Chapter 4 of Pierced by Love: A Fictionalized Biography of St. Pade Pio

THE LIE
Chapter 4

“Pellegrina?” The name staggered from Padre Pio’s lips, punctuated by his coughing.

“Si, Francesco.”

“Don’t call me that!” he growled. “I am a priest and. . . .”

“And you are my brother, Francesco,” she softly interrupted.

Momentarily disarmed by his sister’s meek response, Pio forced himself to remember how she had twice, during her twenty-six years, broken their mother’s heart and disgraced the entire Forgione family.

Now, his mind flooded with those dark, twisted memories, Padre Pio barely heard Pellegrina’s soft voice pleading, “Francesco, did you hear me?”

The childhood name jerked him back to the present, igniting again his anger and evaporating any possibility of shedding tears. “I told you not to call me that!” He no longer slumped against the partition, but sat up straight, staring at the small dark-screened door as if his vision penetrated it. But he knew it was best he could not see his sister’s familiar face framed by long auburn hair. The sadness he had just heard in her voice threatened to resurrect his tears, and he didn’t need to see that same sadness reflected on her beautiful young face. “I am a. . . .”

“A priest,” she finished for him with a sigh. As if drained of all energy, she added, “But whether as my brother or priest, I need you to listen to me—please.”

What now? he thought, leaning into the partition as if it would emotionally support him when he heard whatever bad news Pellegrina had come to give him. Have mercy on me a sinner, Lord, he begged silently. “Speak,” was all he could mutter to his sister.

“I need to make my confession.”

“Why now? And why to me?”

“Please, Francesco—Padre Pio,” she said, her words stumbling over a sob.

To stop himself from saying something he knew he would regret, Pio covered his bearded mouth with a gloved hand. He knew he shouldn’t tell Pellegrina the truth; that he didn’t want to hear her confession; that as her brother who had never stopped loving her, praying for her, sacrificing for her, even when she had entangled herself in immorality, he didn’t think he could now bear the pain of listening to her sins. Help me—me a sinner, too! Letting his wounded hand fall to his lap, and forcing his voice to sound stern, he said, “Go ahead; confess.”

After sighing deeply, Pellegrina began in her familiar gentle voice, “Bless me, Padre, for I have sinned. As best as I can figure, it’s been about ten years since my last confession. Since then I. . . .”

Feeling as if Pellegrina’s confession was puncturing his heart, Pio listened as she revealed much of what he already knew: her two pregnancies with two different men. Though in 1913 she did marry the first one, Antonino Masone, he had soon abandoned her and their baby Maria Giuseppa, leaving Pellegrina to work as a seamstress to support little Maria and herself.

“Then about two years ago I met a soldier who was on leave,” Pellegrina was now saying. “He—Julius—was lonely and I was lonely and we . . . .”

“Loneliness is no excuse for your shameful behavior,” Pio said, straining with the effort to keep his voice calm.

“Have you never been lonely, Francesco—Padre?” she demanded in an uncharacteristic harsh tone.

“Of course, but God is always present, no matter where we are, as are Mary and our guardian angels, so we are never alone.”

“And where were they, where was God when. . . .” A sob momentarily choked her, but the anger Pio heard in her voice enabled her to continue. “Where was He, Francesco, when my sweet little Maria died in March of last year? When she got sick in February and I asked God to heal her, He just ignored me, ignored my beautiful Maria.”

The anger in Pellegrina’s voice seemed to aggravate the wounds in Pio’s hands, feet, and side, causing them to throb. But it was the pain he also heard in her voice which now made him wish that no partition separated priest and penitent. He wanted to take this younger sister of his into his arms and comfort her as he had done so many times when they were growing up together in their family’s one-story, two-room stone house in Pietrelcina. But instead, he swallowed hard, attempting to ease the emotional tightness of his throat, and said, “God has his reasons, Pellegrina, and they are always for our best.” He knew before she replied that she wouldn’t agree with him.

“And was it for the ‘best’ that Antonino deserted Maria and me?” she asked.

The bitterness in Pellegrina’s voice had pierced her brother’s heart which already ached for her with an almost-unbearable pain. He had no answer for her, so he merely said, “Continue now with your confession and try to avoid rationalizing your—your mistakes.”

Pio heard his sister take a deep breath before she continued. “When little Alfredo was born last July, I thought God had finally listened to me and replaced my sorrow with the joy of a new baby. But lately I’ve been worried He’ll take my sweet Alfredo from me too.” A sob punctuated the end of her sentence.

