Chapter 8
1919–1927
San Giovania Rotondo, Italy
“Why are they doing this to me?” Padre Pio wrote in a letter to Padre Agostino one night that November. “I’ve done nothing to Archbishop Gagliardi—or to Rome.” Thinking about the lies Gagliardi was promoting to the Vatican about him threw the Padre into coughing spasms as he sat alone at the small desk in his cell.
The following week, Padre Agostino’s letter of reply brought Pio momentary consolation: “The archbishop is jealous of you, my son,” Pio read. “He is a vile man, unworthy of the priesthood. One day his lies about you will come to light, and you will be exonerated. I have heard from trustworthy sources that the archbishop is hiding unspeakable sins concerning himself and a woman. Yes, my son, he is jealous of your sanctity. He is jealous of the crowds your gifts from God attract to your friary and church—to you, my son—and away from his own church and from the secular priests who serve under him. One day our Lord will reveal the truth. In the meantime, remember what our beloved St. Paul said about the willingness to suffer tribulation, distress, and persecution: ‘In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.’ May our sweet Jesus comfort you in your trials, my son, and grant you the grace of perseverance. I bless you from afar, in Jesus Christ, Padre Agostino, Capuchin.”
During the next four years, though the flow of pilgrims to the mountain friary and Padre Pio never stopped, but only increased, the Lord did give Pio the “grace of perseverance” and sometimes even comforted him. One chilly afternoon at the end of September 1923, one of Pio’s fellow friars Padre Ignazio, who had recently been transferred to the friary from Cesena, marched toward Pio who had retreated to the friary garden for some quiet relaxation after fourteen straight hours of hearing confessions. Pio knew that many of the summer birds had by now migrated south, and hopefully the chickens would have gone to roost for the night, so his ears would get a rest even from God’s winged creatures.
While the late-afternoon autumn sun seemed to hover only inches above the garden wall, Ignazio, recently appointed as Father Guardian, stopped in front of Pio who had just sat down on one of the stone benches to admire the towering cypress. Pio knew that their leaves, overlapping like scales, would faithfully remain green even when the inevitable ice and snow of the coming winter assailed the mountain. So enrapt in meditating on the wonders of God’s creation, Pio did not notice the plump Ignazio until the newly assigned priest cleared his throat.
“Mi skusi, excuse me, Padre Pio,” said Ignazio in a gruff voice as he glowered at him. “I need to talk to you.”
Even though the new priest’s harsh voice ended Pio’s meditation, the latter smiled. “Certainly, Father Guardian. God bless you.” Ignazio was so short of stature, Pio only had to raise his head two inches to be able to look directly into the bespectacled eyes that peered at him above a pert nose and moustached lips.
“No one told me before I came here last week that I’d be facing chaos on a daily basis.” The anger in the priest’s voice twitched his bearded chin.
“Chaos?”
“Si, Padre, chaos.” Ignazio again cleared his throat and attempted to look taller than his not-quite-five-feet by straightening his back and staring down his pert nose at Pio. “The crowds of pilgrims deprive us of our free time. Some days we don’t even have time to eat our noon meal. And when we collapse on our beds late at night, we know we’ll only have to wake up at the crack of dawn the next day to the same heavy workload. The peasants’ mules have easier lives than we do! Just a bunch of cattivi, peccaminosi, e maligni; bad, sinful, and malicious people; that’s what we get here.”
Momentarily stunned by the priest’s caustic words, Pio glared at Ignazio as he growled, “Mi skusi, excuse me, Father Guardian, but you should be ashamed of yourself.”
“Che? What?” came Ignazio’s startled reply.
“At other churches around the world preachers would praise God to have such crowds of people flocking to them to hear the Word of God, make their confessions, and receive Jesus in Holy Communion.”
“Well. . . .”
Frowning, Pio interrupted him: “With all due respect, Father Guardian, parlo io, I will do the talking. We need to work diligently for the Lord and thank Him for allowing us to work for the salvation of souls. Let our faithful work give Him glory!” A gentle smile returned to the Padre’s lips as he softly added, “Go now, my Father, and enjoy the evening before the dawn arrives and the Lord once again sends you out into that ‘field ripe for harvest’ Jesus spoke about.”
But as one hectic day led into the next, at times Padre Pio, too, was tempted to ask the Lord for a rest from his relentless schedule of confessions, Masses, counseling, and listening to what seemed to be the whole world’s problems—from divorce to murder, from all types of illnesses to every anxiety known to humanity. But he would remind the Lord—and himself—of God’s promise Pio had memorized years ago in seminary: “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure.”
