A True Story of Healing through St. Padre Pio's Intercession

Are you suffering because of something someone said or did to you? Saint Padre Pio said, “Suffer with patience all the iniquities you receive from your fellow people, because God will reward you with His Love in Heaven—tenfold.” (page 49 in PADRE PIO AS I KNEW HIM, by Lina Pancaro) That is so hard to do, though, isn’t it? To love those who are less-than-nice to us. Nevertheless, we can do it, if we ask for divine help, and we can get that help through the intercession of St. Padre Pio, so why don’t we simply ask for it? If you do that, if you ask for the help you need—for anything at all—Jesus is sure to help you through His servant St. Padre Pio. Padre Pio bore the five ever-bleeding wounds of Christ Crucified for fifty years—in his hands, feet, and side—which can be for us a sign of God’s Presence and Love in our world. If you go to Padre Pio and ask for his intercession, don’t be surprised if you smell soon a sweet odor that doesn’t seem to have a natural origin. That odor is a sign that Padre Pio has heard your prayers and will see what he can do for you.

Here is a true story Lina Pancaro tells in her book which I mentioned above. This story backs up the truth about the sweet odors people often smell after asking for St. Padre Pio’s help. “Believe me,” wrote Lina, “such messages from Padre Pio [the sweet odors] my family has experienced.

“Our fifth daughter Fernanda had been admitted to the hospital for the birth of her first child. …” Fernanda soon delivered a “darling little girl.” But suddenly Lina received the startling phone call, “the ugliest shock in my life,” said Lina. Fernanda was calling her mother Lina from her hospital bed to tell her she was “going through hell.” Fernanda was going through what the doctors called a “postpartum psychosis” She was on the verb of losing her mind.

When Lina and her husband arrived at the hospital, she suddenly noticed that her husband was a nervous wreck over Fernanda’s dire condition. “He knew better than I did what could happen,” said Lina. “God forbid—a daughter in a mental institution, a small baby to be taken care of! It was indeed a very difficult situation.”

Then, Lina’s husband looked at her “with a perplexed expression and said, ‘Do you note a beautiful aroma of flowers?’” Lina did not smell anything, but she looked around to see if there was a bouquet of flowers anywhere that someone may have brought to the hospital for a sick person. No. No flowers in sight.

“You must be imagining things,” Lina told him.

“Oh, no,” he said, “I am sure it is a SIGN. I was just making a supplication to Padre Pio, thinking how you once told me in San Giovanni Rotondo [where St. Padre Pio lived in his monastery]—during a time when I was discouraged—not to fear, and that our children would be St. Padre Pio’s children, too, if I entrusted them into his care. So a few moments ago, here at the hospital, I said to him, ‘Please now help us, Padre Pio.’”

Moments later, when Lina and her husband entered their daughter’s hospital room, they were appalled to find her delirious and hallucinating. “She was so confused,” said Lina, “she kept saying that the nurses were ‘out to get her.’ I recall one particular nurse who said to us, ‘She is so angry with all of us, she tells us all to get the hell out of the room!’ We are afraid to go near her. She is so strong, she tore the drapes around her bed yesterday, and she even scratched the doctor! But we understand that she is going through a very, very bad state of psychosis.’ The doctors wanted Fernanda to have shock treatment, but her husband would not allow it.

Lina felt sorry for the doctor and nurses. Her husband had brought a book with Padre Pio’s picture on it to the hospital, and before he and Lina left, he put the book in Fernanda’s hands. She burst into tears. That night a “very strong fragrance of flowers enveloped the room, in spite of the fact that no flowers were present, none even in the hallway. Lina and her husband believed the fragrance was another sign that Padre Pio was answering her husband’s plea.

“To shorten the story,” said Lina, “I can assure you our daughter left the hospital with a darling little angel. Today the child is six and my daughter is well and her usual self. She had NO shock treatment, no tranquilizers, no medicine of any kind. … We firmly believe that Padre Pio helped us through this storm.” (pages 49-52, in PADRE PIO AS I KNEW HIM, by Lina Pancaro)

Do you have a great need today? Just ask St. Padre Pio to help you, and he will. After all, he is now closer than ever to the Source of Life, the Ruler of All Nature, Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Our God. And if, as you await an answer, you smell the sweet aroma of flowers that seems to have no natural origin, it is indeed a sign from St. Padre Pio that he is interceding for you with our Divine Lord.

Love,
Eileen
Eileen Dunn Bertanzetti