• =?UTF-8?Q?September_23rd_=E2=80=93_St=2E_Padre_Pio?=

    From rich@1:396/4 to All on Sun Sep 22 08:29:17 2019
    From: rich <richarra@gmail.com>

    September 23rd =E2=80=93 St. Padre Pio

    Our so-called =E2=80=9Cprogressive=E2=80=9D 1900s may go down in history as=
    the
    bloodiest of centuries. Nevertheless, this will still rank as a
    century of great saints.

    One of those saints was declared =E2=80=9Cblessed=E2=80=9D on May 2, 1999. =
    He is
    Father Pio of Pietrelcina, a Capuchin Franciscan friar. Most
    well-informed Catholics had heard of him when he was alive. Now that
    the full story of his life is better known, he will become even more
    deeply appreciated.

    Pio's proper name was Francesco Forgione. His native village,
    Pietrelcina, is not far from Benevento in south central Italy. His
    parents, Orazio and Maria Giuseppa De Nunzio Forgione, were
    subsistence farmers who had to struggle mightily to support their five children.

    Although poor, the Forgiones were very devout. One of the daughters
    became a Brigittine nun. Francesco, born in 1887, was, by the age of
    five, a gentle, uniquely prayerful child already aspiring towards the
    religious life. His father positively encouraged him in the vocation.
    As a matter of fact, Orazio spent two periods in Jamaica, Long Island,
    earning enough extra money to make his son's dream come true. As a
    result, the boy was able to enter the Capuchin friars in 1903, take
    his first vows as =E2=80=9CFra Pio Forgione=E2=80=9D in 1904, and be ordain=
    ed a priest
    in 1910.

    His road to the priesthood had not been easy thus far. Constant
    illness had been his companion, and his soul had been a battle ground
    for good and bad angels. Furthermore, after ordination, he had to
    recuperate at home for six years before being able to take any fixed assignment. Finally, in 1916, he was sent by his superiors to the
    Capuchin monastery of San Rotondo, on the rocky slopes of the great
    Gargano Promontory that juts out into the Adriatic Sea. San Rotondo
    would remain his residence for life.

    In 1918 two unusual events occurred that did much to shape Padre Pio=E2=80= =99s
    future apostolate. On August 5, 1918, by now far advanced in
    contemplative prayer, Pio had the experience of being pierced by a
    lance as Christ had been pierced. Then on September 20, 1918, the
    Feast of the Stigmata of St. Francis of Assisi, while praying in the
    church choir, he was stunned by a great pain in his hands and feet.
    Coming to, he found that he now bore the wounds of Christ crucified.
    He was the first known priest to receive that puzzling =E2=80=9Cgift=E2=80= =9D, and it
    was to be his longer than any other stigmatist's: until his death 5=
    0
    years later. As time passed, he became somewhat accustomed to the
    stigmata, but they never ceased to bleed (although they never
    festered), and they were the source of persistent pain and
    inconvenience.

    Thenceforth, Pio embarked on what was to be his characteristic
    apostolate. Moved by deep concern for all people in need, he aimed at
    serving all mankind compassionately. The afflicted of body and soul
    soon began to appeal for his prayers and come to him as pilgrims. His
    superiors had forbade him to preach or write or correspond, but
    visitors to San Rotondo could attend his crowded daybreak Masses and
    talk to him in the confessional. Padre Pio's Masses lasted 70 minut=
    es.
    So reverent were they that they were like a retreat in themselves.
    After Mass, he would hear confessions for 10-12 hours daily. It was
    estimated that he heard as many as 25,000 confessions per year. With
    the aid of several secretaries he was able to keep more or less
    personal contact with his thousands of disciples. He also had them
    organize into hundreds of prayer groups in their own localities.

    God gave the Capuchin stigmatist many charismatic gifts to help him
    the better to serve his flock. He had the ability to read hearts, for
    example, and even to foretell specific events. He could heal bodies as
    well as souls; thanks to a divine privilege, he performed a variety of
    physical miracles in an off-handed way. One of many, by way of
    illustration, was his cure in 1947 of the blindness of a little
    Sicilian girl named Gemma Di Giorgi. Gemma was born blind: there were
    no pupils in her eyes. When her grandmother asked Forgione to heal
    her, he said that she must first go to confession and receive her
    first Holy Communion. Once he had attended to that, he gently rubbed
    her eyes. A few minutes later she was able to see. The cure remained
    permanent, although her eyes still had no pupils!

    Equally marvelous was the Padre's ability to bilocate =E2=80=93 tha=
    t is, to
    remain at Monte Rotondo and yet be elsewhere at the same time. Thanks
    to this supernatural faculty there were no limits on his emergency
    travel. One day he might go to Genoa to heal a sick woman. The next
    day could find him in Milwaukee for the funeral of a fellow Capuchin=E2=80= =99s
    father. Once he went to Hawaii to visit a man in jail, at the urgent
    request of the prisoner's wife. At least five times while he was in
    his monastery, he was observed in St. Peter's, Rome, praying at the
    tomb of Pope Pius X. Nor was his full corporal presence necessary. He
    could, if need be, insert himself into people's dreams. Likewise, h=
    is
    disembodied voice could give a necessary command. And quite often, he
    could indicate his presence by a sudden waft of fragrance, usually
    floral and always refreshing. (Communication by perfume must have been something like communication by radio or television, but broadcast not
    to ears or eyes but noses!)

