Padre Pio

Homily for Wednesday of the 25th Week in Ordinary Time

23 September 2009

St. Lawrence Catholic Center

Year for Priests

For daily readings click here.

Padre Pio. A modern saint. Lived in the 20th Century - canonized early on in the 21st, in 2002. A modern hero. My first parish, St. Michael, read a book about him for our parish book club. But I didn't read it, even though I noticed lots more people started coming to confession after reading the book. I hope they weren't expecting me to be Padre Pio. But they saw in the book the real power of confession, through the biography of a great confessor.

Padre Pio. I've seen parts of his movie biography. The Apostles of the Interior Life tell a great story about how he provided them with their first residence. I don't remember all the details, except that I believe them. I really believe he did it. I've read about how John Paul II really admired him, and entrusted prayer intentions to him. I know that prayers to him have cured many people.

In Padre Pio we have a man, a holy man, who embodied as well as he could in his own circumstances the instructions given by Jesus in today's Gospel from Luke. The Lord commanded them to cure diseases. In the middle of hearing as many as ten hours of confession every day, Padre Pio would break to pray over the sick who had come to see him. He believed with real faith that the Lord would hear his prayers, and he never ceased praying for the sick. Eventually, a hospital was constructed at Padre Pio's insistence, a hospital that has 350 beds for the alleviation of human suffering. As a Franciscan, Padre Pio took Jesus at his word when he said not to make a career out of being religious. Padre Pio lived simply, in real poverty, not accumulating food or money or clothes. Although he was unable because of his health to go from town to town, he followed the Lord's command by welcoming those from every town who came to see him, and he did everything he could to be attentive to their souls and to bring relief as a great confessor and spiritual director. Finally, Padre Pio experienced those who doubted him, and he had to ignore them and to persevere, just as the Lord instructed the first apostles to do, even as they maligned his purported stigmata and made outlandish claims of false prophecy against him.

Padre Pio followed the words of today's Gospel as closely as he could, given his circumstances. He followed them without excuse. Without dilution. With humility and faith. Padre Pio walked the path Jesus asked him to walk, and the result was a saintly life of incomparable fruitfulness. 300,000 at his beatification in St. Peter's square in 2002 35 years after his death. Not a bad way to live. Not bad for a little Franciscan friar! +m