Saint Pio, pray for us

Life the past six weeks has been chock full - beginning with the early surprise appearance of our dear, little Isaac Jogues Samuel, followed by graduations, anniversaries, birthdays and a funeral. I found myself spiritually and emotionally drained. I was in dire need of some soul food. The announcement in our parish bulletin about a healing Mass caught my eye. The more I read about it, the more I was determined to attend. It was taking place, after all, on Papa's 94th birthday - June 16th - but it was my recently deceased step-father's connection to Padre Pio that compelled me more.

I didn’t realize that June 16 was also the 8^th anniversary of the canonization of Saint Pio until the visiting priest mentioned it during the Mass last Wednesday night. The visitor, Fr. Pio Mandator, F.M.H.J. is a Franciscan priest living as a missionary hermit in the diocese of Scranton, PA. His parents came from the same town as Saint Pio – Pietrelcina in southern Italy. They knew Padre Pio well. Our pastor invited Fr. Pio to celebrate Mass at our parish and to deliver a homily focusing on Padre Pio as healer. After Mass the congregation was invited to receive individual and family blessings with one of Saint Pio’s gloves.

While he was ill and slowly journeying toward his eternal home, my mother prayed to Saint Pio for her life-long protestant husband’s conversion to Catholicism. And it happened. As I've mentioned in previous posts, my step-father entered into the fullness of Truth and Faith during Holy Week of this year. The event lifted all of us, providing joy where there had only been sorrow and uncertainty. It was an event that gloriously and beautifully propelled my step-dad through pain, suffering and death into the loving arms of His savior. My brother had given Ernest a medal of Padre Pio that had been touched to his tomb. During his illness, on good days and on bad, he asked for that medal and his new-found devotion to this beloved saint provided him comfort and hope throughout his prolonged ordeal.

And so, I was happy to be at that Mass and to pray once again for Saint Pio's intercession on behalf of my step-father's soul. I listened in awe to the stories Fr. Mandator recounted about this willing instrument of God's grace - his ability to read souls, his God-given gift of healing of not only physical ailments, but most importantly of the plague of doubt and unbelief. Always bringing souls to Christ, our Divine Physician.

The Mass was stunningly beautiful. Outwardly, it didn't seem much different from the countless Masses I've attended my entire life and in reality it wasn't. But my experience of it was different and I'm at a loss as to how to describe it accurately. All I can say is that I knew we were not only celebrating Mass in union with all of Heaven - we were indeed in Heaven! All of us - my friends who were suffering physically and emotionally, those who have kept their needs deep in their own hearts for only God to know, and others, strangers to me, but not to God - worshiped there among the angels, the saints, and those who have gone before us - the entire body of Christ. And the words Fr. Mandator had spoken moments earlier during his homily became vividly clear, and all that I had been telling my mom over the past year was affirmed during the Eucharistic prayer. We would all face illness, tragedy and even death, but Christ has conquered death through His own sacrifice on the Cross. Life is eternal and we were made to be in perfect union with our Father.

After Mass,  those present were invited to approach Fr. Mandato to be blessed with one of the saint's gloves. Not a magic wand, Father cautioned, but a relic; a glove Padre Pio wore to cover the wounds of the stigmata. During the blessing, Fr. Mandato explained, he would be asking Padre Pio to intercede on our behalf. Being a hermit, and in the tradition of the early desert monks, Fr. Mandato also provided each individual and family a few words (hopefully divinely inspired) that we could take with us to meditate upon and perhaps live by. Those with infirmities or with young children were given permission to 'cut in line'. I sat and watched throngs of people approach Fr. Pio, some in tears, some radiating joy. My own eyes filled with tears (as they had done many times throughout the evening) when I saw my dear friends, Kathy and Lyle, with all their progeny in tow, walk up to receive their blessing. Kathy has written a lovely piece about this on her blog, Faith on the High Wire. It's a beautiful testimony to why Padre Pio is important to their lives and what it meant for Kathy to be present at this Mass of healing and renewal.

As I waited my turn to be blessed, I listened to the organist play "Here, I am Lord" - one of the hymns we sang at Papa's funeral and I knew that the good Padre Pio had heard my prayers and was lifting them up with his own. I left that night blessed and rejuvenated and walking on air.

Saint Pio, pray for us.

(c) Darby C. Fitzpatrick 2010