    Pope John Paul II has commented on the =E2=80=9Cmysterious fruitfulness=E2= =80=9D of
    the apostolate of Pio Forgione. He had undertaken to bear in love, it
    seems, not only the cross of Christ but the crosses of everybody else.
    It was an impossible task, of course, but God's special assistance
    made it at least partly feasible.

    Surely the most distressing of his personal crosses was the =E2=80=9Ccalvar=
    y
    of persecutions=E2=80=9D that Father Pio experienced at the hands of fellow churchmen.

    It is understandable that he should have become controversial. Called
    by God to be a sign of contradiction and marked with what seemed to be
    heavenly credentials, he marched to a different drum within a
    religious order accustomed to its own way of life. As his undertaking
    became more wide-ranging, his fellow Capuchins found them more and
    more unsettling. Fostered by hearsay, the debate about his status
    spread outside the Capuchin order as well. Father Pio's own
    archbishop, for instance, publicly questioned the Friar's stigmata,
    (which he was entitled to do); but he also showed, as he should not
    have, a vicious personal hostility towards him. When the Friar began
    to lay plans for his splendid 1200-room hospital in the remote
    countryside, those who found fault with him discovered a new charge to
    raise: he was mismanaging funds! Eventually, his adversaries even
    called into question his personal morality.

    At length the Vatican's Holy Office decided that only a thorough
    investigation could calm a tempest that threatened the Friar's whol=
    e
    apostolate. During the process, the Padre himself was suspended from
    his pastoral work. In the end, however, the Vatican department reached
    the conclusion that the charges had no firm basis. Indeed, the
    antagonistic archbishop was himself subjected to church discipline.

    Basically, Pio Forgione was a man of utter simplicity, completely
    obedient to his very particular calling. His =E2=80=9Cfaults=E2=80=9D were = those of
    his peasant background: a bit gruff at times, (but in voice, not in
    glance); a bit ironic; but with an enchanting smile and a saving sense
    of humor. Sheer humanness, in fact, was one of the most appealing
    traits of this profound mystic.

    Father Pio, despite his perennially frail constitution, lived to be
    81. When he died on September 23, 1968, there were 100,000 mourners at
    his funeral. His devotees have increased remarkably ever since. Six to
    =C2 millions of pilgrims come to Monte Rotondo yearly. That's far=
    more
    than to Assisi, and even more than to Lourdes. The hospital he built
    for the poor continues its charitable work. The prayer groups he
    established around the world continue to multiply.

    Padre Pio was accepted as a saint even before his death. When another
    year had passed and no public announcement had been made of a movement
    for his canonization, the press began to ask if the Church had once
    again turned against him. This was not at all the case. Church law at
    that time ruled that no cause for canonization could be opened until
    three decades after the candidate's death. The rule was often waive=
    d,
    however. It is significant that his procedure was initiated as early
    as 1969.

    At the same time, no shortcuts were allowed in the investigation,
    especially because of the controversial aspects of Pio's life. The
    process of beatification/canonization for a non-martyr focuses on his
    or her practice of the Christian virtues to a heroic degree. Such
    phenomena as stigmata are not entered into in depth. Super natural
    gifts of this sort do not sanctify the recipient but help him to
    sanctify others. Between 1969 and 1991 the Vatican Congregation on the
    Causes of Saints collected and analyzed 106 volumes of relevant
    documents, which presumably eliminated any lingering doubts About the Capuchin's real holiness. The Pope proclaimed his heroic virtue by =
    a
    decree of December 18, 1991, which accorded him the title =E2=80=9Cvenerabl= e=E2=80=9D.
    The miracle required for beatification was accepted as verified on
    December 21,1998.

    The Holy See knew that the beatification of Padre Pio would be a major
    church event, and planned accordingly. St. Peter's Square in Rome c=
    an
    accommodate, at best, 200,000 congregants. Provision was therefore
    also made in the square before St. John Lateran Basilica, Rome's
    official cathedral church across the City, for 100,000 more, and huge
    TV screens were set up so that they could view the whole ceremony.
    (After the Mass at St. Peter's, Pope John Paul II would fly to St.
    John Lateran's by helicopter and give this second audience a specia=
    l
    blessing!) It is likely that attendance that day set an all-time Roman
    record. While Italians doubtless predominated among the participants,
    the Padre Pio prayer groups were represented by many delegations from
    as far away as Japan, Korea and Indonesia.

    In his homily, the Pope, a personal friend of the new Beatus, did not
    hesitate to mention the long-term harassment he had suffered. The
    important thing, said the Holy Father, was that he had accepted that
    trial constructively in the spirit of obedience. What the episode
    demonstrated, said the Pope, was that saints can be =E2=80=9Cmisunderstood= =E2=80=9D
    even by their own superiors. The impact of BI. Pio of Pietrelcina, he
    was sure, would be great: =E2=80=9CBy his life wholly given to prayer and t=
    o
    listening to his brothers and sisters, this humble Capuchin friar
    astonished the world.=E2=80=9D

    Padre Pio was canonized on June 16, 2002. His name was solemnly added
    to the litany of those holy persons whose many virtues mirror the
    perfections of the Holy Trinity itself.
    --- NewsGate v1.0 gamma 2
    * Origin: News Gate @ Net396 -Huntsville, AL - USA (1:396/4)