Padre Pio of Pietrelcina. The Saint of the stigmata. Biography

The life of St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, known as Padre Pio, was a humble friar, priest, stigmatic and mystic, revered as a saint of the Catholic Church most famous for practicing piety, charity and energetic correction in the sacrament of confession, in which he possessed the gift of reading hearts and knowing people´s sins before they were mentioned. Padre Pio belonged to the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin. Padre Pio´s life was always surrounded by many mystical situations that are beyond our comprehension.

Feast: September 23.

Roman Martyrology: Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina (Francis) Forgione, priest of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, who in the convent of San Giovanni Rotondo, in Pugli, worked tirelessly in the spiritual direction of the faithful and in the reconciliation of penitents, and showed a special care and predilection for the poorest and neediest, and who on the day of his earthly pilgrimage, departed completely configured to Christ crucified.

Biography of Padre Pio.

This is the life of Padre Pio, who received many gifts for the salvation of God´s people. Padre Pio was born as Francesco Forgione, in Pietrelcina, Benevento, on May 25, 1887, son of Grazio and Giuseppa, very poor but very devout peasants, who every night, gathered in the family, recited the holy rosary.

The supernatural came to this future saint at a very early age. While still a child, Padre Pio´s life would change completely. Francesco Forgione (Padre Pio) received frequent visits from Jesus and Mary, saw demons and holy angels, but because he thought everyone had these faculties, he did not tell anyone about it.

His surrender to the priesthood.

On January 22, 1903, at the age of sixteen, St. Pio de Pietrelcina entered the convent of the Capuchin Franciscans taking the name Friar Pio de Pietrelcina.

St. Pio of Pietrelcina became a priest seven years later, on August 10, 1910. He wanted to go out as a missionary to distant lands, but his health did not allow it, he was always too weak for that.

Padre Pio and illness.

The first years of his priesthood were made even more difficult by his poor health, so his superiors sent him back to Pietrelcina several times, where the climate seemed to suit him better. St. Pio´s lungs were in very poor condition, and the doctors did not give him long to live.

Padre Pio´s life became a great oblation to God. The illness to which Padre Pio of Pietrelcina was exposed was caused by the terrible oppression of the devil, who, according to the friar, did not let him rest, torturing him in body and spirit.

In 1916 the superiors moved Padre Pio to San Giovanni Rotondo, in the Gargano, a place he never left. Here, in the convent of Santa Maria della Grazia, an extraordinary adventure began for this "little praying friar" (as he called himself) as a miracle worker and apostle of the faith.

Countless men and women, from the Gargano and other parts of Italy, filled his confessional, where he spent about 16 hours a day imparting God´s forgiveness and leading souls to God, drawing strength from prayer and the recitation of the Rosary up to five times a day, coupled with great spiritual and physical suffering.

The stigmata of Padre Pio.

The life of Padre Pio was an enigma to many. On September 20, 1918, Holy Padre Pio received the stigmata of the Passion of Christ. His wounds would remain forever open, with great pain and bleeding that he endured, by the grace of God, for more than fifty years.

St. Pio of Pietrelcina was visited by a high number of doctors, suffered misunderstandings and calumnies, was subjected to canonical defamatory inspections, which the stigmatized friar, as the "son of obedience" that he was, accepted with great patience and humility.

From then on, Padre Pio´s life began to bear many blows and sufferings. Padre Pio was suspended from his duties "a divinis", and only after several years was he absolved and reinstated in his priestly ministry.

Relief of Suffering House and Padre Pio Prayer Groups.

In the 1940s, with the power of the weapon of prayer, St. Pio of Pietrelcina fought against the terrible reality of World War II, which gave birth to the Prayer Groups, among the most popular in the Church today, with more than two hundred thousand devotees spread throughout the continent.

Together with the "Relief of Suffering House", these two fruits of God and little friar, become his spiritual legacies, the sign of a life dedicated to prayer and marked by a fervent devotion to the Virgin, by whom the friar felt faithfully protected in his daily struggle against the devil, and who twice miraculously healed him, in 1911 and 1959.

In the latter case, the doctors had given up treating him, expecting his early departure, when after the arrival of the statue of Our Lady of Fatima Pilgrim in San Giovanni Rotondo, on August 6, 1959, the Holy Father Pio of Pietrelcina was suddenly healed, to the astonishment and joy of all his devotees.

Padre Pio and the Virgin Mary.

"Is there a shortcut to Heaven?", Holy Padre Pio was once asked, and he replied, "Yes, Our Lady.... She is the sea through which one reaches the shores of eternal splendor." He always urged his spiritual children to pray the Rosary and to imitate Our Lady in her daily virtues, such as humility, patience, silence, purity and charity.

Padre Pio´s life would become a perfect veneration of Mary. He himself always had a holy rosary in his hand, recited unceasingly in its entirety, especially at night. "This prayer is our faith, the support of our hope, the explosion of our charity."

