see to it that their town would be safe. The Germans had stored a depot of ammunition near the town which the Allies attempted to bomb, more than one officer reported seeing a monk in the sky with uplifted hands. Their bombs had fallen out of the planes into the woods and their planes had reversed course by themselves.  American soldiers, hearing about this “living saint” made the difficult trip up into the mountains to see Padre Pio. They too experienced his abilities, many thought he knew English when they went to his confessions, he was so successful at impressing his advice on their minds. On their return home, they spread his cult to every part of the United States. By 1947 Padre Pio was receiving more than 200 letters a day requesting advice and prayers from the United States, Europe and Australia.

            He used his growing popularity to found the House for the Relief of Suffering, a hospital for the hopelessly ill using only donations of the faithful. Today, it serves over 60,000 patients a year and is solely supported by charitable donations. Successful though he was, doubts about his real sanctity continued throughout his lifetime. Microphones were secretly planted in his confessional by Vatican investigators in attempts to find human flaws in his character. Though he never encouraged it, he developed a major cult following which was considered distracting and possibly dangerous by the Church.

            He died as he predicted he would, in 1968. His fellow monks heard him declaring that he saw two mothers at his bedside, then he murmured, “Jesus, Mary” before expiring. Over 100,000 devotees attended his funeral. The suspicions that many in the Church held of Padre Pio were dissolved in 2002 when he was canonized by Pope John Paul II in front of half a million people. This pope knew first hand, the mystical abilities of this obscure monk as he had traveled to San Giovanni Rotondo in 1947 when he was only a seminarian. While in confession with Padre Pio, he was given the astounding prediction that he would someday be pope. Years later, when he was the bishop of Cracow he wrote to Pio requesting prayers for a friend with cancer. Ten days later she was healed.

            . Today, a cathedral which holds 10,000 people at a time stands in the town where Padre Pio spent his life. San Giovanni Rotondo is second only to the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe for religious pilgrims. Like Saint Therese of Lisieux and his patron, Francis of Assisi, Padre Pio  does as much after his death as he did in life to bring grace and consolation to those in need.

             As a contemporary saint, most images of Padre Pio are standard photographs. Because of his willingness to suffer like Christ, Padre Pio is usually depicted with a crucifix or with his stigmatized hands bandaged.

                                 Prayer Asking the Intercession of Padre Pio

                                       Oh Jesus, full of grace and charity, victim for sinners,

                             So impelled by your love of us that you willed to die on the cross,

                                     I humbly entreat Thee to glorify in heaven and on earth,

                                             the servant of God, Padre Pio of Pietrelcina,

                                          Who generously participated in Your sufferings,

                                     who loved Thee so much and who labored so faithfully

                               for the glory of Your heavenly Father and for the good of souls.

                                            With confidence, I beseech Thee to grant me,

                                 through his intercession, the grace of which I ardently desire.

 Excerpted from the book “Saints: Ancient and Modern” by Barbara Calamari and Sandra DiPasqua

SAINT ALPHONSUS LIGUORI

1696 – 1787

            Crippled by arthritis and ready to die at age seventy-two, Saint Alphonsus Liguori went on to live another nineteen years, publishing over sixty books and writing poetry and music. His disease made him so conscious of his own mortality that he assumed each day was his last and lived accordingly. He is the patron of those suffering from arthritis and the pains of old age. He sets the example of turning suffering to an advantage. In his case, his ill health made him use his earthly time in the most efficient manner. Saint Alphonsus Liguori is most frequently invoked for a cure to illness, and if that is not possible, for a way to bear illness productively. It is also thought that those who suffer physical torments on earth and offer those pains as reparations for the sins of mankind have more intercessionary power after death than others. Because he spent so many years of his life in chronic pain, unable even to lift his chin off his chest, Saint Alphonsus is thought to be an extremely effective intercessionary force.

             Born near Naples, Italy, in 1696, Alphonsus Liguori started out in life as a brilliant lawyer. A doctor of law by the age of sixteen, he practiced for eight years before losing his first case. He always attributed his success at law to his daily attendance of mass. His first loss in court – the result of an oversight on his part – came as a devastating blow to him. Humiliated, he fasted and prayed for three days. While doing charitable works in the Hospital for Incurables, he found himself surrounded by mysterious light. The building seemed to rock and an interior voice said, “Leave the world and give yourself to me.” This occurred twice. A few years later, in 1726, he was ordained a priest. He devoted himself to working in the poorest areas of Naples and developed a reputation as a popular preacher. Though a highly educated professional, able to argue the smallest nuance in law and theology, Saint Alphonsus said, “I have never preached a sermon that the poorest old woman in the congregation could not understand.”  His confessional was always crowded, and he is credited with healing a great number of hardened sinners. Saint Alphonsus founded the order of Redemptorist fathers, dedicated to going out among the poorest neighborhoods. He wanted his priests to preach practical sermons and act as missionaries, bringing the word of God to the forgotten. At the age of sixty-six, Saint Alphonsus was made the bishop of Saint Agata, a diocese of thirty thousand people. When ill health forced him to be bedridden, the pope refused to accept his resignation because he felt that the power of Alphonsus’ s prayers would help his constituents more than the actual good works of anyone else. Saint Alphonsus died in 1787 at the age of 91.

