Even Saints Take Time to Laugh

Even the Saints of God take time to laugh. I hope you do, too, my friend. Saint Padre Pio, even though he bore the five bleeding, painful wounds of Christ in his hands, feet, and side for fifty years, took time to smile and laugh and even tell "clean" jokes. One of Padre Pio's favorite jokes he often told is the following:

A poor peasant in Italy was traveling on a train bound for Naples. For some strange reason a Bishop ended up sitting next to the peasant. Before long a storm erupted outside, and the peasant stared out the window, watching and listening, seemingly unafraid, as the wind, rain, thunder, and lightning ripped across the Italian countryside and sky. It seemed as if the devil himself had taken charge and was punishing the earth. As the rain beat against the train windows and the lightning flashed outside and the thunder rumbled above the train roof, the Bishop, obviously alarmed and terribly afraid, said to the peasant, "It looks as if we are going to Hell!" The poor peasant, unafraid of the weather or death or even of the powerful Bishop, said, "I feel sorry for you. You must only have a one-way ticket. I have a return ticket, so I'm not afraid one bit."

One of the many spiritual gifts God gave Saint Padre Pio was the ability to notify people (by mysteriously having them smell sweet flowers when there were none around and when he himself was not there) that he was praying for them and that their prayers would be answered. (The theological term for this gift is Osmogenesia.) Many of the Saints had--and have--this gift.

So if you, my friend, ask Saint Padre Pio to intercede with Jesus for you, and if you soon smell roses or carnations or any sweet combination of flower fragrances, know that you will soon receive an answer. In fact, here is a true story to encourage you:

One day a young woman was near death and suffering horrendously in the hospital. Her young husband Harry, not knowing what to do for her to alleviate her pain and to keep her from dying, prayed and asked Saint Padre Pio to do what he could for her. Even though it was January and there were no flowers anywhere around the young man while he waited in the hospital room beside his unconscious wife, he smelled a strong scent of flowers. Here is what his wife said about the experience, after her miraculous recovery, of course:

"During the night a very strong fragance of flowers enveloped my hospital room. How strange. Where did it come from?"

But her husband Harry knew the answer. Padre Pio had been invisibly present in that hospital room and had obtained a healing for the woman through his intercession with Jesus.

Do you have a need today? Take your needs to Saint Padre Pio and ask him to do what he can to obtain answers and healings for you from Jesus. He will do it.