One of God’s “ways” to help Padre Pio arrived on October 3, 1923, in the form of a thirty-five-year-old, wealthy-yet-humble American heiress Adelia Mary McAlphin Pyle. Able to fluently speak five languages, including Italian, Mary would one day minister to the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from around the world who journeyed up the rocky mountain to see Padre Pio.
On that unusually sunny, warm October day, the tall, slim young Mary Pyle, dressed in a cypress-green, ankle-length dress made of the finest linen, knelt before Padre Pio as he stood in the church hallway in the middle of the usual crowd of pilgrims who waited after his Masses to ask for his prayers and blessing. He would always graciously acquiesce and assure them with, “Basta pregare—prayer is enough.”
When the fair-skinned Mary, her long hair pinned elegantly atop her head, silently gazed up at Pio, he saw in her blue eyes the yearning for holiness that he had already read in her heart.
“Padre,” Mary began, “I have heard you are Il Monaco, the Holy Friar. I . . . I,” Mary tried to continue, but her sparkling eyes suddenly clouded and she burst out crying.
Only one year her senior, the priest gently asked, “What’s the matter, nenne, little one?”
Gazing up at him through her tears, Mary said, “I . . . I’m not a Catholic, Padre, but I’d like to become one.”
He smiled at her. “No one is stopping you, are they?”
Her lips echoed his smile when she said, “No.”
“Splendido! Wonderful!” He pulled a little catechism from his habit pocket and handed it to her. “Study this, my child.”
“Si, Padre.” Her blue eyes sparkled up at him once again. “I’ll do that and take instructions and. . . .”
Barely noticing the murmurings of the impatient pilgrims hovering around them, waiting for their chance to speak with the now-famous stigmatic, Pio assured Mary, “Only one thing is necessary, my child: to love God.”
With fresh tears welling up in her eyes, Mary humbly asked, “Would you be my spiritual father?” She bowed her head.
Placing his wounded, gloved hand on her head, he said, “Yes, my daughter, but it’s necessary that you move here.”
Shock registered in Mary’s eyes. “But Padre, I work for the famous educator Dr. Montessori, assisting her in her travels all over the world. I . . .”
“Parlo io, I will do the talking, nenne.” He speeded up his words as the crowd grew more impatient around them. “Dr. Montessori will do just fine without you, my daughter.”
“You are sure, Padre?” Mary sniffed back new tears that threatened to fall.
“Know, my child, that Jesus wants this sacrifice from you so that you can grow in holiness and serve His people here.” With a smile of encouragement and a wave of his aching hand, Pio added, “Go now, and when you return to San Giovanni—which will put an end to all your traveling—you will build a house here and use your talents, including your ability to speak five languages, to minister to the hundreds of thousands of poor souls from around the world who will come here. They will lovingly call you Maria l’Americana, Mary the American.”
Smoothing out the long linen skirt of her dress as she stood up, she asked with puzzlement creasing her fair complexion, “But how do you know all that?”
Pio merely smiled at her and, in spite of the pain it would cause, allowed her to kiss his stigmatized hand. “Va; sei in grazia di Dio! Go; you are in the grace of God.”
Only months later, Mary returned to Our Lady of Grace church and her spiritual father and again knelt before him in the hallway after his 5 a.m. Mass. Glancing at her expensive clothing and jewelry, he said, “These things are no longer for you, my daughter.”
“Si, Padre, I will sell them and give the money to you to give to the poor who come here.” She stood up, yanked the gold watch from her delicate wrist, and handed it to him. “A sign of my promise.”
Weeks later, as a new Catholic, Mary again approached Pio after Mass and knelt before him. “I want to grow in holiness, Padre. Since you and your friars are Franciscan Capuchins, perhaps I should become a Franciscan Sister? ”
Without hesitation, he replied, “No, you will enroll in the Third Order of the Franciscans and I myself will help you achieve that goal.”
In late-summer of 1925, Pio helped Mary destroy every bridge between her soul and the world by investing her in the long brown habit like the one he and his confreres wore, although hers had no cowl. Her face radiated joy when Pio tied the traditional white cord around her waist, the cord from which hung a long rosary with a wooden crucifix.