Longing to tell his sister he understood the loneliness that seemed to have driven her into her latest sinful relationship, Pio reminded himself he was a priest and should ignore the fact that he was also Pellegrina’s brother, inseparably connected to her by their shared history and love. “Stop complaining about God as if you could ever second-guess Him, and start thinking about the state of your soul.” With renewed determination he demanded, “Stop living in sin, Pellegrina!”

“You mean marry my son’s father Julius? You know I can’t do that; no one knows if my husband Antonino is dead or alive!”

His head aching from the almost-superhuman effort it was taking to not give up on his sister and her seemingly hopeless situation, Pio said, “I know all that. What you need to do is to admit you are living in sin. Then you must promise me you’ll take Alfredo and go live with Mamma and Papa in Pietrelcina until you find yourself a good job and a small cottage. There you can, by yourself, raise your son in peace, knowing you’re no longer living a way of life that separates you from God—possibly for eternity.”

When Pellegrina replied in a trembling voice, Pio could imagine the tears coursing down her beautiful young face. “I can’t leave Julius; my son needs his father.” Choking on a sob she added in a hoarse whisper, “I need Julius.”

“What you need, Pellegrina, is to tell God you’re sorry for your sins and that you’ll change your ways, and then I can give you absolution. Then. . . .”

“Stop it, Francesco!” She drew in a deep breath and then exhaled as if releasing all her frustration and anger along with any desire to continue her confession. “It was wrong of me to come here.”

“No, it . . . .”

She cut him off with, “I should have known you wouldn’t understand.” Her next words ripped at his heart and soul. “I should have known you’d only look at my situation with the eyes of a priest and not with the heart of my brother, the brother I used to know.” Sniffling she added, “Goodbye—Padre Pio.”

Suppressing a groan, Pio knew he had to do one of the hardest things he had ever done in his entire thirty-one years: let her go. Listening to Pellegrina leaving the confessional, he finally allowed his suppressed tears to silently escape, and he thanked God she had been his last penitent for the day. With a heavy gloom threatening to overpower him, he knew he couldn’t bear anymore of the world’s problems; at least not today.

Pio listened to his sister’s light footsteps as she headed—he assumed—toward the church exit. But seconds later when he heard those same footsteps approaching the confessional, he held his breath. And when Pellegrina suddenly opened his door and stared down at him, the dread on her beloved face and the hopelessness in those familiar dark eyes made him forget the pain in his own heart and body. He rose to embrace her, letting his tears fall unashamedly onto her sweet-smelling hair as she rested in his arms, just like she had done so many times as a child when she would come to him for help and comfort.

“Forgive me for not telling you about her right away, Francesco,” Pellegrina whispered, “but I just couldn’t.” She gently pulled away from him and wiped the tears from her cheeks.

“Tell me what—about who?” From the look on her face he knew Pellegrina had more bad news, and he silently begged God to fortify him for what she might say next.

“Felicita—our dear sister.” A sob choked Pellegrina.

“What about her?” Pio demanded, grabbing his sister’s shoulders as if to shake the answer from her.

“She—she died.”

Too stunned to speak, Pio just stared at Pellegrina, hoping—for once—that she had lied. But her beautiful face, creased and stained by mourning, assured him she had told the truth. As a new agony gripped his heart, Pio sank onto the nearest pew, certain his wounded feet couldn’t bear his 160 pounds which suddenly seemed more like 360. Resting his head on the back of the pew in front of him, he sobbed, remembering his twenty-nine-year-old sister Felicita: saintly young mother of three. He’d never seen her angry, no matter what troubles intruded into her life—and she’d had so many. Too many for one so young, so good, so simple.

Pio’s sobs muffled Pellegrina’s words so that he barely heard her continue, “I wanted to tell you sooner, Francesco, but Felicita made the whole family promise not to mention to you her approaching death until after I told you, and she made me promise not to tell you until after her funeral. She didn’t want you to think you had to travel all the way to Pietrelcina to be with her in her dying and then at the funeral. She knew your lungs had always given you trouble, and now. . . .” Pellegrina stared at the brown fingerless gloves covering her brother’s hands that he held clasped in front of his lowered head. “And now you have the stigmata. Felicita said your five wounds must hurt you constantly, and she didn’t want you to feel you had to come all that way. But, Francesco, what really held me back was that she’d made me promise to make a good confession to you while I was here and to promise you I would leave Julius. I knew I wasn’t ready to make any promises to you, but finally I came anyway, and now—now I’ve ruined everything.”

