Roads to Saint Padre Pio for You

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You know, dear friend, how I am always encouraging you to take your problems and concerns and worries and troubles to Saint Padre Pio? I hope you're doing that. Of course, he does not have any power to help you that is not first given to him by God Himself. But God does work through His Saints. After all, Jesus came to us through a Saint--the Queen of Saints, Our Lady, His Mother. Why wouldn't He come to us today through His Saints? I know that people ask you to pray for them, don't they? Of course. And you do. And God hears your prayers and answers them because He loves you with an unfathomable love. God is Love. God is Mercy.

To back up what I've said about your taking your concerns to Saint Padre Pio and asking him to intercede for you with God, here is a story told by Clarice Bruno, author of Roads to Padre Pio. Clarice was a friend of Padre Pio and visited him often in his San Giovanni Rotondo monastery in Italy; she published her book before Saint Padre Pio died. But before I give you Clarice Bruno's story below, let me explain to you that it concerns a married couple who owned and ran a small restaurant in San Giovanni Rotondo where St. Pio lived. The couple was busy from morning until night, cooking for and feeding the thousands of pilgrims who traveled from all over the world, every day of the year, to visit Padre Pio and ask him for his blessings and prayers. (In that day, there were only two restaurants and not hotels or motels in all of San Giovanni to serve the thousands of pilgrims; today there are hundreds of restaurants and hotels in the area.) One day Clarice was sitting in one of those two restaurants, and here is her story about that day:

"When the long morning activities drew to an end and the noon hour approached," wrote Clarice, "we were on our way to a very-much-needed lunch. The restaurant down the road toward which we hurried with hope in our hearts each day . . . was run by Mario, the Egyptian, an enormously fat individual with a great head of hair worn pompadour fashion, and his very pretty Hungarian wife, an ex-dancer whom he had met in Egypt. I shall never know how or why they ever ended up at, or discovered, San Giovanni Rotondo, for even though we became very friendly throughout the years, strangely enough this subject was never touched upon. . . . .

"The restaurant's floor," continued Clarice, "consisted of the good earth under our feet, and the walls were wooden boards [that had big gaps in them, which let the harsh weather enter]. t was certainly not windproof nor coldproof. . . . Incorporated in the restaurant was an old well with chain and bucket which formed the constant center of movement and activity--one person coming to draw drinking water, another to fill the nearby basin to rinse off his hands, after which the residue would simply be emptied upon the handy, absorbent floor.

"As we would sit huddled," wrote Clarice, "with our feet lifted from the ground on the rung of our wooden chairs, I could not help remembering certain old movies of my childhood depicting the 'gold rush' days in Alaska. I had seen cabin scenes such as this in them--without the well, of course! We almost always ate at Mario's at noon when we were visiting Padre Pio. . . . From the ceiling hung a single electric light bulb on a wire, but the true warmth and cheer came from Mario who moved his huge, bulky form from table to table to take everyone's order, help serve, and converse. Mario had a gentleman’s charm. He seemed to rise with complete nonchalance above any and all surroundings. . . . The same can be said of his pretty wife with her interesting foreign accent. . . . Even when they were down on their luck [which happened a lot] and she would emerge, tired from frying fish and washing dishes in the little-more-than-three-foot kitchen, there would always be something about her of a flower-like beauty. . . . There was something exotic about both of them. I remember once, during one of their 'down days,' her telling me of going to confession to Padre Pio and confiding to him, besides her discouragement and fatigue, her worries about her four-year-old son and her not having time to take care of him or watch over him sufficiently with all the other chores she had to attend to. Padre Pio said to her, consolingly, 'Don't worry; I will watch over the child for you. I will protect him.' [One of Saint Padre Pio’s many spiritual gifts from God—in addition to the five bleeding wounds of Christ which Padre bore for fifty long years—was the gift of bilocation, the ability to be in more than one place at the same time. He often bilocated, and hundreds of those occasions are documented by reliable sources.]

"Not many days afterwards," continued Clarice, "the pretty young mother heard terrified screams emerge from the road above her restaurant, and people scurrying as they do when there is an accident. She arrived on the scene in time to see, to her horror, her child being pulled out from under the huge truck that had passed over him. Her son appeared dusty, but fortunately none the worse for his experience. When a few days later she went again to Padre Pio and reprovingly reminded him of the promise he had made regarding the boy, Padre Pio calmly answered, 'And did anything happen to him? Was he hurt?' She answered him, 'No.' Then Padre Pio dryly said, 'Well, and so!'"

This story above—a solidly true one told by the author who spent many months throughout many years visiting St. Padre Pio—I hope will give you encouragement to speak with Saint Pio. Even though he is in Heaven, he can see and hear you, nevertheless. He often told people, "I will be able to do more for you from Heaven than I can while here on earth." So take your troubles to him, your worries, and leave them in his hands. He will take them to the Queen of Saints through whom God sent us Jesus, One in Being with the Father and the Holy Spirit. The Mother of God will then intercede for you with her Divine Son. Amen. So be it.

I love you, dear friend, and so does God.