In obedience to her spiritual father, Mary, always clad in her long, brown Franciscan habit, had overseen to completion, by 1927, the building of her new home, a fourteenth-century-style villa, barely one hundred yards downhill from Our Lady of Grace friary. Covered with rose-colored plaster and nestled among the silver-green olive trees whose leaves softly rustled in the early summer breezes, the villa’s arches and towers made it resemble a small castle. Because he could not walk far on his swollen wounded feet, Padre Pio had to ride an asino, a donkey to the villa in order to bless it. During the one- hundred-yard trek downhill to Mary’s home, the forty-year-old, stout Padre Vigilio led the donkey and protected the Padre from a group of overzealous pilgrims who tried to hamper their progress. Moments after Vigilio, known for his temper’s low boiling point, had successfully used his ample body to block their access to the famous priest and had ordered them to go away, Pio gently patted the donkey’s neck and chuckled. “Don’t be angry with them, Vigilio. They don’t know I’m just an inconsequential chutcho, a little donkey who merely does God’s bidding.”
Still scowling at the retreating pilgrims, Vigilio refused to allow Pio’s remarks to divert him from his assignment which was to guard the stigmatic—with his own life, if he had to.
A half-hour later on that warm, late-summer morning, after Pio had blessed Mary Pyle’s home, the garrulous and grateful hostess guided her two brown-garbed guests on a tour through every room. Padre Vigilio dutifully supported Pio at all times as the latter struggled to walk on his throbbing, always-bleeding feet. Among other beautiful features of the villa, Pio marveled at the views from Mary’s windows of the stands of almond and cypress trees, the Gulf of Manfredonia, and the expansive wheat fields.
Less than an hour later, as the two priests stood at the front door of Mary’s home, ready to return uphill to the friary and their heavy work schedules, Pio grasped her hand and prophesied in his most-solemn-yet-loving voice, “For the next forty-one years you will live here austerely, my daughter, in imitation of our seraphic father St. Francis of Assisi. During that time you will minister to thousands of pilgrims whom God will send to you. At the end of those years, at age eighty, you will die a holy death.” Continuing to speak from the knowledge God was communicating to his soul, Pio smiled as he added, “And five months later I will be laid to rest in my own tomb.”
Too startled to speak, Mary just stared at him, as did Padre Vigilio. Moments later, Mary cleared her throat, bowed her head, and muttered, “Si, Padre Pio, I know Jesus speaks through you. So be it, amen.”
After making the Sign of the Cross over Mary, Pio allowed Padre Vigilio to help him mount the donkey. Then Vigilio, the top of his prematurely balding head reflecting the late-summer sun’s rays, led the beast out the wrought-iron gate that guarded the stone wall of the courtyard in front of Mary’s home. No sooner had the two friars reached the friary, and Padre Vigilio had helped Pio to dismount, than crowds besieged them. Vigilio, his four-inch beard jiggling as he menacingly growled and gesticulated at any individual who tried to touch Pio, had to again act as bodyguard to get the Padre safely to the confessional so that Pio could begin the inevitably long, hot hours of hearing the sins of the world.
In the cooler temperatures of the next morning, after his 5 a.m. Mass, and after his customary fifteen-minute thanksgiving, Padre Pio allowed Padre Vigilio to escort him into the hallway where a noisy crowd of about fifty adults and a handful of children waited for the stigmatic. As soon as the crowd spotted their “saint,” the noise transformed itself into a silence filled with an almost-palpable awe and reverence. Padre Pio spotted the wheelchair of a little girl at the front-edge of the crowd and hobbled toward her. Smiling, he drew a piece of hard candy from his pocket, handed it to her, and tenderly touched the top of her head. His eyes filled with tears; he glanced up at the girl’s poorly garbed mother whose scrawny, rough hands grasped the handles of the wheelchair; and he said, “Pray, hope, and don’t worry. Jesus will heal your daughter, and your husband will return to you.”
Staring in disbelief at Pio, her green eyes filling with tears, the mother choked out, “You will heal my daughter? But I didn’t even ask you yet. And how did you know my husband left us?” The frail young mother fell to her knees before the Padre, folded her hands, and said, “They are right about you; you really do read minds and heal people. And relationships. Thank you, Padre Pio. You are truly a saint.”
“No, my child,” he assured her, trying not to sound impatient, “I’m not a saint. And I deserve no thanks or praise. I’m just a poor friar who suffers and prays. Jesus is the Miracle Worker.” He glanced upward and then back at the woman. “Go now, my child; place your daughter before Jesus in the Tabernacle and give Him the gratitude and love He—and only He—deserves.”
For the next twenty minutes, with the red-cheeked, ever-wary Padre Vigilio guarding him, Padre Pio continued to minister to the crowd and freely hand out candy to the children and medals of Our Lady and St. Michael the Archangel to the adults.
