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| Philippe Lissac | Leemage | AFP |
Early
Life
Francesco Forgione, well known as Padre Pio was born to Maria Giuseppa di
Nunzio Forgione (1859–1929) and Grazio Mario Forgione (1860–1946), in the small
farming town of Pietrelcina, Italy on 25 May 1887. His parents made a living as
peasants. Although their family was poor in material goods, they were
unquestionably rich in their faith life and in the love of God. He was baptized
at Santa Anna Chapel, a nearby chapel which stands upon the walls of a castle. When
he was baptized, he was given the name Francesco.
In this same chapel, he served as an altar boy. His siblings were an older
brother, Michele, and three younger sisters, Felicita, Pellegrina, and Grazia.
His parents had two other children who died in infancy.
In his young age, Francesco had already
manifested signs of extraordinary gifts of grace. Even at the age of five, he
had already dedicated his life to God. From his early childhood, he showed a
remarkable recollection of spirit and a love for the religious life. He began
taking on penances and was chided on one occasion by his mother for using a
stone as a pillow and sleeping on the stone floor. As would his mother
described him, Francesco was a quiet child who, from his earliest years, loved
to go to church and to pray. In his tender age, he was
able to see and communicate with, not only his guardian angel but also with the Lord Jesus and the Blessed Virgin Mary. As a kid, he thought that such a gift was
experienced by all. His education was delayed to some extent because he tended a small flock of sheep that his family owned.
Pietrelcina was a town where feast days of
saints were celebrated throughout the year, and the Forgione family was deeply
religious. They attended daily Masses,
prayed the Rosary nightly,
and abstained from meat three days a week in honor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Although
Francesco's parents and grandparents were illiterate, they memorized the
scriptures and narrated Bible stories to their children.
Education
In 1897, after he had completed three
years of studies at the public school, Francesco wanted to become a friar. He was
influenced by a young Capuchin friar who was in the countryside seeking donations. He expressed his desire to his parent, and they supported him
as they went to Morcone to find out if their son was eligible to enter the
Capuchin Order. The friars were interested in accepting Francesco but they
required him to have a more advanced education.
Because they didn’t have then the means to
educate Francesco, his father went to the United States in search of work to pay
for his private tutoring. He underwent private tutoring and passed the academic
requirements to enter the Capuchin Order. On 6 January 1903, at the fifteen years of age, he entered the novitiate of the Capuchin Order of the Friars
Minor in Morcone, Italy. He was admired by his fellow students as well as by
his Superiors for his exemplary behavior and his deep piety. One of the novices
stated, “There was something which distinguished him from the other students.
Whenever I saw him, he was always humble, recollected, and silent. What struck
me most about Brother Pio was his love of prayer.” On January 22, he took the
Franciscan habit and the name of Fra Pio, in honor of Pope St. Pius I. He took
the simple vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.
Priesthood
On 10 August 1910, at the age of twenty-three,
Padre Pio was ordained to the priesthood. The celebration of the Holy Mass was
for Padre Pio, the center of his spirituality. Due to the long pauses of
contemplative silence into which he entered at various parts of the Holy
Sacrifice, his Mass could sometimes last several hours. Everything about
him spoke of how intensely he was living the Passion of Christ. The parish
priest in Pietrelcina called Padre Pio’s Mass, “an incomprehensible mystery”. When asked to shorten his Mass, Padre Pio replied, “God knows that I want to
say Mass just like any other priest, but I cannot do it.”
His parishioners were deeply impressed by
his piety and one by one they began to come to him, seeking his counsel. For
many, even a few moments in his presence, proved to be a life-changing
experience. As the years passed, pilgrims began to come to him by the
thousands, from every corner of the world, drawn by the spiritual riches which
flowed so freely from his extraordinary ministry. To his spiritual children, he
would say, “It seems to me as if Jesus has no other concern but the
sanctification of your soul.”
Padre Pio is understood above all else as
a man of prayer. Before he reached thirty years old, he had already reached the
summit of the spiritual life known as the “unitive way” of transforming union
with God. He prayed almost continuously. His prayers were usually very simple.
He loved to pray the Rosary and recommended it to others. To someone who asked
him what legacy he wished to leave to his spiritual children, his brief reply
was, “My child, the Rosary.” He had a special mission to the souls in Purgatory
and encouraged everyone to pray for them. He used to say, “We must empty
Purgatory with our prayers.” Fr. Agostino Daniele, his confessor, director,
and a beloved friend said, “One admires in Padre Pio, his habitual union with
God. When he speaks or is spoken to, we are aware that his heart and mind are
not distracted from the thought and sentiment of God.”