             In art he is always depicted with his chin on his chest due to his arthritic condition.

 He is the Patron of: Charity

He is Invoked against: Arthritis, the Pains of Old Age

 His Feast Day is August 1

NOVENA TO SAINT ALPHONSUS LIGUORI

Glorious Saint Alphonsus, loving father of the poor and sick, all your life you devoted yourself with a charity really heroic to lightening their spiritual and bodily miseries. Full of confidence in your tender pity for the sick, since you yourself have patiently borne the cross of illness, I come to you for help in my present need.

(Mention your request).

Loving father of the suffering, Saint Alphonsus, whom I invoke as the Arthritis Saint, since you suffered from this disease in your lifetime, look with compassion upon me in my suffering. Beg god to give me good health. If it is not God’s will to cure me, then give me strength to bear my cross patiently and to offer my sufferings in union with my crucified Savior and his Mother of Sorrows, for the glory of God and the salvation of souls, in reparation for my sins and those of others, for the needs of this troubled world, and for the souls in purgatory.

(Recite one Our Father, one Hail Mary and one Glory Be).

Saint Alphonsus, patron of the sick, pray for me. Amen.

Say this novena nine times in a row for nine days in a row.

Excerpted from the book: “Novena: the Power of Prayer” by Barbara Calamari and Sandra DiPasqua.

SAINT CLARE OF ASSISI

Abbess and Founder of the Poor Clares

1193-1254

Feast Day: August 11

Patron of: embroiderers, eye disease, gilders, goldsmiths, laundry workers, occulists, telephones, television

Invoked: against fever, against blindness, for good sight

Symbols: monstrance, cross, olive branch, lily, sometimes a lamp

 “Love God, serve God: Everything is in that.”

                                                Clare of Assisi

            Without ever leaving  her convent on the outskirts of Assisi, Saint Clare founded orders of nuns throughout Italy, France, and Germany. Though she maintained a vow of silence, Popes, Cardinals and royalty came to her for spiritual advice. Only twelve years younger than her mentor, Saint Francis of Assisi, she quietly helped him lead a movement of young people that confronted the church hierarchy for their material excesses and  revolutionized religious expression by embracing simplicity and poverty.

            Chiara Offreduccio was the daughter of a wealthy Count and Countess in Assisi, Italy and displayed little interest in the worldly advantages offered by her highborn state. She was eighteen and destined for an arranged, profitable marriage when she heard Saint Francis deliver the Lenten sermon at her church.  Inspired by his simple message of living with complete trust in God, she conspired to run away and live like this new order of mendicant friars, dependent solely on alms received from begging. The turning point for her occurred on Palm Sunday of 1212 . That day, Clare went to the Cathedral of Assisi in her finest clothes for the blessing of the palms. While others went to the altar rail to receive their palms, she sat in her seat, too shy to move. With the entire congregation as witnesses, the bishop stepped down from the altar and delivered the palms to her. She took this as a sign to act on her plan.

            Homes in Assisi were built with two doors, one for regular use and one called the Door of the Dead, opened only to remove a coffin from the house. That night, Clare secretly cleared the debris from the Door of the Dead and stepped through it, renouncing her former life and the material world forever. She slipped through the woods to the chapel of the Portiuncula, where Francis and his small community of men were at prayer. Clare exchanged her finery for a penitential tunic of coarse cloth tied with a rope, and  Francis cut off her luxurious hair in front of the Blessed Virgin’s altar. Having no separate living facility for women, he then took her to the local Benedictine convent.

            Clare’s family embarked  on a rescue mission, sparing no expense. During a violent struggle to drag Clare her from the convent, her clothing was torn off, and her shorn hair revealed. She declared to her shocked father, “The only spouse I will have is Christ, and further attempts to remove me from my chosen life will make me more steadfast!”  Her powerful father had to submit to her will and leave her behind. To his great anguish his younger daughter Agnes joined Clare two weeks later. Thus began a retreat of wealthy young women turning their backs on privilege and society in order to follow a higher spiritual path. Francis of Assisi had offered his peers a way of living that shook the foundations of society in the Middle Ages. Instead of becoming dependent behind the walls of staid, established religious orders, he encouraged his followers to exist in a day-to-day manner, experiencing nature and depending on the good will of others. The joy he and his band of friars exuded was infectious and he developed a following wherever he went. Clare was the first young woman with the courage to join him. 