By the time Vigilio helped Pio ease onto the hard seat of Pio’s confessional, the line of penitents already snaked down the length of the church, out the front door, and into the chill of the early morning. But none of that cool air reached Pio as he prepared himself for the hours of confessions he would hear. Feeling almost overwhelmed by what the Lord expected of him, Pio prayed silently, Thank You, Jesus, for sending more and more poor souls up the mountain to confess; and thank You for using me to absolve them from their sins. But this morning, Padre Pio felt weaker than usual, both physically and spiritually. How could God ever use him, so weak and sinful? Strengthen me, Lord, is all I ask. As usual, Pio steeled himself by recalling some of his favorite Scripture. He reminded himself what his favorite author St. Paul said, “I can do all things in him who strengthens me.” And then Pio reminded himself that when Paul, too, had complained to the Lord that he was powerless to accomplish anything of worth, Jesus told him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness,” Finally grinning, Pio made Paul’s reply to the Lord his own: “I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”
With only an occasional short break to take care of his body’s most-urgent needs, Padre Pio continued to hear confessions, refusing to even join his confreres in the refectory for the noon meal, although when he pictured briefly his brothers in the refectory, he had to grin. He visualized them sitting in rows at the long tables, their beards of various colors and lengths bobbing up and down as they ate. The Lord had taken Pio at his word and strengthened him, working His own powerful, loving will through the stigmatic. But by the time the late-afternoon sun made the already dim light in his confessional dimmer, mental, spiritual, and physical fatigue had gradually overtaken Pio. Shame washed over him as he finally admitted to himself, and to God, his exhaustion, his growing impatience with penitents, and his almost-desperate desire to escape the claustrophobic confines of the confessional. Now, as he leaned against the thin wall of the confessional and closed his eyes, steeling himself for the next penitent, he heard, instead of another confession, the loud, sharp voice of Padre Vigilio who had come to escort Pio to his cell for a brief rest before supper in the refectory.
“All right,” said the tall, brown-robed Vigilio to the line of weary penitents outside Pio’s confessional. “Time to go to your homes or wherever you’re staying. Padre Pio needs rest and food.” Most of the penitents left the line and headed toward the front door or to the closest pew to rest and pray. To the few individuals who refused to budge, Vigilio forced them to leave with a few harsh words. “Fortza! Go!” And to one young man who glared in defiance at the bodyguard, Vigilio had to finally say, “Testardo, obstinate person! Go before I have to throw you out on your head!”
Knowing he needed a rest and yet feeling compassion for the poor souls who had come such a long way and had waited for hours just to confess to him, Pio gently scolded his bodyguard, “Eh, benedica, bless them, my son.”
With a grumble, Vigilio obeyed with a stiff Sign of the Cross over the remaining penitents.
After sighing in relief, Pio felt a stab of guilt because of the gladness he felt at being set free, until tomorrow, from the stuffy, hot confines of the confessional. Forgive me, Lord. Immediately the familiar silent voice of God reassured him in the depths of his soul, “Don’t worry, my son. In my divine humanity, even I cried out in pain on the cross, asking the Father why He had abandoned Me in my agony. But He never abandoned Me, my son, and I will never abandon you. Always share with Me your pain and fear, your weakness and complaints, as well as your joys. Do not be afraid; my love and mercy toward you—and toward all—are unfathomable.”
With renewed inner strength, Pio accepted Vigilio’s assistance after sitting for so long on the hard confessional seat. “Take your time, Padre Pio,” the stout friar tenderly said. “After all these hours your wounds are certainly going to make walking difficult, so lean on me.”
“Molte grazie, thank you very much, my son.” Pio grimaced as he placed his swollen, gloved hand on Vigilio’s strong shoulder and stood. Mi dispiace—I’m sorry.” The pain from his five wounds momentarily overwhelmed Pio and salty tears coursed their way through his beard and to his lips.
“Sorry?” Vigilio peered at Pio’s face wrinkled with weariness. “You’ve nothing to be sorry about, Padre.”
Though they hadn’t progressed more than ten feet toward the archway that would lead to his cell, a coughing spell overtook Pio and he had to halt, forcing his bulky companion to stop too. In the meantime, all the six-foot, ample-figured Vigilio had to do was to glare at any loitering penitent who seemed to want to approach Padre Pio, and the individual would slink silently into the nearest pew.
After what seemed like an hour but could only have been a minute, the coughing ceased. “Now, Padre Pio, please tell me what in the world you have to be sorry about.”