The small cell where Padre Pio lived, it was number 5, had a sign hanging on the door with a famous phrase of St. Bernard:

"Mary is the whole reason for my hope."

In May 1956, St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina dedicated to Mary the "Casa Alivio del Suffering", one of the most qualified health centers today in all of Italy and internationally recognized, with about 70,000 admissions annually, modern equipment, and linked to the leading research institutes in the world.

Regarding the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Holy Father Pio of Pietrelcina would once say: "Is it not enough for you to know that she is the Mother of God, that all the angels and saints do not come to praise her worthily? God is the Father of the Word, Mary is the Mother of the Word, made flesh. The Lord grants us nothing if it does not pass through the hands of the Queen of Heaven. If God is the source of living water, Mary is the aqueduct that brings it to us. Love her on earth, and you will contemplate her in heaven."

The gifts of Padre Pio.

Throughout Padre Pio´s life, countless people claimed that this little friar was assisted by the very hand of God. Thousands of testimonies have been collected over the years of extraordinary experiences of people who met or prayed with Padre Pio.

1. The stigmata (which he had for 50 years):

These stigmata were analyzed and studied and tried to be explained in various ways, but doctors could never find a scientific explanation for them.

2. The "impossible" hyperthermias.

A completely inexplicable fact, especially because these extraordinary fevers not only did not kill him, but did not leave any clinical consequences. On several occasions his body temperatures reached 43°C, 45°C, 48°C, and once he even reached 52° Celsius.

3. Bilocation.

Although he never left San Giovanni Rotondo, his apparitions on several continents are confirmed by numerous eyewitnesses, even by groups of people.

4. The odor of sanctity.

Well established in the case of Padre Pio; the odor was especially strong coming from the blood of his wounds, this odor accompanied him throughout his life, it was produced mostly when people prayed to him and until now, from his incorrupt body, they continue to give off this odor.

5. Extraordinary Discernment.

Padre Pio had the ability to read hearts and consciences, so much so that, to many people in the confessional, he would tell them the sins they omitted or did not remember so that they could truly repent.

6. Miraculous healing.

Many people enjoyed inexplicable healing and were attributed to him through the power of prayer, and some are also recognized by the Church.

7. Talking with the angels.

Padre Pio communicated daily with these creatures of God, some of them served as messengers who communicated the state of a person or a particular event.

Death of Padre Pio.

September 22, 1968 was a great celebration of the faithful, who were celebrating the 50th anniversary of his stigmata.

Padre Pio had been very ill for some days, but he wanted to celebrate Mass, which he managed to do with special permission. He recited the Our Father in Latin, as usual, and collapsed after saying "deliver us from the evil one..." The event was filmed, and clearly shows that her hands were completely healed.

That same night, at 2:00 a.m., with the assistance of doctors and fellow friars, and shortly after receiving the sacred oils, he breathed his last on this earth and departed for his heavenly homeland. Holy Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, pray for us.

Pope St. John Paul II recited this prayer on the occasion of the feast of the canonization of St. Padre Pio on June 16, 2002.

[Padre Pio] teach us, we pray, humility of heart, so that we may be numbered among the little ones of the Gospel to whom the Father promised to reveal the mysteries of his Kingdom. Help us to pray without ceasing, confident that God knows what we need even before we ask him. Grant us the eyes of faith that help us to recognize in the poor and suffering the very face of Jesus. Sustain us in the hour of difficulties and trials and, if we fall, let us experience the joy of the sacrament of forgiveness. Grant us your tender devotion to Mary, Mother of Jesus and our Mother. Accompany us in our earthly pilgrimage towards the blessed Homeland, where we too hope to arrive to contemplate forever the Glory of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Prayer of intercession to St. Pio of Pietrelcina in difficulty.

Dear God, you have generously blessed your little servant, the humble friar St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, with the gifts of the Spirit. You marked his body with the five wounds of Christ Crucified, as a powerful witness to the saving passion and death of your Son. Endowed with the gift of discernment, St. Pio worked tirelessly in the confessional for the salvation of souls. With reverence and intense devotion in the celebration of Holy Mass, he invited countless men and women to a greater union with Jesus Christ in the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. I pray to you with confidence, O Lord, through the intercession of St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, to grant me this grace that I need.

Mention here your petition.

Pray the Our Father, Hail Mary and the Glory be to the Father (three times). Amen.

Holy Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, through the merits of the Divine Infant Jesus, and through the sufferings granted to you for the saving work of Our Lord, help me to love God above all things and to rely on Mary as the best way to reach Heaven. All this I ask through Jesus Christ, Our Lord. Amen.

The life of Padre Pio of Pietrelcina remains a mystery both for the Church and for Science itself. His stigmata are an enigma. His life of prayer and sacrifice employed in the sacrament of penance made him a man of God dedicated to the purification and salvation of lost souls. St. Pio of Pietrelcina, by your life and work, pray for us.