Poor Health
Padre Pio suffered from poor health his
entire life. One said that his health had been declining from the time he
was nine years old. After his ordination to the priesthood, he remained in his
hometown of Pietrelcina and was separated from his religious community for more
than five years due to his precarious health. Although the cause of his
prolonged and debilitating illnesses remained a mystery to his doctors, Padre
Pio did not become discouraged. He offered all of his bodily sufferings to God
as a sacrifice, for the conversion of souls. He experienced many spiritual
sufferings as well. “I am fully convinced that my illness is due to a special
permission of God,” he said.
Stigmata
Shortly after his ordination, he wrote a
letter to his spiritual director, Fr. Benedetto Nardella, in which he asked
permission to offer his life as a victim for sinners. He wrote, “For a long
time I have felt in myself a need to offer myself to the Lord as a victim for
poor sinners and for the souls in Purgatory. This desire has been growing
continually in my heart so that it has now become what I would call a strong
passion... It seems to me that Jesus wants this.” The marks of the stigmata,
the wounds of Christ, appeared on Padre Pio’s body, on Friday, 20 September 1918, while he was praying before a crucifix and making his thanksgiving after
Mass. He was thirty-one years old and became the first stigmatized priest in
the history of the Church. With resignation and serenity, he bore the painful
wounds in his hands, feet, and side for fifty years.
In addition, God endowed Padre Pio with
many extraordinary spiritual gifts and charisms including the gift of healing,
bilocation, prophecy, miracles, discernment of spirits, the ability to abstain
beyond the human natural powers from both sleep and nourishment, the ability to
read hearts, the gift of tongues (the ability to speak and understand languages
that he had never studied), the gift of conversions, the grace to see angelic
beings in form, and the fragrance which emanated from his wounds and which frequently
announced his invisible presence. When a friend once questioned him about these
charisms, Padre Pio said, “You know, they are a mystery to me, too.” Although
he received more than his share of spiritual gifts, he never sought them, never
felt worthy of them. He never put the gifts before the Giver. He always
remained humble, constantly at the disposal of Almighty God.
His day began at 2:30 in the morning when he would
rise to begin his prayers and to make his preparations for Mass. He was able to
carry on a busy apostolate with only a few hours of sleep each night and an
amount of food that was so small (300-400 calories a day) that his fellow
priests stated that it was not enough food even to keep a small child alive.
Between Mass and confessions, his workday lasted 19 hours. He very rarely left
the monastery and never took even a day’s vacation from his grueling schedule
in 51 years. He never read a newspaper or listened to the radio. He cautioned
his spiritual children against watching television.
In his monastery in San Giovanni Rotondo,
he lived the Franciscan spirit of poverty with detachment from self, from
possessions, and from comforts. He always had a great love for the virtue of
chastity, and his behavior was modest in all situations and with all people. In
his lifetime, Padre Pio reconciled thousands of men and women back to their
faith.
Death
Serene and well-prepared, he surrendered
to Sister Death on 23 September 1968 at the age of eighty-one. He died as he
had lived, with his Rosary in his hands. His last words were Gesú, Maria –
Jesus, Mary – which he repeated over and over until he breathed his last. He
had often declared, “After my death, I will do more. My real mission will begin
after my death.”
In 1971, Pope St. Paul VI, speaking to the
superiors of the Capuchin Order, said of Padre Pio, “What fame he had. How many
followers from around the world. Why? Was it because he was a philosopher, a
scholar, or because he had means at his disposal? No, it was because he said
Mass humbly, heard confessions from morning until night and was a marked
representative of the stigmata of Our Lord. He was truly a man of prayer and
suffering.”
Canonization
In one of the largest liturgies in the
Vatican’s history, Pope St. John Paul II canonized Padre Pio on 16 June 2002.
During his homily, Pope John Paul recalled how, in 1947, as a young priest he
journeyed from Poland to make his confession to Padre Pio. “Prayer and
charity–this is the most concrete synthesis of Padre Pio’s teaching,” the Pope
said.
Drawing approximately eight million
pilgrims each year, San Giovanni Rotondo, where St. Pio lived and is now
buried, is second only to the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico in its
number of annual visitors.
St. Pio’s whole life might be summed up in
the words of St. Paul to the Colossians, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for
your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions
for the sake of his body, that is, the Church.”
ST. PIO OF PIETRELCINA
pray for us!
Bibliography
Daughters of Saint Paul. (2012). Lives of Saints. Pasay City,
Philippines: Paulines Publishing House.
Netikat, F. A. (2011). Saints for Every day. St. Mary's
Town, Bangalore: Asian Trading Corporation.
www.padrepiodevotions.org
www.americancatholic.org
www.catholicnewsagency.com
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