“So much, my son, so much,” Pio said, staring at his bodyguard. “But especially I’m sorry for the trouble the stigmata cause. Why doesn’t Jesus take away the visible wounds? Of course I want to continue to always suffer the pains of the wounds, but their visibility causes such trouble for you and for all the friars. Crowds, extra work, unwanted publicity, investigations, loss of solitude. Not only do hundreds of sincere penitents come here, but so too do maligni; malicious persons, thieves, swindlers, and people drawn merely by their own vulgar curiosity.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Vigilio said in an uncharacteristically soft tone. “I consider it an honor to work with you—and for you.” Then in his typically loud, sharp voice he added, “And whoever doesn’t feel the same way should be ashamed of himself!”
Padre Pio answered only with a weary sigh and silently indicated he was ready to continue toward the archway and his cell. In his mental and physical pain, he barely noticed that his ample-figured bodyguard was now steering him away from the archway and, instead, guiding him back toward the sacristy. Pio stifled a cough and in his sorrow added, “I appreciate your vote of confidence, my son, but it doesn’t change the fact that the increasing problems around here—which began September 20, 1918, to be exact—are my fault because the stigmata draw so much attention—attention that none of us needs. Jesus can do anything, so I beg you to ask Him to take away the visible stigmata and leave me only with the pain. I want to bear that pain always for poor souls, as His mother recommended at Fatima only a decade ago.”
After an unintelligible grumble, his bodyguard reluctantly agreed, “Naturalmente, of course, I will pray for you.”
“Grazie, thank you, my son. Basta pregare, prayer is enough.”
A few yards from the sacristy door, once again Pio halted, forcing Vigilio to stop beside him.
“Che fai, what’re you doing?” the bodyguard asked in a feigned innocent tone. “Having another coughing spell?”
Peering suspiciously up at his tall confrere, Pio asked, “Why are we returning to the sacristy? You were taking me to my cell so I could rest my ‘brother body,’ as St. Francis called it.”
Vigilio’s hazel eyes twinkled at the stigmatic. “Si, I was indeed, but I forgot something—uh, someone, I should say.”
Glancing up at the painting of the Mother of God above the altar, Pio muttered, “Mater Dei, ora pro nobis; Mother of God, pray for us. Pray for me, a weak sinner!”
Just before reaching the sacristy door, Vigilio brought the two of them to a halt and grinned at his famous fellow friar. His eyes still twinkling with mischief, Vigilio said, “Forgive me, Padre, but there was one person I could not keep away from you.”
Unable to restrain a sigh of disappointment which erupted from his exhausted and aching body, Pio stared silently at his confrere, afraid to speak for fear harsh words would snake their way out of him. After taking a deep breath, Pio finally said, “Andiamo; let’s go,” and hobbled unassisted into the sacristy to find a peasant woman facing away from them and obviously enrapt in silent contemplation before the three framed paintings that highlighted the mammoth eighteenth-century wooden wardrobe that dominated the poorly lit room. The top of the ancient wardrobe barely missed touching the top of the low-vault of the ceiling.
Having spent many hours of contemplation himself before those three paintings, Padre Pio could understand why the woman’s attention had riveted upon them. A lifetime would not be long enough to exhaust the food for meditation found in those three paintings. Though they were of little artistic value, Pio now had only to gaze at them to find his heart and soul raised up immediately to their subjects: the Crucifixion, the Sorrowful Mother, and Jesus Crowned with Thorns. He barely noticed Vigilio’s retreat from the sacristy or his suddenly soft voice as he whispered, “You don’t need my protection from this person, Padre Pio.”
His reverie interrupted by his bodyguard’s enigmatic parting words, Pio’s attention once again focused on the woman. Though he could only see her back, somehow the slim figure, dressed in white from the hem of her long skirt to the top of her bonnet, looked hauntingly familiar to Pio as he hobbled toward her. When he reached her, he hesitated to disrupt her contemplation, but his swollen and complaining feet made him realize he shouldn’t stay on them any longer than he had to. Gently he touched one of her bony stooped shoulders beneath her plain-but-spotless dress, causing her to jerk slightly.
As the woman turned her thin and heavily wrinkled face to him, the priest gasped. Hungrily he gazed at the thin colorless lips, the dark eyebrows knit into a troubled frown above intense, light-blue eyes. “Mammella; my sweet, my holy, my beautiful mother!” Ignoring the pain that radiated from his throbbing wounds, Pio pulled her into his arms and allowed his tears to fall shamelessly onto the sweet-smelling white peasant scarf that covered her dark hair.
“Mammella!” he whispered, choking on the word and holding her as if she might suddenly vanish if he let go.
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