            In 1215 when Clare was twenty two years old, Saint Francis installed her as the Abbess of the Order of Poor Ladies in a small house across from the Church of San Damiano. These women followed the Franciscan rule, forbidden to own property or material goods and entirely dependent on the alms the Friars Minor could beg for them. Upon the death of her father, Clare did not veer from Saint Francis’s teachings. She gave her vast inheritance to the poor rather than to her own religious community. This act of devotion caused much controversy – church authorities expected women to give their dowries to the religious orders they joined. This was to ensure that the nuns would be supported throughout their lives and would not serve as a burden to their parish communities.

            Despite this disagreement with church hierarchy, convents of “Poor Clares” as the order became known, were started in cities all over Italy, gradually spreading to France and Germany. These first convents attracted many educated and wealthy women who not only walked away from titles and estates but also lived in a state of self imposed austerity that was considered extreme for men and unheard of for women. They went barefoot, wore sackcloth, slept on the ground, ate no meat and maintained a vow of silence, speaking only out of necessity. Agnes, daughter of the King of Bohemia, broke her engagement to become Empress of the Holy Roman Empire to start an order of Poor Clares. The correspondence between Agnes and Clare leaves a lasting portrayal of the intellectual brilliance and good nature of the order’s founder.

            Because of her great mind,  Saint Clare was an invaluable advisor to Saint Francis. When he was wrestling with the choice of becoming a religious hermit or going out in the world to evangelize his movement, she encouraged him to go out to the people. It was Clare who nursed Francis through the last days of his life, and it was under her care that he composed one of his greatest works, “Canticle of the Sun.” After Francis’s death Clare could never be convinced to relax his strict rules of poverty remaining the most loyal adherent of his teachings.

            Though she was Abbess of her own order of nuns, Clare lived as humbly as possible. She served at the table, tended the sick and washed the feet of the lay sisters when they returned from begging. Because of the austere manner in which she lived, Clare’s health suffered, and  like Francis, she had the reputation for mystical powers. When she prayed she exuded a rainbow aura  and enjoyed a silent rapport  with animals. While bedridden, she would embroider altar cloths for neighboring churches and her cat would bring her whatever she needed..

            In 1234 the army of Frederick II was at war with the Papal States, and the convent of Poor Clares came under attack by a band of Saracen mercenaries. Clare rose from her sick bed and took a monstrance containing a host from the chapel. While ladders were being set up for the invaders to scale the walls, Clare calmly prayed, “Does it please Thee, O God, to deliver into the hands of these beasts the defenseless children whom I have nourished with Thy love? I beseech Thee good Lord, protect these whom now I am not able to protect.” She then heard the voice of a child saying, “I will have them always in my care.” In response, she turned to the terrified nuns and told them to have no fear but to trust in Jesus. In that instant, the attackers were seized with an incredible wave of dread and they fled the convent. The citizens of Assisi credit Clare with saving them from a later assault by the same army. Telling her nuns that they needed to support the city which had given them so much charity, she had them pray through a day and night until the attacking army inexplicably gave up and retreated.

            Two days before her death at the age of 59, Pope Innocent IV approved the rule for her order which she had formally written herself. As she lay on her death bed her sister and the early followers of Saint Francis were at her bedside, reciting the same prayers for her as they had said for him.

            In art, Saint Clare is usually depicted holding the monstrance which she held in driving out the Saracens. Those working in embroidery as Clare did, frequently suffer from eye problems, and so she is their patron as well as patron to those who treat the eyes. Because gold work requires intense use of the eyes, gilders are also under her patronage. Because her name ‘Chiara’ means “clear”, she is called upon for clarity of vision.  Since laundresses work at dawn and her name reminds one of the effects of the rising sun, they are also under her protection. Vision and clarity accompanied Clare throughout her life. When she was too ill to attend Christmas midnight mass, she was able to visualize it on her wall, amazing those who did attend by relaying exact information of the events. Because of this miracle she was named the patron of television, telegraph operators and the telephonein 1958.

Prayer of Saint Clare of Assisi

                                    Go forth in peace, for you have followed the good road.

                             Go forth without fear, for he who created you has made you holy,

                                     Has always protected you, and loves you as a mother.

                                          Blessed be you, my God, for having created me.

Excerpted from the book “Saints: Ancient and Modern” by Barbara Calamari and Sandra DiPasqua