When Pio heard the raw emotion cracking his sister’s voice, empathy welled up in his heart. The priest and brother raised his head and smiled tenderly at her through his tears. “Va bene, it’s okay; you didn’t ruin anything,” he said, reaching out to gently grasp her hand. “Per favore, please, tell me about our Felicita.”

Alone with her brother in the small ancient church, her own tears coursing down her face, Pellegrina shared family details with Pio as the late-afternoon sun prepared to disappear behind the Gargano mountains. Wanting to absorb his sister’s every word about the entire Forgione family he loved and missed so much, Pio restrained the sobs that threatened to erupt from him as Pellegrina vividly described how the Spanish influenza had already ravaged his hometown of Pietrelcina. No one knew if the pandemic had affected Papa and Michele still working in America, but Pellegrina assured Pio that Mamma, still living in his childhood home, had suffered only a mild case of the flu. Felicita and her family, however, had been hit hard. Her husband Vincenzo Masone, like Mamma, had experienced only a mild case, but the flu had brought Felicita’s six-year-old daughter Giuseppina and two-year-old son Ettoruccio near death before they began to slowly recover.

Pellegrina now paused before continuing, as if unsure she should tell her brother the rest. He watched her squeeze shut her eyes as she inhaled deeply, as if for courage. Then he listened in horror as she related to him how, at the end of last month, Felicita’s four-year-old son Pellegrino had one morning staggered up to Vincenzo and complained about a headache. Within a few hours the boy had collapsed and died.

“Dear God, no!” Pio now cried. Moaning and shaking his head in disbelief he said, “Not sweet Pellegrino.” He stared at his sister’s grief-stricken face as if willing her to tell him it was all a lie, but he knew she had spoken the terrible truth. Choking back his sobs, he asked, “How did Felicita handle it?”

Taking another deep, quivering breath, obviously struggling with her own grief, Pellegrina related how Felicita hadn’t known what had happened to Pellegrino because she was lying in bed near death herself with not only the influenza but also with complications from the miscarriage she had suffered only days before that. Though Felicita had kept pleading with Vincenzo to tell her how little Pellegrino was doing, he lied, telling her the boy was just outside playing with friends. After three days of her husband’s deception and never seeing her beloved son, Felicita sat up in bed and screamed at Vincenzo, “Why did you lie to me? My son is dead!”

“How did she know?” Padre Pio now asked Pellegrina, his voice reduced to an agonized whisper.

Fresh tears glistened in Pellegrina’s dark eyes as she told her brother how Felicita had, after suddenly sitting up in her sickbed, stared at some unknown point beyond her husband and insisted that Vincenzo look behind him because there was little Pellegrino soaring toward them with God’s holy angels.

Pio raised his head, smiled tenderly at his sister through his tears, and said, “Per piacere, please continue about Felicita.”

Sniffling, Pelegrina continued to relate how, during the apparition, Felicita had assured her bewildered husband that little Pellegrino and the holy angels had all come to take her to Heaven. Only a half-hour later, Felicita had breathed one last time and joined her son in Paradise.

By the time Pellegrina had related that last event, grief had almost paralyzed Pio. Too numb to even cry, he said to her in a low weary voice, “Return home, nenne, little one; tell Mamma and Vincenzo that I send my love and will keep them in constant prayer, but that my own health and the five wounds prevent me from coming to them in their sorrow. Tell Mamma. . . .” He stalled on a sob that threatened to escape his throat as the image of his saintly mother arose in his mind. Pio could almost see Maria Giuseppa de Nunzio Forgione’s intense light-blue eyes, her dark brown hair always neatly tucked behind her neck, the beautiful features of her face, always wrinkled by the constant fatigue and worry due to raising a family and helping her dark-skinned, ruggedly handsome Orazio Forgione coax vegetables and fruit from the unforgiving, rocky soil of their small field.

Now, struggling not to cry, Pio said to Pellegrina, “Tell Mamma not to worry about me; I’ll write soon.”

“But I don’t want to leave you like this, Francesco,” said Pellegrina, using her handkerchief to blot the tears clinging to his beard.

“No. Fortza, go; I’ll be fine.” He forced a weak smile at the beautiful face now puckered with concern for him. “But promise me you’ll come again—soon.” And in the meantime, leave that scoundrel Julius so you can make a good confession and save your soul, he added silently.

“Si, I will come again.”

Two weeks later, on a raw October morning, just when Pio had reconciled himself to accepting God’s will in regard to the suffering and deaths that had stricken his beloved family in Pietrelcina, he received a letter from Pellegrina.

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